Open Writing

With the sunlight sparkling on her dewy gums, she mopped her eyes, blew her nose and gave the cashier a few coppers in exchange for the cube of yeast.

‘Eeh a’m reight ‘appy when a’m baking bread agin,’ she told me, as I tried to hide my sliced loaf sticking out of my wire basket.

I watched her leave the shop, her dough-dreaming grey eyes shining with happiness, a charming example that this elusive ingredient can still be found in simple pleasures. It was recently revealed in a survey of over 1,000 people that only 5% were content with their present life and 32% wanted to make as much money as possible.

Taking time off from shortening my already dwindling clothesline to make yet another skipping rope, our youngest daughter informed me the other day, ‘Mum, I forgot to tell you. I think I’m getting a sore throat, my left ear has been aching and I am starting with eczema again.’ With a satisfied sigh she continued her skipping. It doesn’t take much to make some of us happy.

Take our three market gardeners for instance. That’s my husband, son and neighbour. Only a month ago they appeared to be leading a reasonably fulfilling existence. Tired of snoozing the evenings away in front of the TV, one had even taken to switching off and with suitably intellectual expression he now spends most evenings dozing with a book on his knee.

The other two had developed their own unique method of survival, which consisted mainly of regular elbow exercising and much internal fortification ready for any threat of a drought. Seemingly they were quite content to blear at life through rose-coloured eyeballs.

Then came the message that transformed their lives. A six-year dream came true in the shape of a plot of land. My enthusiast husband and semi-enthusiastic neighbour, and, when he cannot escape, our son, are desperately trying to prove ‘the answer lies in the soil.’

Wrapped in furs and scarves and refusing the offer of a spade, we females were dragged from our room temperature to see how the land lay. After an initial glance my first thought was how could there possibly have been an earthquake so near without us noticing? As loud as we dared we supposed optimistically that yes there must surely be soil lurking somewhere underneath the wreckage.

But the men were besotted. I have never known such a load of rubbish to have this aesthetic effect on my husband. The sight of our living room on his unexpectedly early home-comings never affected him like this. Yet here he was proclaiming ugly little peaks of broken glass a potato patch, and a pile of tin cans and wooden boxes were described as an onion bed. We girls managed to sneak away without voicing an opinion.

But I must admit we started reaping a ‘harvest’ after only a week. An ancient pot vase was unearthed and filled with palm. It now sits prettily on the hall stand. They also dug up an old-fashioned earthenware bread crock that now houses some of my geraniums.

The dynamic trio have literally put new life into their patch and it really is beginning to resemble a garden. They all have their different functions. The young recalcitrant believes no garden is complete without a fire and the other two have built a most impressive compost heap. All visitors act as advisers, we find. We females gasp admiringly, when it’s not raining. The children spend most of their time jumping from path to path.

It was only as our gardener was pointing out the newly planted seedlings interspersed between the neatly weeded paths that I realise one confused daughter was actually jumping from seedling to seedling, carefully avoiding the paths. When we arrived at the onions, there was a newly arranged ‘sunken garden’ in the shape of two size-three wellington soles. The depressed onions seem to have passed away. Lost for words, we looked accusingly at the dog, who helpfully irrigated the remaining onions.

We were duly reprimanded and released with a caution but the dog still has the death penalty hanging over his fertilising instincts. My husband probably remembers the occasion when his old gardening trousers were mistaken for a tree, while he was still wearing them.

An irate householder brandishing a broom was once giving me her views on people like me, and their incontinent pets. In the meantime mine got tired of waiting for a more suitable place and to her apoplectic annoyance and my deep red shame, illustrated her complaints admirably, just inside her gate. I still tiptoe past her house.

Something exciting happens every day on our gardening calendar. One night we were all shushed to silence around the television while a chap wearing a natty ‘hacking’ jacket performed a transplant operation. Up to his neck in muck and punnets he explained the drama in hushed tones as he went along. ‘Oi just break the root gently away loik that and plant it here loik so.’ Then like all ‘show-offs’ he demonstrates the perfect growth he arranged the week before, which he takes from a ledge underneath.
Actually I wish surgeons could do this with us. How comforting when an operation is imminent for him to bring out a successfully recovered patient. ‘I have here a lady who had her operation years ago and still speaks to me,’ type of thing.

The memory of our gardeners the evening they discovered free manure will linger for a long time, especially around the porch area where the boots live.

One day I arrived home to find a frail young man struggling up the front steps with what looked like an enormous roll of carpeting wrapped in brown paper. ‘Where do you want it, love?’ he managed to gasp.

Looking at the manufacturer’s name, I realised somewhat incredulously this must be the new greenhouse. When I told him it was for my husband’s allotment and surely it couldn’t be all there, he looked at me with a similar expression.

I got tired of explaining to visitors that the carpet rolled up in the back yard was actually a greenhouse and couldn’t wait for Saturday and the big ‘build-up.’ A light hurricane gaily bashing the dustbin lids about had them off to an early start. Humming what now seemed to be my regular theme song since our house had been deserted for the garden, ‘Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,’ I filled a flask and went to view.

My song had never been more appropriate. With high winds mistaking the plastic roofing for a kite, the three stalwarts hanging on were almost moon bound. They were struggling bravely to keep their feet on the ground. But a pound or two of nails and plenty of banging had it looking like a plastic tent. They looked so happy it seemed a shame to break them off for their bowling match.

Sometimes as I sprawl across our empty settee listening to the wind tantalising the half-remaining hinge on the coal house door, I dream of the greengrocery bill I won’t have to pay soon, and smile.