Parade’s significant other has been watching with increasing concern the aphids’ all-out attack on her snapdragons in recent weeks.

Finally, on Saturday she decided she’d had enough.

A determined look on her face, she marched the pot of snapdragons (and their resident aphids) out on to the back lawn for a chemical blitz the likes of which the neighbourhood had never seen.

Parade didn’t want to witness it, so he wandered inside to have a flick through the paper.

When Parade’s significant other marched back into the house, however, she didn’t look like a woman who had just achieved a magnificent victory on the garden battlefield.

“How’d you go?” Parade asked.

“I think I sprayed myself,” Parade’s significant other admitted sheepishly.

A gust of wind at the wrong time had turned the cloud of chemicals away from its intended target and back into the startled face of the chemical sprayer.

That would be bad enough, but, to add insult to injury, Parade’s significant other reckoned the aphids hardly even looked sick when she went to check on the snapdragons later.

There’s probably a lesson in all that, but Parade is not sure what it is.

PARADE knows there’s been a bit of grumbling about the fact only one Sydney side is left in the National Rugby League finals series, but he must admit he isn’t too worried about it.

It’s the best sides, not the best loved sides, that will ensure the grand final is of the highest quality, Parade reckons.

If any evidence is needed, league fans only need to look at the Brisbane and North Queensland decider of a couple of seasons ago, which was a nail-biting, twisting and turning classic that will be remembered for decades.

It was all Queensland, but it was also all quality.

Having said all that, Parade wouldn’t mind if his own Sydney side was still in the running this season.

But you can’t have everything, can you?