Fulham Pedalos: Has DH gone mad?

[PollyWasRight]

Last week DH said that he was going to lay a 7 1/4"-gauge garden railway in the back garden of our Fulham alphabet street terrace. As we live in an end terrace we have a substantially larger garden than any other similar such property in Fulham.

Anyway, and as one might expect, I gave DH an unequivocal NO to laying a garden railway for a variety of reasons. Not least that I didn't want to be serving flapjack and never-ending pots of tea to a menagerie of anoraks and "YouTubers" who would no doubt want to visit every Saturday morning.

So DH has come up with his next brilliant idea:

"Fulham Pedalos"

That's right.

Small pedal-operated pleasure boats operating from a shallow lake in a Fulham back garden.

DH tried the old psychological trick on me to make it appear like he was giving me an option: would you like the pedalos to be black swan or white swan?

"Neither", is what I said.

DH said that he has done his research and that the only restrictive covenant on the house is to "not keep pig swine or other such malodorous beast" on the property. DH implied that as I was living in the house we had breached this covenant anyway, but that's an issue for another time. Apparently a pedalo lake does not require planning permission.

DH also said that it would be a fantastic opportunity for our DS5 and DD3 to learn about running a small business-that's because he is planning to sell tickets on a Saturday morning, but also organic goat's milk ice cream made by his old school chum who had a mental break down in his twenties. DH is corporate lawyer and otherwise has no discernible friends, so I have to tread carefully.

AIBU to say no, DH cannot excavate a pedalo lake in our back garden?

I was really intrigued by the miaowed out streets for a minute there.

I know nothing about gauge sizes but am assuming it's not one of those ones where you can sit on the little train, knees up to your ears, en route to visiting a slightly dodgy Santa?

If it is in fact a Santa Special, then I think you're being very mean. You could build full-on Alpine scenes (even though I don't believe there any Alps in Santaland), serve hot chocolate/gluhwein, charge fortunes for cuckoo clocks/wooden spoons/beer tankards...

Actually I think you're being very short-sighted.

When my DC were a similar age I used to hallucinate/dream (at 4.30am over my mid-morning coffee break 🙄 ) that I would ‘come into money’ and buy some land upon which I might build a toddler soft play paradise, replete with large champagne bar for exhausted parents.

It never came to pass. Meanwhile, your DH is suffering from a similar delusion, borne of sleep deprivation, incessant whinging and just the general grind and exhaustion of early years parenting. He’ll regain his sanity just in time for the teen years, whereupon he’ll promptly lose it again.

Any chance you can distract him with a model train project? The kids would love it.

Mr Mule installed a 5" gauge ride on railway in our back garden some years ago during a February half term holiday. I helped excavate the cuttings in between bfeeding baby (now an adult!) Happy memories of Train birthday parties and our several DC asking school friends "but where's your train" when they went on playdates. Not a tourist attraction - we'd have needed to be insane have planning permission for that, but we've had open days to raise funds for charity (when I got to play Station Mistress and run the station buffet.) Fun times! Maybe suggest DH joins his local Model Engineering Soc to meet like-minded folks and get it out of his system as trains beat pedal driven swans anytime 🤣

we have a substantially larger garden than any other similar such property in Fulham

I read this in the voice of that Harry Enfield character: ‘I am considerably richer than yowwww’

Showing my age there, I know.

You've done this one before. Along with Morris Dancing.

Try again.

Ask him to google how many children drown in gardens. When I stopped being a Child Death Review Officer a couple of years back, this was a dramatically increasing figure due to the number of unsupervised pools and hot tubs combined with alcohol and distracted parents.

Morris Dancing?

Fulham?

Got to be May Day parkrun, where a troop danced the whole way round

If you missed this morning's excellent treat of the Hammersmith Morris Men dancing our whole course then here's a snap of them coming through the finish... | By Fulham Palace parkrun | Facebook

Will he be offering franchises for pedalo gardens across the metropolis?

Op don't be a party pooper! I look forward to seeing Fulham Pedaloes on Google maps.

YABVU. This would be amazing. My DH would love to do something like this.

Your house must be worth £2.5million quid! Just embrace the fact that your DH is a good old fashioned middle class eccentric, and kick back with a margarita in the pedalo 😂

Has Del Boy moved from Peckham?

You're both thinking too small. I've seen great videos where people have built little rollercoasters in back gardens.

This is the way forward. Swan pedalos scudding serenely over your tiny lake, scenic tiny railway forming an elegant arc above, a tiny railway station and, of course, a tiny castle with a romantic turret.

Garden follies are an enduring British tradition, don't you know?

Think how popular your weekend barbecues will be 😁

☺️😂😂

Where in Fulham? I will be a customer! 😂

Has he been T-Rexing in the supermarket ?

What about a wake park?

Who said 2.5 million
if she is in Fulham in a house with a garden big enough to have a lake it’s far above 2.5 mil !

I need a diagram.

Please can you write novels? I love your writing style!

I once (rented) lived in an end terrace on Harbord Street (one of the Fulham alphabets). Agree with the previous poster there is no way in hell a lake big enough for a swan pedalo is getting in that garden.

I love the layered nature of the DH's illusory choices. The OP spots his transparent "black or white swans?" ploy while being lured inexorably by the logic that miniature trains are far more reasonable than a pedalo lake, and a positively reasonable idea.

As mid life crises go, I've heard far far worse tbf.

Google Maps satellite view sadly suggests the same.

Surely cream teas instead of flapjacks op?