Jungle

While my back garden continues to languish, bare still apart from a lot of lawn, the front area expresses its exuberance in the only way it knows how: fecundity. Val and I laboured for a couple of hours yesterday morning, her exclaiming in delight as yet another smothered plant sees the light of day, me snorting in disgust as the things I dislike - grasses! euphorbia! bergenia! are the most prolific and the hardest things to remove. Val groans over the masses of violets that spring up everywhere - "weeds" she says, while I try to hang on to them and direct her attention elsewhere. Good-naturedly we comment on everything we find, everything we trim and hack and remove, almost never agreeing. In the end, screened by tall shrubs, I dug out two huge, enormous grasses that had spread their tedious feathery fronds over a wide area. Exotic and expensive, they were: I saw the labels. But hateful and untidy to me. "Val", I called. "You're going to be appalled!" She feigned shock, but when the two unexpected gifts were safely tucked away in the back of her car she was grinning like a kid.

She had no sooner gone than a big lorry bearing the new fencing poles and wires arrived in the drive, with Tim the fencing man who is going to erect them on Thursday. And Ollie. Yes, Ollie. A cute little thing of about 6 or 7, he was cocky and confident, too much testosterone already. How can one small boy create so much havoc?  "Stay! Stay! Stay! Stay! Stay! Stay!" he shouted at Sasha. "I'll be back in a minute!". He then proceeded to charge around the garden, poking sticks into the lawn, banging sticks against the newly-painted garage. Maybe I was anxious because I had people coming to tea in a short time, but he nearly drove me mad. I was truly shocked at how stressed I felt. "I'll see you bright and early on Thursday", Tim called as he set off. "And will Ollie be helping again?" I asked nervously. "Oh God no, he'll be at home." Did he notice my huge sigh of relief? If he did, I think he understood.

After tea it was off to puppy classes, a new series with only Lisl the adorable little whippet and Sasha from the last class. We had to demonstrate the various tricks we'd learned for the benefit of the newcomers, and with what pride did I watch Sasha obey instructions to "Wait", "Sit", "Down", "Off" and "Come" while for some reason Lisl who usually stars was off-colour. And wonder of wonders, there's a tiny, TEENY teacup chihuahua, owned by a big gruff farm labourer, who had taken Alpha Dog to new heights. His fingers were literally bleeding as he tried to put a new collar on her, the better to control her. She was having none of it, and bit him every time he tried. He was told to put her on the ground so that she didn't feel so important, and ignore her as she tried to climb up his leg. Oh, shadenfraude, old friend, it did me good to watch. Quite reminded me of the old days.

The last of the wheat harvest, from my study window