Feet

It is time.

From An Allegory with Venus and Cupid by Bronzino'

by Rebecca

A request first off. I have, aged 38, gotten my first garden. It’s unbelievably pleasant, I can’t actually believe I can cut roses from off the wall and have them on my desk, I sit looking at them in wonder. I love hearing birdsong where previously I could hear loud jungle music from 11am onwards, and seeing nature’s bounty where previously whenever I looked outside I only saw the people who lived opposite. Sometimes naked, like in Friends.

The problem is I’ve no idea how to garden, and am roughly twenty years behind. I don’t think I’ve ever felt to stupid about anything. I don’t know what pots to put things in, could not BURLIEVE how much spades cost, and only recently learned that if you cut a rose off it might grow back better. The really shocking thing for me is how much strength it takes, brute strength, steering trolleys around the garden centre, lifting bags of soil. I thought it was mostly the pastime of old people, turns out they’re bionic. Another way of putting this is that I now quite fancy Monty Don, who I’ve come to think of as a kind of benevolent horticultural Gaston.

There is of course a wealth of gardening material online, especially on Substack, but people f**king love gardening and as such it all reads as intermediate/advanced. Can anyone recommend some that are simpler?

Anyway, on to the reason we’re here. The Trowel was founded on the idea that the beauty industry is best enjoyed when you use it to make you feel beautiful, and it’s not for anybody but yourself blah blah blah (I do actually believe this just trying to be funny).

However, in my opinion there are two exceptions to this rule, where the beauty element is as much for others are for yourself. The first is smell, the second is feet. You must make your feet nice for others because if they aren’t they will quickly become the main character in a room. I don’t want to scaremonger, but you will be judged, silently or otherwise.