Old Gardener

Old Gardener has died. In the end it was all over within a few short weeks, the cancers took him quickly, I am glad to say. So there will be no more gardener’s tales over a cup of tea in the sun, no more crafty fags, no more tuneless whistle of a short sequence of notes, which never were nor ever could become a tune. Gardener, who was extremely hard-working, not always reliable, who often took umbrage when his feelings were hurt. Who fell out with his missus and son and made up again. Occasionally he fell out with me but I learned to grovel and he’d appear again as if nothing had happened.

At the beginning, many years ago, he came all day and worked all day. At lunchtime he ate his sandwiches sitting in the car, listening to the radio for half an hour; we had a mid morning cup of tea and another one in the afternoon, when Beloved joined us. After work he’d stop and sit on the terrace and talk. And talk. And talk. Usually I was ready to call it a day by then, ready to have a wash and collapse and often wished him gone. But old gardener could not be hurried when he didn’t feel like it. It was always just another cigarette. A dreadful Woodbine, one of the worst for nicotine content.

Later on, after he had a heart attack, he came for a morning once a week, maybe four hours. But even in those four hours he did the work of two men.  During the last year, until last winter, when he stopped coming altogether, he did less, sat down on a bench and rested now and then for a few minutes. His work got less careful, some jobs he simply didn’t undertake. I always forgave him, I had plenty of other problems to worry me what with Beloved falling ill and later on being poorly myself. We did what we could between us although he most certainly did the lion’s share.

Throughout his decline he continued to smoke. He said he had taken advice and now smoked filter-tipped cigarettes. He was quite pleased with  himself. When I pointed out to him that he smoked his cigarettes right down to the filter, getting the full blast of nicotine, he waved my comment away. When I told him to only half load the wheelbarrow, to lift smaller weights of bags, to turn the compost heaps over two work sessions rather than the one, he waved those concerns away too. Instead he deliberately lifted an even heavier weight with a face that said :’that’ll show her with her interfering ways’.

Gardener was 73 when he died. In this valley the ‘leaving’ age is mid eighties, there are plenty of 90 year olds. Gardener had a hard life, leaving school at 14 and going straight into farm labour where he stayed until the landowner sold his herd and gardener, who was  the cattle man, became unemployed. In late middle age he took up gardening for people. He knew nothing about it but was willing to learn, which he did, and although I had to watch him when he got too near ripping up one of my prize specimen in his eagerness for a scorched earth policy, he also learned to ask, most of the time, at least. Occasionally he dug up first and asked later but those occasions got fewer and farther between.

I am sure it was hard work and smoking which did for him. Last autumn we sat side by side on a bench in Beloved's memorial garden and talked. He told me that he had savings, of wich he was very proud, and he was looking forward to doing less and less and maybe treating himself. To what, I don’t know. Gardener knew little beyond work, his interests were few and Jane, his wife, had made him get rid of his beloved homing pigeons. “Filthy vermin” she said. Instead they adopted a little dog, a small terrier like creature, an awful yapper. He loved that little dog and could talk about her antics for hours. Jane too loved the dog, he said, but neither of them ever thought to give it a name.

While we were sitting talking and he was telling me about his savings he said “if I don’t make it at least Jane will have something to keep her going.” I was surprised that this wiry, stringy, tough old, 'horny handed son of the soil’ had a soft side and that he was willing to share it with me.

I miss you, old friend, and not only because I miss your work. There’ll never be another Austin.

More This and That

'There is no more ridiculous custom than the one that makes you express sympathy once and for all on a given day to a person whose sorrow will endure as long as his life. Such grief, felt in such a way is always present, it is never too late to talk about it, never repetitious to mention it again'.
Marcel Proust

My friend Sue sent me this quote. She also said it might make her want to read A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. The quote I appreciate very much, it’s utterly simple and deeply true. But read Remembrance of Things Past? Seven volumes of a total of 3,031 pages, containing more than 1,267,069 words, and more than 2,000 characters — it's a daunting read; not surprisingly, it is one of the longest novels of all time. Proust is also one of the greatest novelists of all time and this novel is his magnum opus, but starting to read it now? ‘Had we but world enough and time’ (Andrew Marvell’s ‘To his coy Mistress’) comes to mind. So Proust will remain unread by me. I had an idea after reading the quote : why not call the novels ‘Nostalgia’ for short? I thought that was rather clever of me but I don’t suppose many others do. Perhaps it’s someone else’s idea and  I just read it somewhere and I’m not really clever?

I helped bury a good friend of ours last Monday by attending his funeral, a man who’s son said of him in his eulogy :”my dad was an intellectual, to the point of possibly being a snob about it.” I like that. I like unashamed elitism, provided you keep it in the family, as it were.

Millie is becoming an ever greater worry. She tumbled down part of the stairs again. The vet said to make her stay downstairs, but how? My friend said to put a suitcase on the bottom step. Millie follows me around wherever I go in the house. She is on steroids now but really, she suffers from old age for which there is no cure. She has gone deaf too. When a vet says ‘it’s a question of quality of life now’ you know what o’clock it is. The other day we went on to the castle bailey where a lot of tourists were admiring the ruins. As she is wont to do, she went to every group for a bit of attention and to say hello and most people cuddled and stroked her. She obviously got confused by the assorted legs and hands, so she just lay down for a bit. I was down the hill by the five bar gate back into the field by now, waiting for her. I called and whistled and created quite a kerfuffle myself but she couldn’t hear me and, in the end, several people led her down the hill towards me. Clambering back up to meet them halfway I hurt my sore knee all over again; I am still limping.

Going to the gym with my sore knee is a bit of a problem too. I can’t put weight on it which means the treadmill and similar machines are out. But the rower and standbikes are fine. As are machines which I hope will reduce my flabby batwing upper arms a bit. I hate showing bare arms, I suppose anybody over fifty does. On the whole, I have quite taken to gym workouts, and Dan, my Fitness Instructor, who has measured my progress, is pleased with me. I have the suspicion that FIs are conditioned to praise all of their guinea pigs, how else are you going to go on jumping through the hoops? We all need to be praised. I genuinely like the gym because the exercise makes me feel good but I still have to force myself to go sometimes. Contrary creatures, we humans.

Old gardener comes two mornings a week at the moment. Because of the long winter and late start of the gardening year everything was delayed; with warmer days having arrived there was a sudden explosion of growth and, almost overnight, bare branches, dead plant stems and bare patches turned green, with weeds mostly. Gardener rests more often than he used to do but he still works very hard for a man of his age. I don’t mind a bit, it gives me a chance to chat. He and his missus seem to be happy in the new house, she even buys plants for the small garden, which is unheard of. They’ll have been married for fifty years in July. Gardener is already grumbling that they’ll be spending money on a tea party for the family and that he will be spending yet more when he takes her out for a celebratory meal. Like many of his background he grumbles about spending money on non-essentials when secretly he is proud that he has it to spend. Or so I read him, anyway.

I tried and

yes, it has helped.

It may have something to do with the weather or it may have something to do with a change in attitude, there is most certainly an occasional feeling of positivity. Strange how being told to “get your hair cut” and doing exactly that, can kickstart a new beginning.



Romeo and Juliet, a 'pair of star-crossed lovers’ who marry in secret and ultimately die because of their feuding families, at the RSC Stratford, was part of it. It’s not my favourite Shakespeare play but it certainly has some wonderful lines.

'Parting is such sweet sorrow.'

Are there lines more apt than these to describe the sadness at the loss of a loved one?

When we go to Stratford we often stop at a brand new upmarket supermarket for some choice foodie items on the way home. As we did this time.

In supermarkets many of the pre-packed things come in twos, two of fish filet, vegetables for two, puddings and pies for two, etc. I buy these double portions and put one in the freezer, but they just don’t taste as good as fresh. So, this time I decided not to freeze but share the largesse with a friend, from starters to main course to pudding, thereby renewing my pleasure in entertaining; (and not doing much of the cooking myself). Having just one chosen friend to a meal or a glass of something cool and delicious has boosted my confidence after two years of no invitations to the house at all. Sitting outside on a hot day, nibbling delicacies, drinking sparkling wine and gently discussing minor matters of the day, lifts the spirits of the gloomiest person.

Having single friends (not all widows) to a meal is not all I did, I also made dates with friends for meals at pubs and restaurants, common or garden ones in Valley’s End as well as some rather good ones further afield. And enjoyed them all. It still feels strange to do these things without Beloved and I still have the urge to tell him about them when I get home. It also still takes some time to realise that I can’t and never will again. Perhaps that will wear off in time?

There was a day out in Ludlow with a friend which was rather a success. Do you know these outings when everything falls into place? For months I had been saving up small jobs that needed a visit to a town of a size greater than the nearest one down the road. Really small things like a new watch battery, also a tiny battery for my kitchen timer which hadn’t worked for a good six months, a couple of visits to a bank and a building society, a particular kind of bath sponge only found at one particular chemist, a new pair of trainers, a drop off of a box of books at a charity shop, taking a poster to be framed, etc. I finally treated myself to some orange peel sticks coated in dark chocolate at the Chocolate Gourmet and came away happy that everything had been achieved. To top it off my friend took me to a pub for lunch. It doesn’t take much to rediscover that pleasure can be had for very little effort. If food is involved, it seems, my pleasure is almost guaranteed. I do rather mention food a lot.

Something else has taken up my time, requiring greater effort but easily achieved: the garden is once more on my agenda. Old gardener is back with me whenever the weather allows and the two of us garden companionably. We have our break, just as before, and gardener tells me about his adventures in his new home. His ‘missus’ seems to favour frequent house moves and he quietly - grumbling under his breath - falls in with her wishes. I think he is a bit scared of her. A couple of widows live near him and both have twigged that he does gardening. “I don’t want it known”, he said to me, “I wonder how they found out.” One of them he rather likes the look of. “She’s right tidy looking,” he said, meaning she’s attractive. An Italian lady, he thinks, with a name he can’t pronounce. He has now given up his bigger jobs like the one at the ‘Manor’ and only looks after me and another German lady. I can see him acquiring the Italian lady too. Possibly as an antidote to his grumpy wife. At seventy I feel he is entitled to a little light relief.

Weather for Chickens - Permutations 1

I am not a summer person; I also know we haven’t quite got there yet except meteorologically, but yesterday and Thursday we definitely had the kind of day that passes for summer in these islands. I am itching already and the bits of me that have caught the sun are turning spotty. I can’t abide getting sweaty just breathing.

 It has to be said, however, that you get a better class of weeds in summer than at any other time. 

I had an errand at the other end of the village, all of ten minutes walk away if you use the High Street, but I chose the scenic route, which takes another five minutes each way. and to distract myself from the heat of the morning I took pictures, while dodging sunlit open spaces and seeking any kind of shade I could find along the way. Millie came too and she was huffing and puffing, her tongue flopping at the side of her mouth and her pace leisurely. No mad dashing about following smells, more a patient and long-suffering acceptance expressed in every flap of ear and flick of tail. A less superior being would have raised its eyes and sighed deeply at the imposition.

Not exactly a weed, this laburnum tree, but there it was, hanging over the wall by the petrol station. Yes we have one of those; it sells bread and a few other kinds of long-life groceries and you can rent videos too.  Although the pumps are set in concrete, the surrounding yard is tufty grass and there is a flower bed in front of it and round the back and sides you have hedges. And a laburnum tree. Gardener calls it Chains.There is a big shed where you have repairs done and buy 4x4s and trucks, old ones, of course. A small Jack Russell, one of the yapping, bossy kind, guards the forecourt. I am surprised to see he has lasted as long as he has without getting squashed. I don’t like Jack Russells, they attack Millie.

Gardener isn’t very well again. I rang his wife this morning to see if he was coming and she said “oh no, he won’t”. Bang, just like that. She sounded really cross. “Oh?” I said, putting a whole questionnaire into the sound.

“He’s not well, he’s had a turn.”
“What kind of turn?” She really was making me earn every utterance.
“Same as before.” She was unbending just a smidgen. “He hasn’t worked all week.”
“Has he seen a doctor?”
“No”,  a bark; back to basics.
“Can’t you send him?”
“No.”
“Have your tried?”
“No, I’ve given up on him. He’s worked too much, and when he works, he works like a maniac. Just won’t listen. I’ve given up.”

Since the weather has warmed up I’ve noticed Gardener sitting down more. You are my witness, I have said before that he’s not the man he used to be. And I’ve been happy to sit with him. Neither am I the woman I once was.

What with Gardener and Paul’s frequent ’turns’ not much gets done.  It seems to be time that I hired myself a gardener, a fit and able one who will last at least as long as me. Number three. I’ll try not to get confused. Poor Austin, I shall miss him. Dreadfully. I love the contrary old goat. (Did you notice I called him by his name? First time ever)

Anyway I am still on my errand. Right opposite the garage, in  Hospital Lane, on the wall surrounding the Methodist Church, a whole long and wide swathe of campanula has taken up residence without a by-your-leave. Nobody’s planted it, it just arrived years ago and has settled in nicely, thank you. It probably escaped from somebody’s rockery originally and cannot be called a weed either.

That reminds me, this was to be a post about weeds, among other things. I’ll have to come back to you on that. Tomorrow. I wonder how many posts I can get out of a 30 minutes’ walk.

Advent Diary, day 22 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (3rd of 3)

"Mrs. Dollor had us on the step when we was kids, telling us the time, she teached, she taught us the time, she learned us she did, all of us.

Best time was when we come home from school. We’d wait for the bus then, about half past four. The bus driver used to get the papers for people and he’d chuck them straight through the window like, somewhere where we lived, and us boys would all line up and see who could catch the papers. Whoever caught them, took em, you see, 'cause we’d get an apple or some sweets if we took the papers that night. There’d be fighting between us who’d get to take the papers. It’s a wonder they got their papers all in one. Of course the furthest away would give you some apples and then you’d eat 'em all before you got home because you dinna wanna share 'em. You’d take your time coming back. We used to have to walk, didn’t have pushbikes or anything, always had to walk to take 'em.

We used to pick all the apples around our way, and the blackberries. There weren’t no blackberries round our way we didn’t pick. And hazelnuts. The only thing dad ever did with us was when we were sledging, he used to come sledging with us, and the other time was when we were picking hazelnuts.

Our mum, we'd go on the road with her, like, with the big pram and the baby would be in there and another one sat on the side like,  and another one in her tummy likely. and we’d go down the road like and her’d say pull the sticks out of the hedge,  and her would fill the pram across like and you couldn’t see the baby in the pram  because these sticks is all across, We’d get 'em home like and we’d saw em up for firewood for her. Wonder the farmers didn’t curse us for taking the sticks from the hedge. And she’d have this sack round her and go in the fields to help pick potatoes for the farmers and the pram’d stand in the middle of the field and when we got home like the pram was full of spuds. We had to pull the pram off the field some days when it was really wet. The farmer came round and mother got payed like; mother had the money, we never had any of it.  If she saw big ones, mother‘d say 'cover 'em over', we’ll have them later on.

Them were days them were. We never sat in the house, we was miserable when it was wet because we couldn’t go out, be under mother’s feet.  Good days they were, everybody the same. You’d leave your back door open. Monday morning was wash morning and everybody have their washing out on the same day. We’d just have a bath on a Sunday night. all of us in a cold bath. You’d fill it up with hot water from the boiler like and we’d all get in there,  we all had the same water, three in a bath like. Mother then put all the clothes in and soaked em all, to get most of the muck off like and then fill the boiler again and boil the water again and put all the washing in the boiler  and you’d have a big stick like and stir it all up. Then you’d rinse 'em all out and put 'em in this old mangle. We’d turn the handle for her and then Monday morning out on the line they went. Bloody great line about half mile long, nappies, nappies all the way.

Yes three of us in a bath. and we’d all try to get in first, because it was hot then, by the time you got out and the next lot went in, the water was cold. so you’d all be willing to get in quick like, girls or boys, be first to get in like, and it’d be clean water then.  There’d be an old scullery, somewhere at the back and everybody’d be shivering like mad, once you got out of the warm water, be bloody cold, shaking like, specially in the winter. In them days there was no heating. You’d run into the kitchen to the stove to dry off, and we never  had colds, we was hardy. It’s that entral heating you get colds from, innit,  have it too hot and then go out in the cold. That’s what does it.”

Postscriptum

Some commenters have assumed that Gardener must be a very old man and that his stories tell of a time long gone. Not so. Gardener is in his 60s and he was a boy in the 1950s when times in rural England and Wales were still very hard for the peasants and birth control was unheard of.

Advent Diary, day 21 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (2nd of 3)

"I got me christening card and me bible and all that. I was  five when I was christenend. I had three or four behind me, following me like, a little baby and I think there was three others between me and the baby, we was all christened together. It didn’t make  me cry; they dinna pick me up either, they put some water on me forehead.

O aye, there used to be a lot of us there on a Sunday morning at Sunday School, that’s the only time we ever got dressed up. When we got home mother said take all them clean clothes off, put the dirty ones on, go out and play now.  I had a little pillover, mother had knitted, short sleeves like, I think I was about five year when I first had it. I give it up when I was about ten. I used to pull it down, but I grew out of it like, over five years.

Mother’d knit a sleeveless pillover in a night. Knit the back, do the front, then sew it all up. Her was quick, never looked at it like, the needles was going but you never see her look at it. We used to hold the wool out and roll it all up for her.

We made a fair few carpets too. We used to cut the cloth to a certain length then you’d pull it through the mat. We did a hell of a lot of them for mother. My eldest sister went to Bridgenorth when her first left school. Her went to a carpet factory and her used to bring these offcut carpets and the wool like and we used to do it all with wool like, and patterns too; used to keep us busy at night. No telly then.  One’d be doing one pattern, the other’d be doing another. 

Could be about eight of us living at home at one time; three in a bed; me older brother and me younger brother. But he had more sense because he used to sleep in the middle and come winter time he used to pull the blankets and there’d be none on your side and the other brother used to sleep against the wall, so he could never lose his like, and I’d be on the outside and I’d be the one with nothing on me. We’d be tugging away there. trying to get covered.

We went to Felindre  once and we stopped the night at me mum’s mother. She was in bed like, her was getting on,  her couldn’t get out of bed like and her’d have this stick and her’d be banging on the floor like and we’d be down below, listening. Her was just like a witch. The bedroom was all one big room with curtains like,  and we stopped this night and there was eight of us in one bed, and her was there round the corner, grumbling and mumbling like, just like a bloody witch.

Me dad went with his brother in law fishing, salmon fishing like, and they didn’t get caught. Next morning, early light, we get back to Weston, that’s down the dale; we went to school at Compton. Of course, when we got home, we missed the bloody bus. The bus used to take us about two and a half  miles and then we used to have to walk about another mile to school. So we all had to walk down the road to school like; you had to, you couldn’t stay at home like because you'd missed the bus. We all walked together and we got to school.

We had to walk another mile when the bus dropped us off, there was a happle tree on the right hand side; of course, being kids, we used to pick up sticks and chuck them in the tree like to get the apples to fall and catch ‘em, and if it had been a windy night you’d go the next morning and there’d be umpteen sticks in the road, all the sticks that had got stuck in the tree. Same as the conker tree it was; we were always there chucking our sticks up to get the conkers down. In the village we had a big hole in the hedge and there was a horchard off the road. Mrs. Dollor owned it and us kids, we dared one another to go, you know, go on, get through the hole, and get some apples like. I mean if we’d a gone and ast her, her’d have given us some apples. But it was just for the dare like, we had to dare ourselves like. We were right buggers for pinching."

final instalment tomorrow.

Advent Diary, day 20 - Gardener’s Christmas Tales (1st of 3)

A scene from “A Christmas Carol”  filmed in Shrewsbury.

This is Fish Street, with the Bear Steps just off to the left.

So, in December the garden is mainly found in a great number of garden catalogues. The gardener herself hibernates under glass in a heated room, buried up to the neck, 

not in compost, but in garden catalogues and books.

Gardener turned up not so much for work as to bring annual Christmas greetings, coming into the kitchen with clean boots, well-scraped on the mat, and ready for a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a long leisurely ramble over the past.

One of gardener’s pet grumbles is the ingratitude shown by kids. He had been telling us his favourite Halloween story, about how he’d given a ‘whole ruck of them’ sweets and bags of crisps, and how the ungrateful little blighters had opened the bags on their way to the garden gate and tipped them all out on the path. “They never got nothing from me any other year!” Gardener snorted in disgust.

“Christmas is just the same”, he continued."Who believes in Christmas today;  people under forty. they don’t even bother to go to Church, do they.”  (Gardener is not in the least religious)

“We were lucky if we got a present, a horange and a napple is what we got. The kids today’d chuck it back at you. Apple and orange is good for you, they tell you years ago. Fruits is good for you. Now kids don’t wanna eat it. If you had a banana they took the skin off you. I reckon if we all went to Church the world would be a lot better place. if everybody made a heffort to go to Church on a Sunday, dress up and go to Church, get to know all your locals and that, it would be a better place, like it did years ago. Like in Wales, see, they had Chapels, they used to dress up, all in their nines, go to chapel and they talk then, they’d get to talking, and they knew everybody in the village, all the scandal like."

"I can see my grandad now, with his trilby hat on and his suit on and his tie and all dressed up to the nines and his wife, granny, her ‘d have her big hat on as well, every Sunday, they’d walk about 2 1/2 miles to the Chapel. That’s the only time her take her pinny off, to go to Church Sunday morning, 11 o’clock like. get back for one o’clock for dinner and that. You’d put your meat in in the morning. and be back for one o’clock."

"The Welsh are more religious than what we are, chapelwise.  I used to go to Sunday school every Sunday from the age of 4 till I was 10 and-a-half. We left then, but up until then, every Sunday morning we was off to chapel, 2 miles away, we’d walk, all of us, we’d do drawing and all sorts, up at Ditton Priors. It’s still there, the little Chapel is.  Then at Christmas, we’d have a big do, in the main big Church, and in the Village Hall, and they used to give us a little present each, more than we had of our parents like.  It was a toy off the big christmas tree and they’d call your name out and you’d have to go to get your little parcel like, up under the tree."

"Mother’d give us a penny and you’d buy a penny stamp see and you’d put it in a book, off a Sunday, then you’d have your penny stamps all in there, I think mother got all the books, well I don’t know who’s got them now, but somebody’s got all the books, because we never cashed them in, so some lucky bugger’s got em or they’ve all been chucked away."

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.

Self-Preservation Or How To Please All Of The People

“I told them I’d be backup.”

Gardener and I had been hard at it all morning lifting and lopping tree branches to let more light into the garden and also to incorporate the pretty views outside the hedges into the picture inside. Borrowing the scenery comes free.

He looked over the wall into the square and saw the town hall clock showing the wrong time, as it usually does. Valley’s End follows its own time schedule. “We do things our way and we’ll have nobody from off interfering in our business, thank you very much”, is the friendly advice newcomers receive from the ur-inhabitants.

That doesn’t mean that said ur-inhabitants actually do very much. They are happy to leave town council and parish business to more recent incomers and if it weren’t for the latter, the town would have collapsed into a picturesque ruin long ago.

But back to gardener and the town hall.

“Do they do anything there now?”, he asked.

“They certainly do, it’s an interesting little museum exhibiting local history artefacts,” I said. In common with many other incomers, in previous years, both Beloved and I did stints as guides and brochure sellers on several days during the summer in the slightly dusty two-room museum.  In years gone by the town hall also served as the lock-up, but that really was a long time ago.

“Forty year ago, when I were a lad, they had dances there on a Saturday.  And all the lads from over Knighton way (in Wales) and the Castle (Bishop’s Castle - the next little town up the road) come over, looking for a fight. And when the Irish lads from Telford come, there was real trouble.” Gardener giggled his infectious, gleeful giggle, remembering the good old days. Then, just for a moment, he was serious.

“There were gangs in them days, all the lads from the same town and the villages along the valley belonged to their gang;  and if you didn’t fight in your gang, you’d be called a coward. It wasn’t nice to be a coward; on the farms and in the towns they’d know you for it.” Gardener looked at me sideways, a crafty expression in his eyes. His small, wiry person all of a sudden seemed to be ducking and diving.

“So I’d usually stay at the back, a look-out like, and when the lads at the front had done fighting, and the police was on their way, I’d scarper like. Nobody could call me a coward for that. I’d kept their backs.”

He giggled again, quite proud of himself.
Then he sat down on the low wall around the half moon flower border, clearing his throat before taking another drag on his cigarette.

“Haven’t you forgotten to tell me something?” He exhaled through his nose and peered at me.

“Have I?” I was fidgeting a bit. A bad conscience makes cowards of us all.

“Where’s the ivy gone?”

“Ivy? What ivy?”

“On the stump.”

“Ah, that ivy.”

“So you got somebody for that, did you?”

I’d been pointing out to him for a year or more that
the ivy on the stump was swallowing and killing my
‘Wedding Day’, a beautiful climbing rose and
that I wanted it freed and the ivy trimmed back.

Lately, gardener has shown himself unwilling to do
much climbing himself. So I took a deep breath and
went behind his back to Paul, whom I had been considering as a possible replacement for Gardener.

As you can see, Paul did the job.

Gardener grudgingly admitted that whoever had done it, had made a good job of it. What he doesn’t know is that Paul has since done various other jobs for me and that he might become a regular over time.

Which means that I’ve gone from half a gardener to two gardeners in the space of a month. Because of Gardener’s long illness and absence a lot of work has been left undone and, for the time being, I’m going to let both of them come, on separate days of the week, to catch up. Paul is tinkering around the edges while Gardener is doing jobs he had earmarked for a long time.

I’m hoping that I’ll get away with it until the weather stops work anyway. If not, I’m in trouble.
Perhaps I could call Paul ‘gardener’s backup’?

“How much blood is there?"

Beloved had another BCC*  removed this week.

Gardener, Beloved and I are having a tea break, not one of us is feeling very active and a tea break is a good excuse to down tools.

"Bleeding a bit.”

"You take thinners do you?”  Gardener thinks that’s funny and cackles. So, they got the scalper out, did they? Yeah, it’s bleeding alright. They ought to have cauterized it".

"They did. Nasty smell, burning me.”

“I don’t hold with doctors much.” That’s rich, coming from a man who had a heart attack a couple of years ago, was taken to hospital by air ambulance and was given a stent within hours of arriving there.“You see some bloody doctor and he don’t know what he’s talking about. That’s all I see nowadays; all them locums, waiting, waiting. It’s a bloody pain, going there.”

We suggest that he changes surgeries, goes to one a bit nearer home.

“The missis keeps saying her might be putting the house on the market; I don’t know if it’s worth it. They’re gonna build new houses round us, two-three bedroom houses all down to the road. we’ll be shut in the middle then. And who’re they building them for? Bloody layabouts from bloody Telford. And we’ll be paying the poll tax for them.” 

“Layabouts from Telford can’t afford to buy two-three bedroom houses?” My remark makes Gardener snort in disgust.

“They won’t be buying them, they'll be renting them and we’ll be paying the rent. And the poll tax. That’s what it’ll be for. Bloody overflow from Telford.”

Common sense won’t get us anywhere with Gardener. It’s decades since the poll tax was abandoned. And the new estates are for sale, not rent. Beloved goes into generalities about building houses and we change conversational tack.

“What on earth have you got your left hand in the sling for?” It’s his right arm which had the operation.

“Just to put it somewhere."

"He’ll have his foot in there next”, says Gardener.

A dog is yapping in the distance.

"Ours does that. Her’s in the window and every time her sees a dog in the field her shoots through the conservatory and rushes out to the fence for when they come back. Her never misses anybody. Her’s got her bloody eye on whoever's gonna come down there and her’s out.  Her sits by my side like on the settee, and off her goes. Her wants to join them. But you cannot trust her.” You can hear the regret in  Gardener’s voice. His dog is a maniac, a tiny little mongrel with the heart of a lion and totally untrained.

That’s the end of that topic. Gardener looks round for something else to comment on.

“I see we got some nuts on the walnut. They won’t come to anything, you need a proper walnut for that.” 

I don’t know what’s improper about our walnut tree, it looks  quite respectable to me.

“They come from some other country.” Beloved seems to agree with gardener about our tree being incapable of producing edible nuts.

“Mind, we always had hazelnuts. Hazelnuts, they’re alright. Gardener starts a story about his childhood, I’ve been waiting for him to do that.

"Dad used to come out with us,  on a Sunday morning. He had a big hook he did, and he used to shake the bloody thing like and we’d be picking them all up. He  used to shake the tree really hard and we’d get hit on the bloody head with the nuts. It’s something dad always did with us. He always seemed to know when they was ready. Big nuts they were.

Then he’d put them in the big milk tins like, from the NHS like you used to get milk powder in. Dad put them all in the tins and put some salt on top and dig holes in the garden and put the tins in. We had them for Christmas. Dad always knew where he put them but we never did.” Gardener chuckles affectionately.

It’s time we went back to work.



*BCC: basal cell carcinoma, an operable skin cancer.

Slaughter At Valley’s End - Dove Slain

A thud
A crash
A scream.

Rushing to the back door,

The evidence left behind

a look confirms what we feared
has happened.

But wait.
A bird has crashed into the window,
that is so,
but who stands proud on the fallen dove?

Sparrowhawk,
merciless killing machine
chased her hapless prey into a blind alley,
triumphant
in the blink of an eye.

Victor and victim,
hunter and quarry,
part of the cycle of life.


Birds form almost the entire diet of the sparrowhawk; they take any bird from the smallest tit to a full grown grouse. Game birds, particularly smaller, immature birds, as well as lapwing, wood pigeons, collared doves - as in this case - and jay, are well within the female bird’s capabilities. The adult male is smaller, he seldom weighs more than150 gm (5 ounces). Even he will sometimes kill birds as large as himself.  Sparrowhawks are classic opportunists; a bird table in the garden is an open invitation to them, which means that gardens have become their favourite killing fields.

15 minutes later in a flowerbed.
Conclusive evidence. The hawk took off with the
plucked remains.

Gardener is a pigeon fancier; for years he kept pigeons in his backyard; some of his birds were valuable, successful racers; sparrowhawks took more than one of them. Gardener tells a story of him lying in wait in the open window, shotgun trained on the bird table, which the hawk visited at roughly the same time in late afternoon each day. As if the raptor knew the fate which awaited him, he stayed away on that day. And the next. And the next again. Gardener almost gave up. He was going to give it one more day and, sure enough, the hawk appeared suddenly, at great speed, out of a thorn hedge, making for a bird on the table. Gardener blasted him.

I hate this story and killing raptors is now prohibited. But when you see a sparrowhawk stooped over a fresh-plucked songbird, with wings cowling the victim like a vampire’s cape, I defy any one not to be distressed. I have song thrushes nesting in the hedge.This bird is becoming rarer every year. At 5.30 every morning, the male pours his loud, bell-like clarion wake-up call across the garden from the top of the tall conifer; should I not hear this sound one morning before the end of the natural season and  the hawk have killed my thrushes, I’d wish for a shotgun myself. I know that sparrowhawks have every right to survive too but, please, leave my songbirds lone. Take a rook or jackdaw, maybe another collared dove or two, even a pigeon or gamebird. It’s the second time that I’ve seen the hawk linger by the bird table and I’ve seen him pick off a feeding sparrow and bluetit , which gave me an unhappy jolt both times.  Perhaps I’d better move the feeding station or stop feeding altogether.

Hawks are not afraid of people, so standing guard won’t help.

Thank you very much, Hilary, much appreciated.

Gardener’s Tales

Before Gardener’s ministrations this week the garden was rather colourful,  ash tree and ornamental cherry had left the ground and small shrubs covered in a layer of gold and red. I felt almost sorry when this glorious carpet disappeared by means of his rake. There are plenty more leaves to come, of course, it’s just that the early drop-outs are particularly pretty. But they need raking and collecting,  otherwise they’d soon turn mushy and slippery. I do, however, leave them lying on the borders for worms and beetles to dispose of during the winter months.

When tea break came, Gardener told me a story which is too good to leave unrecorded. In a past life he was  the cowman on one of the oldest estates in the county,  dating back to the twelfth century, which is still owned by the original family, although the current branch can ‘only’ trace its roots back to the 16th century. 

©  Gill Cardy ARPS

PLOWDEN HALL, LYDBURY NORTH, SOUTH SHROPSHIRE, 

Gardener has often told me about his cows; he knew them all and they recognised him as their master. He took care of them,  called the vet when they needed attention,  chased them down the lane when one or two decided to go walkabout and played them loud music. “They loved it”, he said, “well, I did, anyways.”

Every morning the Lord came to the milking parlour while Gardener was in the pit between two rows of cows, attaching the cups for milking. The Lord kept a record of the previous day’s yield and while he made notes, he and gardener discussed general matters pertaining to the herd. One morning the Lord was in a hurry. He turned up in his hunting pink, obviously ready to join the hunt as soon as he’d finished in the parlour.

“He always came through the dairy”, Gardener said, "and stood in the entrance to the parlour near the head of the first cow and wrote in his little book. This day he tried to come in past the cows from the other end. He must have pushed the last cow as he tried to squeeze past. They don’t like being disturbed during milking, I never spoke to them loud, just kept quiet and steady.”

“So, there he was, all shiny and clean and polished,” Gardener continued, “ and when he pushed the cow, she coughed. Just the once.” Gardener’s face cracked into a wicked grin. He pursed his lips and blew a gigantic raspberry, much as the cow must have done from her southern end. “Oh, he didn’t like it at all,” he said, “ all down his front it was; she was a bit loose too, nice and wet.”

“Furious, he was.” Gardener chuckled, and then his face became thoughtful. "He should have known what would happen, him owning a large herd and a landowner and all. No, I tell you, cows don’t like being disturbed during milking. Nice and steady is what they like.”

Gardener's Big Adventure

Gardener last summer

"Summat wrong here, I thought."

Gardener came by for a cup of tea yesterday.  A loud knock on the back door, a shout of 'hello" and "where's the gardener, canna see her working" ( meaning me), and he's in the kitchen. Bright and cheerful. When I asked if the doctors had given him permission to drive again, he said "Didn't ask them". Of course, what was I thinking. Gardener doesn't ask questions to which he might not like the answer.

"So there I was" he said, "sawing logs on the saw bench; I had the tractor with me and the saw box on the back and sometimes I had to use the chainsaw as well; lifting the trunks on the bench and piling the logs in the box. It was a big job and I thought I'd better get it done."

"I'd been having this pain in me chest for a couple of weeks but I thought I'd just pulled a muscle or summat. Then I got this pain, and it was bad, so I rested a bit and it eased off, so I started again. Every time the pain came, I stopped and then went at it again. And then I broke into a sweat and was sick".

"Hallo", I thought", he continued, "this is not good. Summat wrong here. I knew Mr. Beresford was up the field and wouldn't be back for a twenty minute or so, so I lay on the ground. The pain was summat awful".

"When the amblance come, the chap kept asking how bad the pain was. Nought to Ten, he said. Well,  I didn't know.  Anyway, after he give me the morphine, I didn't have no pain no more".

"In the air amblance they only put me flat on the stretcher and I couldn't see a thing except the roof". Gardener seems genuinely aggrieved that he wasn't given a window seat.

"No windows in the roof, see. So I asked  if they could take me home again by amblance; I've never been up in the air before. It would of bin nice to see everything on the ground".

Throughout his tale he interrupts himself now and then to cackle heartily and take a big gulp of tea. Beloved has given him his usual mug which holds close on twice as much as an ordinary mug.

"When we landed there were all these people round the 'elicopter. This woman bends over me and says she's Sister Margaret and how she's in charge of me. Next thing I know they got me on an hoperating table, slapping summat icy cold on my arm and I'm gone. I don't know nothing".

Clearly, he is still totally surprised by how quickly and efficiently they dealt with him. His foxy grin shows how pleased he is to be telling the tale.

He goes on: "And then I'm in the ward, no pain nor nothing, and the nurse comes and asks if I want a cup of tea. Sure, I tell her, and you can tell them amblance drivers they can fly me home again. She says, no, not yet, we'll have to keep you here for a few days".

"And they've got all these machines on me, and I've got tubes in me arm and me hand and they've got me pinned down. And they keep coming for blood all the time too. So I asks them, what they're gonna do with it all, if they're gonna sell it".

It looks like this part of the tale is coming to an end. He was indeed taken home three days later, by road. But now he goes into medical details.

"So now I've got this stent in me hartery, and they blow it up and it opens the hartery so I get enough hoxigin to me heart. They said that I had a blood clot blocking the hartery and that's where all the pain come from. That Dr. Lambert should have known summat was wrong when I went to see her".

He is right,  his GP did miss the danger signals three weeks earlier; she should have known that Gardener, who never sees a doctor unless he is practically on his death bed, wasn't visiting her from boredom.

Anyway, he is feeling well, if a little scared. "How many lives have I had now", he asks wistfully. He's fallen out of trees, has had several operations on his back and limbs and isn't always careful when it comes to operating machinery or lifting heavy weights. A little of the cockiness has been knocked out of him this time, I think. Knowing him, it'll probably come back before long.

We finished the visit by taking a stroll round the garden. "I see you've had the 'edge done", he says. "Tidy job", he says. That's praise, coming from him. He's never very complimentary about other people's work. I think he is secretly very glad that he won't have to do it himself. "They got me doin' these hexercises", he says. "I must hexurt myself." This is obviously a new word in his vocabulary, he makes several false starts before he trusts himself with it. "Waste of time, if you ask me. They got me on a bike and a treadmill and when I get going properly, they tell me not so fast, take it easy. Better to start doing little bits of work, maybe an hour or two". He means it.

But he knows as well as I do, that he needs to heal first, to build up his strength and that he must be sensible and take care. He cracked one of his cheeky jokes. "When I get back, we'll have to swap. You do what I did and I'll do what you did".

I can't wait to have him back, but I'll be keeping a very close eye on him. I am, however, under absolutely no illusion that he'll listen to me.

Gardener

has been been a happy and not so happy subject on my blog several times. Remember the time he almost burnt the garden down?  Or when he cut back the beauty bush and other shrubs BEFORE flowering?  There was the time when he put great piles of the most pernicious weed in my garden, the blessed lesser celandine, in the compost heap and we had to discard a whole spring's worth of compost, tipping many barrow loads of  it on to the banks of the moat just outside the gate. Admittedly, since then we have had golden carpets of celandine right outside the garden every spring. He has learned quite a lot about gardens and gardening since his days as a cowman, but he'll always need somebody to keep a close eye on him.

Gardener has had a heart attack and I miss him dreadfully. Not only because I have to work three times as hard myself now but I also miss the stories he told during our tea breaks and while we were working side by side. Being a real, died in the wool, countryman of the old school, very conservative,  full of mischief,  I often get cross with him. On occasion, his right-wing opinions make me bite my tongue, something I would never do with anyone else.

The way he mangles the language is priceless. I love gardener-isms, but I'd never laugh at him. He must have some form of verbal dyslexia.

Only a week before he had his heart attack, he went to visit his terminally ill brother in a hostel, (hospice) he said. "They can't  keep on giving him blood all the time. It's getting too expensive. He has something wrong with his corsuples. What can you expect, he abused himself all his life, being an alocolic."

"And as for that worbal gloaming, I don't believe in it. It's nonsense. My chimmuck nearly caught on fire last winter, I had the fire going perament".

I've never found out what a "compensating nuisance" is or a "disaffectened MMR virus", but I have an idea what he means when he tells me he has been given a bottle of "sloane gin" and I definitely know what hides behind "I let my wife do the dirty". She is the one who deals with unpleasant telephone messages for him, both ringing clients he doesn't want to work for and fielding their irate phone calls to his house.

But gardener and I get on extremely well; we have worked out a relationship which suits us both. I am going to keep his job open for him. I spoke to him today and he told me that he'll give up various clients, but that he'll definitely come and do my 'bit of garden'. If a particular job is too much for him, he'll get me to do it, he giggled. He has a giggle for even the hardest, bleakest tale from his life.

I am glad he reckons that I'm worth cultivating. "We'll just have to have more tea breaks", he said when I spoke to him today. "Besides, you pay me cash".