If there's one thing I really enjoy then it must be "helping with the gardening".

Whenever the lady of the house picks up the pruners or shears then I know she's in for a session in the garden.

Autumn and spring seem to be the best times for this ritual of snipping at the shrubs and allowing the pieces to fall to the ground.

I'd seen the snippings being moved away and thrown into a bucket or wheelbarrow so I figured I could help out a little.

One by one I dragged the branches away and set about chewing them down to a more manageable size. Great exercise but the pieces of bark do tend to get stuck in the old teeth.

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The boss tends to get a bit 'ratty' with me sometimes.

This is due to his pride in a nicely striped and tidy lawn.

By the time I've chewed and spread about numerous branches his lawn does somewhat resemble a battlefield.

Sister doesn't usually get involved in gardening although on one occasion after I'd dragged a 3' branch into the house she did help me reduce it in size. (see picture). We both got into trouble for that.

One fine day last spring, I must have been dozing and had not noticed that a pruning session had started.

On looking out of the door I noticed the head gardener was stretching up into a large shrub with the pruning shears 'flashing' and a mass of snippings around her feet.

Unfortunately she hadn't realised I was there, so when I tugged a particularly long branch and pulled it from beneath her feet, she let out a gasp of fright.

I guess she thought it was some wild creature attacking.

All good fun this gardening . . . . . . . can't wait for the next session.