Surprises

My friend Helen came over this afternoon with a bottle of pink champagne to "christen" the summerhouse. Helen has more stories than anyone I know, and she keeps a straight face as I dissolve with laughter over and over again, or stare at her in astonishment. I never know if she is being deliberately funny or if the people she knows and the things that happen to her just sound extraordinary when she describes them. All I can say is that her world is outrageous in every way compared to mine, and she has crammed several lifetimes into her 54 years. When she left I put the remains of the bubbly into the fridge and set off for a walk. The evening was fresh and clear after a brief shower, and I stalked briskly down the hill to the valley behind my house and then up to the ridge on top. From here I can look down over the deeper Alde Valley and the village of Bruisyard. I wonder if the river was ever navigable all the way to Aldeburgh. What fun it would be to row a little boat to the sea. There was a Poor Clare convent in Bruisyard Hall from the 14th century, and there is still evidence of the nuns' presence, though nowadays it's a very upmarket wedding venue. At our recent parish council AGM a villager whose large old house looks down towards the Hall complained of the fixed lighting that steers wedding guests from the barn to the main building on dark nights. The chairman was amused. "But that's low level, low voltage, low impact lighting they've got there now," he said. "How far is your place from the hall Peter?" It's about half a mile as the crow flies, he replied. But it disturbs us. The council should tell them to remove the lights. "You must have to get the binoculars out to see if the lights are even on," said the chairman, and everyone except Peter laughed. He was a prickly old man, but I kind of knew how he felt.

As I reached home and turned in at the gate my eye was caught by a splash of maroon that wasn't there this morning. During the day a delicate clump of gladioli had bloomed in the sunshine, and now flowered proudly in front of the irises. As I went to have a closer look I spotted another three groups, one hiding coyly behind the fading wisteria. While my back garden gets paler and paler from the poison it's been fed, the professionally planted front is lush and teeming, throwing up delightful surprise after surprise.