A few months ago I was visiting a well known Swedish furniture store and spotted a sickly Ficus with half a dozen leaves and a dejected air. It was reduced by about twenty quid to a fiver. “Bargain,” I thought and whisked it away home.
We nurtured it back to health. It grew more leaves and started to look really quite chipper. But there is a problem. A problem that we noticed immediately we got it home. It’s a little rude. Actually, it’s quite a lot rude.
Maybe that’s why it was languishing in the shop. No one quite knew what to do with it.
It does get a laugh when we have people round (my teenage niece collapses in a heap of giggles whenever she sees it and has to be escorted from the room). Or a sharp intake of breath, a pursing of lips and a change of subject.
