It has now been raining for oh, about 25 years straight, with no end in sight on the long range forecast.

Okay, so that's a slight exaggeration. Let's call it 20 years.

I don't know how people survive the weather on the west coast of Canada. A few weeks of daily rain has left me feeling cranky, blue and completely out of sorts. Living in a climate that was always like that would be the death of me.

And oh, man, the thunderstorms. One last week knocked out our power for over 24 hours. With over 300,000 folks in Quebec out of power from that storm, we were lucky it was just a day and a bit for us. I looked at our freezer which contained several hundred buckazoids worth of bargain food and winced.

Yes, I'm the woman you see loading up her grocery cart when chicken boobs drop to $2.69 a pound or salmon to $5.99 a pound. Open my chest freezer and it's a sea of bright orange sale tags. Bless the grocery stores and their loss leaders.

Fortunately, our wheezy old generator gallantly rose to the task and putt putted enough for us to charge both our fridge and our freezer. Actually, putt putt doesn't really convey the sound of our generator. It's like a very annoying lawnmower on steroids. I didn't realize how much I cherish the silence that envelopes me here until it dissolved in the roar of that machine.

The upside to all this is that the gardens have 'sploded. My roses keep saying, "We're in England, right?" They're so covered in flower buds that when we get two or three minutes of sunshine I'm going to have an colour here like I've never had before.

My hostas have completely recovered from the spring drought and are unspeakably lush. Everything is so overwhelmingly green it almost feels as if someone photoshopped the landscape.

Alas.

There is a fly in my ointment.

As my three loyal readers know, the spousal unit only took up an interest in the landscape a few years ago. I was delighted when he expressed an interest in buying his very own hosta. I had visions of the two of us happily spending hours cruising nurseries oohing and ahhing over the subtle beauty of various plants.

Alas, it was not to be. I made the mistake of taking the spousal unit to a hosta web site where a man was bragging about his gardens. Included in the pictures was one of a supremely ugly hosta with leaves larger than an elephant's ear. The spousal unit became enamoured of the concept of the Big Ass Hosta.

He wanted one just like that guy's. So through a friend of a friend, a couple of years ago I got him a T-Rex hosta. Don't think I didn't wince a lot while doing it, because I did. I never thought I'd ever see a hosta I didn't like, but thanks to the spousal unit I now know that even *I* have my hosta limits.

It can take up to a decade for some hostas to reach their potential. The spousal unit's T-Rex was mighty tiny its first year, being a baby and all, so I had great fun mocking it. I have a lovely huge golden Sum and Substance hosta which is also of the Big Ass family of hostas. Mine is seven years old now, so it's quite a bit bigger than the spousal unit's T-Rex.

Last year I took evil joy in standing by my Sum and Substance and remarking loudly on its incredible dimensions. Am I a petty person for moving a piece of it beside the walkway, about 20 feet from the spousal unit's T-Rex, thus making comparison almost inevitable?

Why yes, yes I am.

I have no shame.

Last year, year two, the spousal unit's T-Rex grew but was virtually indistinguishable from the plain vanilla hostas that surrounded it.

This year it has exploded and its leaves are three times the size they were last year. I can see my Big Ass Hosta bragging rights evaporating before my eyes.

It is hard not to be bitter.

We planted T-Rex not far from our front porch so the spousal unit could see it every time he went in the door. The increase in size and girth of his hosta has been a source of manly pride. Apparently I married a size queen. Who knew?

There's no question that next year I'm going to have to move some of the hosta around it to give T-Rex breathing room. I had been sceptical about the claims for the eventual size of the plant, so I plopped it fairly close to the porch. Hostas tend to double in size annually until they reach their maturity.

It strikes me that in a few years we may need a machete to get into the house.

Oh, man, the gloating. It's been barely tolerable this year. In a few years, when his T-Rex outstrips my Sum and Substance, not only will I be forced to wade through an enormous plant I don't particularly like every time I walk into my home, I will also be forced to endure the spousal unit's gloating.

You can well imagine my horror, eh?

--Marn

P.S.�Could some of you help James with his project, please?