Grrrrr!

Of all the times I've been up ''on the tops'' I have never been in that delightful position of looking down on clouds except from a plane.
There seemed to be hords lining up to get above the cloud before it took off for pastures new.

S in Law had a Birthday about 8-10 weeks ago and was sufficiently specific as regards what she wanted that it only got delivered on Friday: a bare-rooted standard rose, not that that is how she phrased it, but it's what she got.

Bare-rooted - it was damnearly no-rooted. Imagine, dear Reader, (I use the singular advisedly) a barbell 3' (1mtr) long, bar about the thickness of  thumb, with about
6-8 X 2'' green spikes at one end and less hair than me at the other and there you have it.

So. Today was delivery/planting day. This is the sight we gazed at as we traversed the ''Clickety-Click'' (A66 Westbound). ''Budgie grit!!'' I thunk as we got nearer ''Red Indian Fog.'' (You know...It's a patchy) Shoch (AAARGH! It must be a Scottish keyboard) SHOCKHORROR the cloud top was below 868-metre (2,848 ft) and yet the base was so far above the road that we were unaware we'd passed under it.

Back to the rose.
Task 1. Shift the existing: poxy choice of words, STRUGGLING Rhododendron. Poor wee thing had not so much been planted as put in the ground. The so-called rootball was, if anything, possibly smaller than when it went in, I didn't even need to exert to lift it out. In retrospect I wish I'd kept it to try to resurrect it.
Task 2. Dig a ruddy great hole about 3' across and between 2 & 3' deep.
Task 3. Hoy in about a stone (Them over there will recognise it as 14#, why did they never catch on to the stone or the hundredweight?) of elderly excreta equus and dig in.
Task 4. Bray in a post, by this time the hole bottom was so deep/soft I did it with my palm.
Task 5. Plant and tie it.

Time for a brew?
''Oh. D'you think you can split that Hemerocalis while you're at it?'' Hells bells and panther tracks its roots, on the other hand, were being held on to by enraged wombats, kangaroodles and things. Surrounded it by a dotted line of fork holes, followed it around with the spade and hauled it out, It felt like it outweight me, NAH not really it just felt like it.

You know how those clever folk do it on telly ... 2 forks back to back and gently prise apart? NAH grasp spade, like felling axe and WHOLLOP! 2 cuts per division.

I took a before photo to compare with this time next year ... I hope.