THE UN-BIRTHDAY PRESENT

I have at last stepped out of the shower, dried my hair with a generous dollop of Frizz Ease and donned a green silk shirt - a most appropriate colour in view of the weekend's events. Talced and perfumed I begin to feel human again.

A blog or two ago we were discussing Saki. In a flight of fancy, I said that sometimes I imagined the great Edwardian storyteller sitting in my office, scribbling languidly while I hammered at the laptop keys. I have learnt my lesson. I have paid the price for this piece of lèse-majesté. Never, gentle reader, invoke the spirit of Saki in fun.

One of his best known stories is The Unrest Cure - a tale of a prematurely middle- aged cleric whose life is fossilised by underwork. Saki reasons, quite logically, that if overwork calls for a Rest Cure, then underwork demands an Unrest Cure.

What the Unrest Cure was I shall leave you to find out. The collected stories of Saki makes a wonderfully entertaining gift and you can always ready a few of them surreptitiously before the wrapping up process begins.

In my case Saki evidently must have thought me particularly burdened with gifts and reckoned it about time I had an Un-Birthday Present to compensate.

The present started out auspiciously enough. I was told to expect, not the usual book, scarf or antique print, but a 'surprise.' So, anyway, my darling children announced. I was even ordered to set aside two days of the bank holiday for the purpose.

Fennie's mind raced. Whatever could this be? - a trip to London to see a show? Thirty-six hours on a canal barge? Or, still on the water theme, some serious pampering amid the steam rooms and jacuzzis of the new Bath spa?

Needless to say the surprise was none of these. When hands a-tremble I opened the envelope I found a two-day makeover of the garden by the aged thirty-something children and their partners.

The plan had the unmistakable imprint of Elder Daughter, who inspired by Charlie Dimmock, is well now on her way to becoming the Delia Smith of the nation's greenery.

So far so good: they even clubbed together to put some money in the 'pot' to buy plants, compost, gravel, trellising.

But any idea that Fennie might have had of simply putting her feet up with a glass of celebratory wine and the Sunday papers, while the family ground force team swung into action was rapidly to prove illusory. No, it was made very clear that I was to work, too.

It also soon became clear that the estimates on which the children's 'pot' had been based fitted their aspirations no better than the Government's when they bid for the Olympics. Fennie was soon digging deep into her bank account for ever increasing and unbudgeted sums to feed the growing appetite of the project.

Goodness, I haven't done as much physical work since assisting brother-in law to move a milking parlour from Norfolk to Shetland in the mid-seventies. Even by the end of the first day, the project was showing discernible characteristics of being an Un-Birthday Present.

For if a birthday present involves other people spending money while you relax and enjoy for a day or two the benefit of their well-chosen purchases, then an Un-Birthday Present entails the reverse: not only do you work rather than relax but you pay handsomely for the drudgery as well.

Saki had even marshalled the elements to ensure a proper ambience, whipping up a high and gusting wind laced with a soaking drizzle, just in case gardening in the warm spring sunshine might be sneekily enjoyable.

Fortunately, the rain later abated to allow a snatched barbecued lunch - snatch being the operative word for the wind still gusted fiercely, plucking the salad leaves from your fork and hurling them back to the lettuce bed in some forlorn attempt, I suppose, at restoring their status quo ante.

In wax jacket and muddy boots, with aching limbs and hair coiffed beautifully by wind and rain into the latest cave woman style, I gradually became, nevertheless, the owner of a fabulous new garden.

By the time the gang had packed their tools away and hurried home I found myself left with gravel and pots and trellising and climbing plants; a new flowerbed blossomed on what previously had been bare tarmac, hanging baskets framed the front door. Even the dull brown garden shed reappeared in a new fetching sky blue outfit.

All very nice. But oh, the cost and the tiredness and the aching body and the mud tramped into carpets throughout the house. Fennie is not planning on having any more birthdays in a hurry. Bah-humbug! Another Un-Birthday Present could kill me.