Survival Of The Fittest

There has been an awful lot of huffing and puffing going on in my house lately. Not just huffing and puffing either. There have been tears, rants and much stomping around. And that’s just Youngest Daughter.

Add to that my own general feeling of being irritated, tired, with an overall mood of complete and utter apathy, plus the fact I’m nursing my fourth cold this winter. I’m considering buying shares in the company who make Lemsip, I’ve got through so much of it.

Then throw in Grumpy’s habit of yowling during the early hours of the morning (she probably thinks her name has been changed to Shut Uuuuup) and you do not find a happy household at the moment.

When Youngest Daughter came back from Majorca last year, she got a sales job at a gym. She hates it. Hates it with a capital HUH. She’s discovered she’s not cut out for sales as she doesn’t have the push required to persuade people into buying something they don’t really want. I can understand that, after all I know how I feel when faced with a pushy, in your face, I’m-not-letting-you-walk-away-until-you-part-with-your-money type of person. Youngest Daughter is not that sort of person, but her managers want her to be.

My evenings are spent listening to Youngest Daughter venting and agreeing with her about how crap it is, but constantly urging her not to leave until she has another job lined up first.

I’m knackered.

One bright spot amongst the doom, gloom and the current snotfest (got the visual? tough sorry) is Petal, a.k.a. Steve, the Orchid. Petal’s flowers dropped off last autumn, so with much should I?/shouldn’t I? trepidation given my abysmal record with plants, I took a deep breath and cut the stem off.

To my amazement Petal proved to be made of strong stuff, because a few weeks later a new stem appeared. I kept looking at it with awe. It was growing! It likes me! (Or, it‘s more likely a case of Petal flipping me the middle finger while saying ‘Up yours Bub, I’m here to stay.’ It’s a shame the same can’t be said of the Boston Fern, which was binned just after Christmas. Wimp.)

Like the beanstalk in the fairy tale, it grew and grew. Although it’s nowhere near giant beanstalk proportions thankfully, I think it’s a mighty stem of a stem. When buds started appearing a couple of weeks ago I did a happy dance, which got repeated first thing this morning when I walked into the bathroom and Petal proudly presented me with this:

Petal, you may look like a weak and feeble plant, with a reputation for being fickle about where you’ll grow, but I know otherwise. You’re a hardy little thing with a strong survival instinct.

I’m impressed and I may just go and do another happy dance after stuffing tissues up my nose.

What’s that?

Visual image again?

Too bad. I apologise.

Heh.