Off The Edge Gardening

It was a day in black and white.   When I found the odd nugget of colour, the odd tattered rudbeckia bloom, an ill at ease lavender flower, bloody stems of cornus, desperate acer leaves, all were diluted.  The sparse colour was faded and tired.  The wretched wind had sucked out the hues, the ravishing rain had diluted the shades.  All was monotone.

This is not my sophora.  It is full of flower, both potential and actual.  It is not tatty.  I forgive it for the fact that it is far better than mine.  Not that it minds either way, flaunting its buttercup blooms in the winter gloom.  I like its attitude.

 

For the last few days I have been visiting the town I used to call home.  Although it isn’t where I was born, it is where I grew up.  It is where I ticked off many milestones on my journey to the place I am today. When I am not there it is a just a memory, albeit it a fine one, but I have little time in my life for yearning.  When I am there, however, it is much more.  Seeped in memories, they ambush me at every turn.  These are mostly happy, but a few are sad.  I am melancholic for things that have been lost, regretting that I didn’t appreciate the privilege of growing up here, sadness at leaving special people who will always be in my heart.  Ghosts lurk at every corner.  Some taunt, some comfort me.

Things have changed over the years.  Of course it is still beautiful; surely no one could sully the fabulous beaches, the jaw-dropping views out to Mrs Woolf’s lighthouse or the coastal moorland of Man’s Head, the stiletto snapping cobbles and of course that famous luminescent light.  Now it is far more affluent and the season is long and unremitting.  The shops of my day are becoming sparse, in their place expensive boutiques, eating establishments and jewellery stores.  I was saddened to see that the chippy where my younger brother worked in his youth had closed.  He would return from his toils perfumed with Essence de Chip Fat.  The cafe which has replaced it looks lovely.  I would imagine that they steam their vegetables.

So we roamed the streets with best of them.  We stayed in a proper grown-up hotel with views across to the harbour.  Nightly the waves crashed against the rocks not 10m below our room, driven by a raging wind, the sound both welcome and soothing.  We gasped at the sight of dolphins and seals close to the shoreline.  We went to the opening of an enchanting pottery exhibition and met some fine earthy folk.   We ate haddock and chips in a relic yet to succumb to the relentless march of healthy eating.  We visited art galleries.  We wandered through an exotically planted sculpture garden ducking into a bougainvillea sheathed shelter when the persistent rain turned up a notch.  We met with old friends and laughed and recollected.    We had a wonderful time.

On the way back I reminisced alone this time, remembering the many times I had sat on this train and cried.  So fresh was the feeling of being wrenched away to another world, far from my power source, that another tear came to my eye.  In my heart there is a ember which is dense as a black hole.  This is where my home town lies.  It takes only a gentle south-westerly to reignite this flame.

When we opened our front door I was pleased to be home.  I was also sad to leave my home.

 

Is she on her way home yet?

Another dowdy day; well dowdy by name but not by nature.  I awoke this morning hoping it was Saturday but knowing that it seldom is.  Rather than a dawn chorus my awakening accompaniment was the dulcet tones of next doors scaffolding being dismantled.  Past the clunks and crashes, chatter and clatter, my bat ears were honed past the lads to work out what the weather was doing.  The results were inconclusive.  The passing cars sounded as if they were driving on wet, the wind was howling but the light was not oppressive enough for a deluge.  Inevitably I had to get out of bed to discover that although it had evidently rained recently, it was dry.  So breakfasted and kitted up I headed off to Max’s for a day of camellia moving, fern destruction and tree debate.  Naturally it rained heavily at random intervals but this was balanced by a sense of belonging, of beginning to understand this wonderful garden.  Of being involved and embraced.  Who cares it wasn’t a Saturday?  They are so over-rated!

We are going away for a few days.  Not far and not for long, but a holiday.  Can’t wait.  See you later alligator.

When all else fails the cheery face of a viola bloom will do the trick.  I will leave you contemplating its beauty.

We arrived home late last night, late for us lightweights at any rate.  The sky was a studded with a neck aching amount of stars proclaiming the promise of plummeting temperature.   After satisfying my compulsion to point out Orion and The Plough (the only constellations I know) to the amazement of no one, we dived into the warm house.  With an uncharacteristic attack of the Sensibles  I rummaged out my thermals and heavy-duty socks before I went to bed.   This was a well spent ten minutes as the weather didn’t disappoint.*   A tentative tug at the bedroom curtain just before dawn revealed the glistening windows of the cars in the street below.  This meant that today I ticked off another winter milestone, the first windscreen scrape of the season.  I am not a lover of smearing sprays and aerosols, just a scraper and elbow grease.   This works for me and is a fine and dandy way to warm up on such a morning.  All cleared, off I headed, keen to see what the day held.

The frost was meagre and short-lived, even in the darkest corners.  It was a wonderful day to be a gardener.  After a couple of weeks when my mind has fleetingly strayed to thoughts of warm offices and cosy shop floors,  I was full steam ahead on the Horticultural Express.  Weeding and tidying, leaving flower heads for the birds whenever possible, emptying compost bins, getting things straight.  It was blissful, is there a more satisfying way to spend the day?  Unfortunately, the thermals became little too effective, the healthy glow emanating from my body speeded up the thaw.  If only you could switch them on and off!

*  Do not expect this victory of sense over laziness to prevail, it was merely a battle and not the war.