Sick but literate: From a long line of thieves

Yesterday I felt decent enough to dare a short venture to the local ever increasing shopping mayhem, you know one of those urban areas that just keep on expanding in to every possible little square meter that still vaguely recembles nature (or at least still has the colour of it, artificial or not). And when they have run out there are always more floors that can be added on to anything, because the market forces can not even for a second think, that us consumers would want anything but more spending, spending, spending... (yes why not another H&M when the closest one is a whole 5 minutes drive away)

Anyway, mum and I went for coffee in a quite nice café/garden centre. You sit on the outdoor furniture that is for sale (and already rusty, to give your home a bit of an antique this-prefab-wooden-villa-has-been-inherited-for -generations feel) among expensive lemon and apricot trees. I spot an Aloe vera plant and mention I´d quite like to have some growing in the house, maybe to try to eat instead of the stuff I drink every morning. And guess what she does! She locates all the Aloes on the patio where we sit and notes those who have small shoots growing in the pots. She bides her time, muttering about the few other guests, get me to shuffle over and then pulls up a fist-sized shoot which she then with the air of a routined thief, whisks down in to my handbag!

There I am, mortified, and ushering her to leave before the staff clearing our table will notice the dirt that has spilled out on the big plant and the floor around it. But she just browses slowly around, uttering little cooing noises while holding wrought iron snails for greenhouse decoration, and scanning for more promising sprouts. All while parading a pair of soiled hands screaming of our imminent exposure. Eventually we leave, with the only consequences being the internal pollution of my violated handbag.

My mum keeps doing this, and although she admits to that it probably is termed vandalism, and she in all other circumstances is so law-abiding that she wouldn´t even overtake a tractor if it meant that she would have to excced the speed limit for 30 seconds, no garden is safe when she´s around.

But there´s more. I´ve mentioned hereditary characteristics before, and my mum only operates on the small scale of sprouting theft in comparison with my gran. She left a holiday in Malta with roughly half her checked-in luggage in botanical loot, and is now in the final planning of a new expanded green house for her taxed Kew gardens bud collection. The Sheriff of Nottingham is meek next to her!

I suppose no harm is really done to the "motherplants" and the habitual holiday practice of my two related ladies really make their gardens look accordingly, so I leave them at it. Just hoping I´ll be able to curb my fingers if I ever get a garden...