At what point does employment become oppresive cruelty?

I made the decision a few years ago. Where I could afford to, I would employ people to do things that I either didn't enjoy doing, or didn't have the time to do. This includes cleaning the house, because as much as I hate living in a pig-pit I won't get off my arse to do anything about it because I hate hate HATE cleaning. This also includes gardening. Gardening falls into the 2nd category though. I love my garden. I love the garden when it looks all pretty. I love the garden when the leaves are all over the lawn in the autumn, and again when it has been mowed and the leaves have all disappeared. I love planning for new borders, picking out the plants, but in the list of activities that I can choose to fill my free time with, I'd rather bake, or sew or, erm, what's the other one? Oh yes. Knit.

That said on Sunday I ended up at a plant auction. It was held in Midhurst at the Grammar School. There were many good reasons to go; I'd never been to MGS and always wanted to, my friend Rachel had suggested it would be good fun (and R is rarely wrong - statistical anomaly rarely), it was an auction, what's more it was an auction selling plants.

3 of us ended up going, R, Debs and me. I ended up with our bidding card. This was possibly a bad move. I haven't been to many auctions before, and only bought things by email bids. I think I got bidding fever. Don't get me wrong there were some serious bargains. D bought a plum tree for £7. A whole tree. That will make plums. For seven pounds. It only has to produce a kilo of plums to have paid for itself. Where was I before I got carried away with plums? Oh yes. Carried away. I bought some bulbs.

215 bulbs.

Even as I bought them I realised that I probably wouldn't be the one to plant them. I got a little worried, and then a lot worried, that actually presenting Andy, the world's loveliest gardener, with 215 bulbs and the plans for the new borders that are going to need to be made to fit them in actually constituted cruelty.

I am still worried, but Andy came over today and I showed him the bulbs, and showed him the un-tilled earth that is to be the bulbs new home, and he is still just about talking to me. I may get away with it, albeit with a slightly tarnished reputation as a nice, kind employer.

And to think I thought this was going to be a post about my employer!