Quite frankly, I find the sight of pensioners intimately massaging each other quite off-putting.
I don’t expect to have to avert my eyes in the local garden centre but there they were blatantly stimulating one another right between the dahlias and the dieffenbachias.
They had their clothes on, granted, but then I’m told some people prefer the extra cachet of being togged up. I haven’t looked but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was a duffle coat fetish site out there on the internet.
They just couldn’t resist the hand-held knobbly massagers.
“Oooh. A bit lower Bert. Ahh. That’s it..aaaaahhhh. Tell you what. This might be good for your lumbago..”
When the Mrs managed to lower herself into the black leather massage chair, which was already switched on and humming welcomingly, I thought it was time to make my excuses and leave.
Garden Centres sure have changed. They have turned into one-stop shopping malls with restaurants and play areas where plants, seed and compost are purely incidental.
I’ve been to a few lately – not of my choosing – but I find it astonishing that you can now buy glassware, greetings cards, gifts, clothing, handbags, toys, confectionery, massage chairs, home furnishings, furniture at what they still laughingly call “garden centres.” Gift Centre, surely, with a few plants lobbed into the mix.
I suppose the attraction for the less mobile is that they can get all their stuff under one convenient roof. Give me 20 years and I’ll be extolling their virtues, no doubt.
But personally, I still have fond memories of the old seed-merchants. There was one in Gloucester where you could pick up your seed potatoes and choose from a world-beating variety of vegetable seeds. They had so many different varieties of broad beens they used to display them in the corridor adjacent to the shop.
“Young Mr George” a silver-haired gentleman with impeccable manners, was in charge and the rest of the staff seemed to be have been employed direct from the womb. They knew their onions (sorry) and could tell you almost to the day when you’d be needing to earth up those Maris Pipers after planting. They particularly liked people like me who were totally mystified as to why they’d managed to grow carrots with legs and genitals. They felt they could teach us a thing or two – and of course they did. It was all most welcome and quite nice that someone was taking genuine interest in my brassicas.
They were definitely jobs for life – until the place closed down 30 years ago because they couldn’t compete with the first out-of-town garden centres with convenient parking.
But now garden centres are diversifying so much, I wonder if they have the horticultural equivalent of young Mr George and his staff?
My favourite “garden centre” – and it’s very local – is a little place that is invariably deserted. And I mean Marie Celeste-style deserted. If you make the long walk through the first building, with the hessian liners, the wellington boots, cyclamen (they always look so much better in dozens)and the till, then out past herbaceous and roses, through the first greenhouse – empty – to the second big greenhouse to the south, you might just might find a figure potting something in the far corner.
It’s either that or ring the bell on the counter by the till and wait. Honestly, anyone with a van could clear the whole place in five minutes and no-one would even know. But thankfully they never have.
And in a very few minutes, someone will appear. It’s usually a silver-haired lady, 80 if she’s a day, who is very pleasant and knowledgeable and will look at your stuff and make random reductions.
I was expecting my bag of daffodil bulbs to be about a fiver (very late season) but she took a peek and said “Some of those look a bit ropey my love but they’ll probably come up. Shall we say £1 for the lot?”
She might own the place. I’m not sure. But it’s good to be served by someone who obviously knows and enjoys their job so much that they have eschewed the chance to retire. Plus, she offered to carry the Christmas tree out to the car for me. What a woman!
Boadicea's Chariot 
“And in a very few minutes, someone will appear. It’s usually a silver-haired lady, 80 if she’s a day, who is very pleasant and knowledgeable and will look at your stuff and make random reductions.”
Give the old girl a chance, it probably takes a bit of time to untangle herself from her massage chair.
I’ve never been subjected to the dreadfulness of such blatant public intimacy by the aged, Jan, but I don’t visit many of these dens of vice, sorry Garden Centres.
We had a vice free family business that we visited often but they retired and sold it!
Very sad.
Unless you really want a massage chair (whooppee, I fancy that), or a fancy birdbath, and all the other attractions of todays garden centres, I’d steer clear, and go to an old fashioned nursery, where there is a man sat in a shed with his seed boxes and the good earth under his fingernails.
Great post Jan.
Now then, I wonder if I have time to nip to the garden centre………… 🙂
How long before Ann Summers are selling “special” Zimmer frames!
Garden Centres will never replace proper nurseries, you are right of course… but there are some great places around which serve mid-morning coffee to Sunday cyclists –
Greetings OMG! This old girl always wears short wellie boots…but thinking about it maybe that’s to earth her against unwanted electric shocks! 🙂
It was nothing short of shocking Araminta, though I might have laid it on a bit thick. I am easily shocked, having led a sheltered life 😉
Absolutely, Val. I’m not fussy on massage chairs. I tried one at the hairdressers and it made me feel car sick. A girl can have too many good vibrations, you know 🙂 I’m all for the chap or the old girl with soil under the fingernails too!!
Now there’s a plan FEEG. After all, 70 is the new 60. 🙂
Hi Pseu, well that’s entirely different. Anywhere that sells tea and a bun to cyclists is to be recommended wholeheartedly!
I’m torn. One side of me says ‘Good for them,’ while the other thinks about my own saggy bits and shudders at the thought of wobbling them about in public…
🙂 Bravo, the saving grace were that they were fully clothed. I suppose you have to try before you buy but doing it in the garden centre was just bizarre. Having said that, I quite like the notion of old people behaving badly. It’s something to aspire to, isn’t it?
It certainly is Jan. I have no intention of ‘going peacefully into that good night, I’m going kicking and screaming. 🙂
For Jan:
Warning – When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
By Jenny Joseph
When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
and learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.