I am fortunate in having a small garden and even more blessed to have Khun Noi look after it. Noi was the husband of my late maid who long-time readers knew as Ms Yasothon who regularly appeared in PostScript.
When Yasothon, or Tong as I knew her, passed away in 2003, Mr Noi carried on doing her duties at our house on Sukhumvit Soi 49. I am glad to say that when we moved in 2006 to our present abode Mr Noi came along too, looking after the house and garden.
Gardening has always appealed to me, especially if someone else is doing it. Recently Mr Noi had to go to Isan for five days and with my wife in Chaiyaphum I was in the rare position of being "home alone". It seemed an opportune time to temporarily appoint myself "head gardener".
The first day I assessed the garden and was amazed by the different varieties of plants Mr Noi had so carefully cultivated.
There was every shade of green provided by a variety of foliage -- ferns, trees, bamboo, potted plants and some unidentifiable things that look like they escaped from the Day of the Triffids.
Keeping the plants happy looked like it would require considerable effort on my behalf and I immediately downgraded my title to "assistant gardener".
That meant that anything that appeared hard work I could leave for Mr Noi to handle when he returned.
In the end I took the easy option and just settled for watering the garden, not wanting Mr Noi to come back and find his cherished plants gasping for life.
Watering ought to be an easy task but not the way I did it, nearly strangling myself with the hose which seemed to have a life of its own. The predictable result was that I ended up getting wetter than the plants.
The missing gnomes
One thing we haven't got in our garden are gnomes, although there are a couple of small stone ornaments that resemble Hansel and Gretel. Garden gnomes are popular throughout Europe and Germany alone has a staggering 25 million of them. They are also prevalent in Britain where some owners treat them almost like pets.
In the 1960s I knew an elderly gentleman in Maidenhead who had a large garden with a proud collection of garden gnomes. He was normally a cheerful fellow but on one of my visits he was most distressed. A gang had stolen all his gnomes which he had looked after for years.
He loved those gnomes and the poor chap was never quite the same after that. It was sad watching him wander around the garden hoping the gnomes might miraculously reappear.
They didn't.
Travel alert
Stealing garden gnomes became quite a fad in Britain. In some cases people would purloin the gnomes and go on a jaunt around the world with them. They took photos of the gnomes in famous places and then sent the snaps to the owners to let them know their gnomes were having a good time. The practice became known as "gnoming" and in France there even emerged The Garden Gnome Liberation Front dedicated to "freeing" gnomes from gardens and returning them to the wild. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.
For several years garden gnomes were banned by the Chelsea Flower Show because the organisers believed visitors were paying more attention to the gnomes than the flowers. However, gnomes remain popular in Britain and in North Devon there is even a Gnome Reserve where more than 2,000 garden gnomes hang out with a few pixie friends in what is termed a "pastoral refuge".
No laughing matter
Gnomes inevitably infiltrated the world of entertainment and featured prominently in a couple of movies, Gnomeo & Juliet and its sequel Sherlock Gnomes. Terrible gnome puns were also abundant in David Bowie's 1967 novelty song "The Laughing Gnome" widely regarded as his worst ever number. It was initially a flop but after Bowie had achieved stardom with Ziggy Stardust in 1973 the record label sneakily cashed in by re-releasing the Gnome song which somehow reached No.6 in the charts.
The old and the new
It is a trifle ironic that in the same month that Bangkok's 105-year-old Hua Lamphong railway station is closing down, neighbouring Laos has opened a brand new station in Vientiane to serve the Chinese-funded high-speed link to Kunming.
Putting aside the political implications, it must be quite amazing for Lao people to witness a bullet train whizzing through their countryside where buffaloes once roamed. But how many citizens can afford to ride it is another matter.
One wonders what Thai rail officials made of the sleek red, blue and white bullet train easing out of Vientiane on its inaugural journey.
After all that's what they have been promising Thais for decades. In 2013 a report announced that Pattaya would have a high-speed rail link by 2018 with flashy trains belting along at 250kph "barring any problems".
Slow but sure
I'm not convinced people in Thailand are actually ready for high-speed trains hurtling through the kingdom. They are more at home with the sedate speeds they have become accustomed to over the past century. There's no need to rush. Leave all that high-speed stuff to those guys who drive the buses.
Contact PostScript via email at oldcrutch@hotmail.com