The Earth Moved

Research has revealed the "appalling care for the elderly in their homes", according to today's paper. But I've been saying this for  years, ever since I became elderly, technically at least. Well, more like weeks actually. But I know it's true. For example I have to make my own meals, do my own gardening, clean my house myself. Appalling, yes. But will anything be done about it? Probably not.

In the spirit of not even being able to dig my own pond, Seth and Jack from Native Gardens arrived today to do the job for me. It was just as well they did as it was a heck of a job. The pond measures three metres in diameter and is one metre deep at most, so a lot of soil came out of the hole. We expected it to be clay but in fact there was very little apart from a layer at the top. The rest was lovely topsoil, but the deeper they dug the more horrible rubbish they discovered, including at one point a small piece of asbestos. It seems that whoever built the various extensions on this house buried their nasty detritus and covered it up again. I wouldn't have minded a Victorian rubbish heap, but this was very 21st century: cans, bottles, plastic bags. The guys bagged the mess, and the spoil was used to make a bank behind the pond, which will be planted with wild flower seed. It'll be a picture when it's matured a bit.

A young man on a ride-on mower turned up in the field next to me and proceeded to cut a swathe around the edge, and into the barley itself. Odd, I thought, and I popped around to see what he was doing. Cutting out the rogue black wheat that threatened the quality of the crop, apparently. The upside for me was a lovely new path around two sides of my boundary. He turned out to be from Iceland of all places, a musician working here for the summer to perfect his already fluent English. He loves Suffolk which he says is in stark contrast to the flat, frozen, treeless landscape of his home."It's beautiful though, Iceland, isn't it?" I asked him. "You would probably think so," he replied with a sour grin, "but I don't."

Much later, when everyone had left and I'd eaten my supper, I walked into the field and followed the new path around the edge of my garden. The air was sweet with the scent of new-mown grass and barley, and the sky was just beginning to show pink. Nothing moved, not the graceful heads of the barley stalks, not a hare's listening ears showing above the crop. It was silent too apart from the final song of the blackbird. I looked up at my garden from the field end where the pond is now sited, and it looked beautiful, like a garden you might spot from a train and stare longingly at until it was out of sight. My heart swelled with happiness; I could feel it growing inside my ribs. Some of those old cliches are so appropriate.

The First Cut

Seth making headway

Pond with backdrop, as yet unlined