Spwing Has Spwung!

The sun came out on Sunday and most of the UK stood staring at the sky wondering what the bright spot was (some people started screaming about aliens and invasion and stuff, but their cries were drowned out by a crescendo of lawnmowers). Like three million other people, Hubs and I decided to do some gardening.

First, a trip to B&Q, where Hubs and I parted company, he to the manly power tools and me to the garden section. I was just lugging an eight foot bamboo plant into the trolley when Hubs reappeared and hissed, "Ye Gods, woman, put down that pot and step away from the plants!" He can be very firm and butch sometimes, which I admire, but in garden centres and bookshops its like water off a duck's back.

I didn't get the bamboo though, we wouldn't have got it in the car.

We were in the garden for eight hours straight, bending and shifting pots and weeding and painting everything in sight. I'm not a good painter. I'm messy. I don't mean to be, but I'm impatient to start the job and to finish it, so I'm never prepared. Consequently there was paint all over me, the garden table, every door handle in the house, all over the bathroom, and on floors inside and out.

By the time I'd painted the rocking chair and every item of wooden furniture we have - three garden benches seems a bit excessive and makes our patio look like a rest home for benches - I looked like a living work of art. I mean, the subtle clashing of colours, the bottle green and tar-black of the rocker mixed with the startling orange of 15 gallons of creosote was just inspiring. And the redness of my skin after I'd showered in turps was also impressive, perfectly depicting the Woman With Brush look I was after.

Sadly, the birds won't go on the feeder now because it's a different colour. You can actually hear them squawking 'Blimey, that's orange!' (cedar red actually, Hubs picked it, he's colour blind so probably traffic-light red doesn't blend terribly well with the environment).

Afterwards, when I crawled back into the house, the newly-acquired step machine and I glared at each other like baddies in a dusty western. One half of my brain cried, 'Gimme 100', whilst the other half screamed, 'You can bugger right off!'

There have been some complaints about a beer advertising campaign, which I actually thought was rather funny. Three people claimed it was sexist, apparently. Three people speaking on behalf of the rest of us (who got the joke) stopped the promotion!

Don't you sometimes wonder if the world has gone completely mad? I'm all for not offending people, but really, humour is taken much too seriously these days. The PC-ists have been given free rein, run and hide.

I mean, does my husband, who's colour blind, complain about Dulux paint adverts because he feels 'offended' that they're displaying colours he can't see.? He does not.

Do I, as an anosmiac (no sense of smell), feel utterly appalled at perfume adverts or food shows where they go 'oh that smells nice'? I do not.

I am, however, desperately offended by people who decide on my behalf what is or isn't considered suitable for public consumption.

Oooh I feel better now I've got that off my paint-splattered, sunburned chest.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday, regardless of bodily pain.
Brummie Blogs: Real life with a Brummie accent - be afraid, be very afraid.
Twitter: Life in 140 characters or less.