at the back of the house there is a garden. it is not a particular big garden, but it can not be described as being small either. it is, on professor bile’s scale of horticultural spaces, somewhere in-between size 3 and 4, with a proportional index of 382.
most of it is used by mrs pink, she grows flowers and cucumbers there, but near the back is a plot fenced off from the main garden and that is where mr pride cultivates weeds and thorns and where he keeps his collection of garden gnomes that look like famous dutch onion traders with warts -

one sunny day he took the lady tart on a private guided tour through his collection. “ you see that one over there” he said, pointing out a particularly evil looking statue of a gnome, hunchbacked and with a huge wild beard, pushing a wheelbarrow “that’s queen wilhelmina that is. used to be big in the onion trade in her days”, lady tart nodded sagely while at the same time she tried to untangle her dress from a vicious bramble bush. “and that one over there” (an equally foul looking specimen with a squint and a fishing rod) “that’s erasmus, that is. very big in the onion trade in his days”, lady tart admitted the resemblance was uncanny whilst beating off a particularly aggressive thistle.
“wait till you see the vermeer-gnome” said mr pride, walking towards yet another of the effigies (with a shovel and a malicious grin) hidden in a bed of nettles “now he was REALLY big in the onion trade in his days”. lady tart followed him, trying to avoid stepping in the mud. -

later that same day, when she was having her usual chatter with mrs pink over a cup of tea, lady tart confided in whispered tones that all the gnomes had looked rather like dr shy, “bless the little pet” she added “but i never realised he looked quite so much like abel tasman”.
“you don’t say” said mrs pink, “wasn’t he in the onion trade or something?” she added whilst pouring out some more tea.