The Unexpected Guest – Part II

Sometimes last year I told you about this unexpected guest. Yesterday, another one showed up. As I was watering my plants, I noticed a bird I never see in my garden, a duck. So I rushed outside to investigate, as I was pretty sure she had flown in but I couldn't quite figure out why she wouldn't return to where she came from, although it ain't unusual for young ones to lag behind and need some assistance later.



After some running around, she did end up in my porch, and that's where I succeeded in getting hold of her and inspecting feet and wings. She was absolutely fine, apart from a bit of a heart attack, as I could feel her little heart pounding in my hands as I opened the door back to the garden and threw her in the air to check on flight abilities.

She was in good spirits after that, as she wasn't injured, and continued to plod around the garden, drinking from the pond, unearthing worms and picking crickets and spiders in the high grass. So I left her to it, ensuring that both William and Victoria stayed inside. I could see them with their mouths wide open, spit smeared all over the treble-glazing, and figured that Duckie may not have been able to fly after all if I let them out too.



She was still around when I took them for a spin of the garden after dinner, both on lead obviously, but she was clearly setting up for the night as she was calm and cozy in the grass. I checked on her again at nine and I saw that she was surveying the scene from the high-rise of the steps outside the patio doors, probably wondering where on earth the rest of the posse was and whether it would be safe to stop here overnight.



That's what she must have done as I didn't hear a thing since and this morning she was gone. Good luck Duckie, it was good to have you!

Five Twenty-Ten At Seven, Eight and Eleven-Ten

I am a genius. Why don't I take pics like these more often? Why don't I try and point the camera at the very same thing every day at the same hour for a year and see what I record? When I went to bed last night, spiky flurries were dancing by the streetlamps; this morning they had turned themselves into a reasonably thick blanket strewn upon the garden. It almost reminded me of years and years ago, when snow wasn't a freak occurrence but an expected January guest; when there was no talk of global warming but just of winter.

Still, although four feet would be better than four inches, four inches are infinitely better than zero. William walked around as if on booby-trapped eggshells, while Victoria zoomed off into an impalpable white cloud of nothingness. Oh the beauty of the violet hour early this morning! The magic of the sounds wafting from afar! I hope that Rick took his own set of pics when he left for work earlier still; but for now, mine will have to do.

One Twenty-Ten At Three And Ten

When I went to bed at three, the biggest, brightest moon I’ve ever seen was shining high up in the sky, casting her preternatural silver light on all things. My garden, which has recently been described by a friend as Tim Burton-esque, which can equally be seen as either a compliment or an underhand insult, looked positively magical, its hard edges smoothed into delicate embellishments where fairies and winged unicorns frolic. I stood transfixed at the window for ages and thought of what photographers refer to as The Magic Hour, which is sunset or thereabouts, when everything and everyone looks good under the delicate light. Well, I wish I could have captured my magic hour and my magic light.



In the morning, when I woke up with a jolt as I felt I had overslept and had to return to hospital for extra antibiotics they didn’t give us at night, I found a different scene and one that the iPhone’s camera always struggles to capture. It was silver and icy, every strand of old grass coated in glittery icing sugar. Oh the beauty and joy of starting the first morning of the first day of the year in crisp cold air! The day remained quiet and monopolised by Monopoly but I didn’t mind one bit.

Frosty

The smell of winter hadn't been in the air until this morning, when I run out with my phone for a couple of frozen garden shots. Man, how great is it to get up and find a pink sky and the light slicing low, kissing aged grass and late roses? The leaves are very nearly all on the ground and in no time at all, the whole of nature will be asleep for months. Well, I like it, as I told you many times. I like it because winter to me means regeneration and a flurry of activity, even when it all looks dark and still. In fact, I am one of those people whose bio clock ticks along with difficulty between April and August. But I needn’t worry about it now. We’re in the depths of autumn and it's just fab.

When Do The Flowers Go?

It’s not that I ignore the basic life principles but every year in October I always watch in awe as the pears are on the tree one day and gone the next. I have never made a mystery of my dislike of spring summer in favour of autumn winter but there is one spring phenomena that always fascinates me, because it reminds me of watching pears fall in October and wondering where the hell they have all gone one week later.

And that’s the flowers on the trees, all pink, cream, white, candy-flossed, frothed up one day and gone the next, with only a shower of petals in between. Sometimes I even miss that because, really, unless I am sitting outside waiting for the wind to take them away, the flowers always seem to have a knack to perform their disappearing act when I am not watching.



Only two weeks ago the cherry tree was all little soft creamy stars on thin wicks. I snapped a few branches and took them in the house. Now I don’t know what happened; no, of course I do know what happened, it’s when it happened that eludes me. It’s all droopy new leaves, not a flower or petal in sight, same with the apple tree and same with the pear tree. And I suppose that’s the end of the spring fascination insofar as I am concerned.

Opening Up

This morning I run up to my windowsill as I’ve been doing for a number of weeks and, hurrah, the amaryllis has opened. Admittedly, we are only talking two, out of the eight available flowers, but that’s good enough for me, as I have been willing this to open for the past week. I have been standing in front of it and thinking hard oooooooooop-eeeennn, ooooooooop-eeeennnn in yoga-like concentration and it has worked! This is probably the only household in England that has got a velvety-red amaryllis for Easter instead of Christmas but, hey, I am just glad it worked as it is practically the first bulb I ever planted (if you discount the daffs and anemones randomly thrown at the soil outside, hopelessly out of season).

Pears To Come

Remember this pic? Now it has all changed into this:



Up until last year, my pear tree, which is a conference pear tree for the uninitiated amongst yourselves, was producing about one ton of pears. I am not joking you know? I would rack up pears from the grass for a good six weeks. Once I filled up twelve black bin bags with them. The problem with my conference pears is that they are vile. Like, really vile. As I said in the post I reference above, last year my dad cut most of the tree off and promised that this year, not only would I not have to fight one ton of vile pears, but those few that the tree would grace the garden with would be really nice.

And now I am waiting for them to be a touch more ready. Who knows, I may be able to give you a recipe for Poires Helène sometimes really soon. Here's hoping... They look nice enough for conference, right?

Perserverance

The garden continues to amaze me. I told you before that among the weed-fest I keep on finding new interesting things that defy my gardening incompetence. Today I am going to show you some more.

I believe this to be a lily of some sort. I find it quite creepy, especially so in real life. Is it because of the slightly curly petals, because of its depth, because of its spider-like shape? I don't know, but this is certainly one flower in my garden which I wish stopped blossoming.



Next up, I have two bushes of these red beauties:



Their shapes also creep me out. What does not creep me out, however, are butterflies and moths and this is one of the greatest paradoxes of my life. I start to cold-sweat at the thought of spiders, no matter how small, yet, I have no probs in trying to catch moths when I find them. Except I never make it. They remind me of the dragonflies I run after when I used to go fishing with my dad, when I was a kid. I would mostly sit around and then try to grab (unsuccessfully) the dragonflies by the lake. And so when I see a butterfly or a moth I think of dragonflies. And I also think of dragonflies when I see helicopters. You wouldn't believe how alike they are in close-up.

And Cherries

I've made this one up. Although I do have an anorexic cherry tree at the back, my cherries don't come up. Can you imagine having a garden that yields these beauties? Well, I can.



I can because, when I was a child, I used to spend insane amounts of time at my aunt's farm, where cherry trees were as ubiquitous to the gently rolling hills behind the house as dandelions are to my own back garden. After dinner, I would often sneak out to the trees for a fruity dessert, picking straight from the branches and often taking handful of leaves down with the cherries as I could not reach properly. I think this is when my love affair with cherries began, one that was devoid of hair-raising £ 5.99 price tags as if they were an exotic delicacy. I can, and often do, eat £ 5.99 worth of cherries in one sitting, indulging in them would cost me hundreds of pounds per month at the rate prices are soaring.

At the same time, I used to tag behind my dad as he was sorting out his allotment. My dad is a Virgo and I can tell you that his precision-making was reflected in his green pursuits as much as in his perfectly stored hardware. The tall plants of green beans like vegetable soldiers would cross leafy fingers with the tomato plants and then the zucchini with their gigantic orange flowers mum used to deep fry and the salads, the redheads and the greenheads. If dad and I were pottering around the allotment before dinner, it was a sure way for me not to oblige once sat at the table; that's because I used to pick tomatoes and peas straight from the plants and eat them there and then, my dad picking the discarded shells I left in my eating wake. When I think of those days, I always think that you do not become a vegetarian, you are born that way.

And Roses

I've got anemones coming up the rubble and rambling roses too. Despite not having pruned for six years, mainly because I don't know what to prune and what to leave in peace, I am always flabbergasted to find flowers in the weed maze. Every year they persist on bringing unexpected colour solace when I am certain they won't make it. I really ought to be grateful, no?

Coming Up Anemones

Not long ago, a very kind reader of mine informed me that what I had been growing was an anemone. A pink and slightly flaked out anemone. It turns out that I have not just been growing one but many, somehow all planted near one another so to form a living bunch. Look at this:



I know that this image looks grossly doctored but I swear to you, it isn't. These little guys really are as fluorescent pinky purple as you see them above. It must have something to do with them having just this morning opened, or perhaps with what was a mix of grey and blue light as the sun had only just broken through. Or perhaps I just was too close. I cannot say that their presence alone is going to spur me to get rid of all of the weeds in my garden in order to create anemone trenches any time soon but... it's a start. And who knows where this may lead, perhaps to the give-away of some rare orchid bulb?

Welcome To The Jungle

There is a place in Cheshire where a perfectly respectable house is inhabited by garden slobs who wistfully survey weeds and grass gone to seed from the bedroom window, cup of tea in hand, rampaging dogs at large. I am entirely certain that some of my neighbours find the Jag parked on the sunken-in drive infested by weeds mind-boggling and completely at odds with the garden mess. Cheshire is, after all, the place that is considered (erroneously and strangely, considering how much rain it gets) the Florida of Britain (by wishful-thinking people who have obviously never been to Florida) and where the working classes live under the misguided assumption that the mega-mansion will take them up a few notches into the land of the upper classes. News flash Ruuuunay: it doesn’t.

You can take the boy out of the working class, but you cannot take the working class out of the boy and this alone is a reason to be thrilled to be living in England, where class preoccupations are alive and well and where class is defined by a number of complicated variables, none of them including income. This is near inexplicable to our cousins the Yanks who rather simple-mindedly move people up and down the class ladder depending on income changes. I say this in the fondest and most endearing way; I personally love the black-and-white (trash) American class views. Life is much simpler there than in good old England, but the intricacies of interpersonal skills are far less subtle also.

Despite the jungle-like aspect of my front, and especially back, gardens, I rather like sitting on my lone deckchair to knit or read and not long ago I insisted on planting bulbs that were three months past their planting range. No bother of mine. The other day I spotted a flower coming up through the carefully tended rubble. Problem is: I don’t know what I planted. So if you know what this thing is, please let me know.



It goes to show that nature (and human nature) is a resilient thing, despite the adverse conditions. If I repeat Florida to myself enough times, I may actually turn the jungle into a garden you know.

Hopeful Reflections

Last August my dad cut the pear tree right down, so that my garden won’t be infested with dead pears come October and my dogs wouldn’t feast on them day and night. It may seem silly, but the tree really did need a rest; it was producing a ton of conference pears, all of abysmal quality, small, hard and very often mouldy before they got ripe. After many twiglet months, life has returned to the branches and today I noticed tufts of frilly white flowers high up to the sky. It made me smile and I had to take a picture of it, especially after the right downer of a day I had at work. I was stuck in a meeting with one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever met in my life. It is indeed true that consultants are usually a bunch of asses that fly very high with the unclippable wings of self-importance, but this one beats even the most blown-up kytes I’ve encountered so far. He told a colleague to shut up; another immediately left the room in outrage. I wavered and pondered, firmly in my seat, having an out of body experience, observing my life from the top of the room, wondering why and how I ended up sharing my days with people who can be so disrespectufl towards some whom they barely know. It is not the working life I had dreamt of and certainly not the working life that my studies had even remotely hinted at. I have a degree in wonderful English literature and I am completing a PhD in cultural studies. What am I doing in a heartless, soulless technical job? Yet, I smell the so-called winds of change. I have seen the tree, fatigued and bent over by the great strain. I have seen it naked and broken, contemplating the thundering clouds and the quieter days. Something is happening in my life right now and I am clutching small flowers and curly petals.