Bens Make-Over

I would like you all to meet Ben.

Ben is a flower pot man and has been living in my garden for many years, I have three flower pot men and all have various jobs to do around the garden, however Ben took it upon himself to guard my Summerhouse and he has done a remarkably good job that is apart from the time that he let Felix the  next doors cat sneak in through the window and pee all over!  In his defence Ben did have his back turned when said incident occurred anyway, the least said about that the better..it was  a long time ago.

The other day as I was watering my plants Ben called out to me 'hey!!' To say I was startled would be an understatement because he is usually very quiet and always polite but this hey had the edge of .. pay me some attention! Well it got the required result because I stopped and stared and said 'what's up Ben?'

'Just look at me' he says, 'is this it for me then, am I just to go to pot!?' Well I did look  I'm ashamed to say for the first time in a long time and I had to admit he did look unkempt poor Ben.

His hair was almost gone, his hat had disappeared and as for the screw in his head well that didn't bear thinking about. His clothes were none existent. 

So I gathered my supplies which were pretty limited, I wasn't prepared for this so it was going to have be a make do with what you have got kind of job.  I let Ben have his own way and he insisted on a red top, which was just as well as I did have a big tube of red amongst my meagre supply's.

I removed what was left of his hair and that awful screw in his head, I've heard of having a screw loose but to have one sticking out of your head can't be very comfortable, I'm sure you will agree.

Then he insisted on blue pants and a lick of brown paint for his pipe, but he let me choose the colour of the fence, it was a no brainer really because I only had green left so green it had to be.

then I applied a coat of clear varnish to protect the paint.  I was actually beginning to enjoy myself until we started arguing about the hat.  Ben wanted a real terracotta flower pot!

Well there I was amongst my pots in the darkest messiest recesses of my garden searching for the all important real terracotta pot....I mean to say what is wrong with plastic, I feared Ben was getting idea's above his station!  Eventually after scrambling and overturning pots and finding nothing but snails and plastic pots I made my way back to Ben with three choices.

As you can just see I gave him some hair and then he wore the hat, well he did want terracotta!  It's no good Ben it's much too big!

'Don't you think that's better, it may be plastic but at least it's the right colour, and please let me trim your fringe it's much too long!,' no stubborn to the end he wanted it long and he didn't like the plastic pot but then......he spied something!

A purple pot, well for Ben it was love at first sight he just had to have it! I thought it clashed a bit but I wasn't going to argue.  Well that just left the icing on the cake as it were.

First he insisted on a  purple belt to with flower to match his hat.

Then a  flower for his hat to match his belt and then he wanted flowers growing up the fence and to his utmost delight a rare species of butterfly landed on the fence too and took up residence.  He was so delighted I almost saw him smile, he insisted on a bright orange scarf for the cooler evenings and when he actually let me cut his fringe I new he was finally happy.

I gave the decking a lick of paint to befit the new smartened up Ben and here he is at his work station looking very smart indeed.  
Matilda cow and Daffney duck were giving me funny looks...I knew what they were after but I was out of there I'd done enough for one day!