I’ve just caught myself providing my household with twitter-like updates as a sort of running commentary. Apparently this isn’t a new feature of wife 1.0, I’ve always done it.

Thinking about it, I guess it dates from my time as a home carer. I used to look after a variety of elderly and confused people, as well as a blind lady with cerebral palsy. I instinctively updated her every few moments about what I was doing and where I was, so she would feel involved in her care and not be worrying about where I was. It wasn’t something I consciously thought about doing, it just seemed appropriate.

Now, I have a twitter account, and my updates are merely vanity, as no-one really has a need to know what I’m doing, but I find it as natural and instinctive as my carer techniques. Sorry, world.

GoGoGadgetLemon,
originally uploaded by Purplekitten.

It’s been a while, and we’re probably the only people who care about them, but it’s time for an update on the lemon-children..

Sadly we lost two of them over the summer, to ravening hordes of something-or-other. Leaves vanished and eventually the poor trees died. Still not sure why. The losses were Spindly Lemon and Sturdy Lemon (turned out to be a bad name, really!)

So we got a replacement from a bona fide garden centre thing, and it seems to be happy enough. Not sure how old it is, so at the moment we have no expectations of fruit.

GoGoGadgetLemon is growing yet another strange robot arm thing, despite our best effort at attempting to persuade it into a nice tree shape. It has also grown the largest leaves I’ve ever seen on a lemon plant: large shiny, luxurious and deliciously scented. It seems ridiculously happy, for a tree.

BifurcatedLemon is still plodding onwards. Has a lovely shape but is clearly unwell. There are strange brown things on the leaves so I need to take it outside and give it a good scrub with soapy water and it’ll be fine.

PointlesslyTallLemon has been brutally truncated in the trunk department (it was either that or a ceiling extension to the house..) so is now not so pointlessly tall. It also nearly succumbed to whatever took its brothers, and is left with only 3 leaves. These remaining leaves do look happy and glossy, so I think we’ve rescued it in time. I hope.

Finally we have - a new addition to the family. A Christmas present from my mother-in-law and presented early in case anything happened to it at her house! We’ve decided to use it as a Christmas tree, as it has ready-made baubles of a lovely lemon hue. Delicious.