Open Writing

The current party political broadcasts have added a new dimension to my husband’s allotment – me.

I don’t usually attend his vegetable plot until it is time to take a basket and gather in the harvest. This is one (he would probably say the only) area of his life I try not to interfere in.

Our son’s cultivating talents transpire once the rubbish has been burned. He cannot imagine what there is left to do when the seeds have been planted. ‘Where’s dad?’ he often inquires on balmy, bowling-type evenings. ‘Oh, yes, don’t tell me – he’s on at the allotment waiting for a weed to grow so he can pull it out.’

Whenever I do visit, it fills me with a certain uneasiness to see the trim edges, neat paths and seedlings sprouting obediently in long straight columns. His meticulously kept greenhouse with balls of string all the same size sitting neatly on the immaculate shelves. I try not to compare all this uniformity with the easy-going lifestyle he has had to endure with me as housekeeper.

I am not an enthusiastic gardener – my excuse being settee too comfy. But my potted plants manage to survive on their erratic diet of drought one week and flood the next.

It’s not the digging and planting I mind, but all the accompanying aggravations, like putting the lawn mower away when you’ve finished and you have hardly the strength to lift your brows, or shifting the pile of heavy sods leering from the barrow.

Reminds me of the stray dogs that are sometimes locked up in the police station next door. When they are confined their anguished yells pollute our peaceful atmosphere and that is when they become a nuisance.

Gardeners are a special breed. An old friend once spent two minutes introducing me to her family, gathered en masse for a christening, and the rest of the morning presenting me to her front garden.

‘Frank and I picked this cutting from a garden in Scotland, this pretty little climber came from our hotel,’ – and so on. There was a look of acute tenderness in her eyes when she spoke. But it’s like that with plants. I once saw the sturdy Percy Thrower almost choke with emotion over a geranium’s root growth. You’d have thought it was his wife’s hair.

A kind gentleman I was introduced to only a week before our daughter’s wedding offered me the pick of glorious rose bushes for the church floral decorations, and would accept no money. We filled a dozen vases with sweet smelling blooms.

One occupation I do put a lot of energy into is my herb growing. I have basil growing in a pot in my porch, mint and parsley under the kitchen window and my husband has given me a small patch where I have planted chervil, thyme, marjoram, caraway and chives. Apart from their distinctive flavourings, herbs also have curative properties.

I look forward to making up my own little parcels of bouquet garni. My daughter presented me with a herbs cookery book and I can’t wait to do full justice to recipes like Tournedos zoia with herbs fried potatoes.

I love one of the book’s salad suggestions. ‘Sprinkle a few rose petals plus additional marigold petals on your salads, you’ll be surprised at the flavour’ – but I don’t think my lot are ready to eat floral arrangements, yet.

If any readers suffer from insomnia, take my advice – go out and dig. When I had completed my couple of hours, and eventually reached my unearthly comfort of the sofa, I fell into a deep coma, thereby missing – an introduction to daughter’s new boyfriend, a fish and chip supper, the final farewells of the rest of the family and – a film ending.

But if you want to become a hardy perennial – hang on to your sense of humour, it’s the only part that doesn’t ache from over use!