A MANCHESTER BOOKSELLER, A MARTIAN AND SOME MARIGOLDS

The hollyhock has survived the night. Not a slug bite in sight - and there wasn't a frost.

Marrying a Martian presented a few administrative difficulties - the most immediate being that there was no proof even that he existed.

I was recommended to a lady in Manchester - where I am not known. She works in a back-street-bookshop. As soon as I came in, she took her place behind the counter and agreed to fix an identity for him straight away.

I'd expected someone young and shifty. Instead, she was late-middle-aged, and wore a green tweed suit with a rather beautiful necklace made from very tiny, very highly polished, wooden beads.

She asked where Ming was from.

"Algeria." (It was the first country that came into my head.)

I told her we hardly knew each other but he wanted to marry someone in England so he could study plants like geraniums - which I don't think they have there. (That would explain why I didn't know where he was born or be able to say how old he is.)

She looked a bit puzzled though when I handed over his photo.

"Isn't Algeria a hot country?"

"I think so."

"Bit pale, isn't he?"

(We'd over-done the make-up a bit; trying to cover the faintly greenish tinge to his skin.)

I suggested he might be a Goth.

"Are there many Goths in Algeria?"

This time, I could answer truly - I really didn't know.

Luckily, it was a black and white photo so I didn't have to explain the extra-terrestrial nature of his hair.

I found some old marigold seeds in a shoe-box this morning, mixed them with compost and scattered them around the garden a bit. If they germinate, that's good. If the birds eat them first - well, that's good too.

And I've pulled aside the buttercup and cinquefoil leaves that protected the box cuttings in the winter - not that I specially noticed there was one this year!

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