Open Writing

There is a gentle side of some friendships where tact and consideration for the frailties of a friend are ignored lest the friendship be damaged in some way.

*******

Ann put her cup down. ‘I can’t take care of the garden all the time, my arthritis just won’t let me do some of the heavy work and Hughie is so good. He has enough vegetables growing in it to feed a family of twelve! I always tell him he can take what he wants and somehow between us we seem to use most of them each season. Also, I’ve noticed my herbaceous borders have never looked so good. So I feel that I just can’t tell him about the hanging baskets. It’s best ignored.’

********

Hughie her gardener is a retired gentleman, quite short and wears thick glasses. He also possesses a very kind heart and a mischievous sense of humour. He and Teddy are very great mates. I think the quirky Irish humour and the propensity to get themselves into minor scrapes helps to seal the bond.

Hughie had enjoyed his day working in Ann’s garden. She made a very nice orange cake for his afternoon tea which during the time of my conversation with her, he was sharing with Teddy.

‘She’s a grand woman one of the easier ladies I garden for,’ he was saying ‘and yet when she first came to live here I know she was finding it difficult to make friends. Some of the women in the town thought she was a bit stuck-up. But she’s never demanding, not too bossy about what she wants done and hasn’t as yet, found any fault with anything I’ve done. yet’

He peppered a few crumbs over Teddy when he laughed ‘B’jeezus I keep waitin’ for her to say somethin’ but she never does.’

‘I didn’t notice ‘til one day while she was away at her daughter’s place,’ he continued, ‘I realized I hadn’t watered the hanging baskets during a dry spell of weather. When I got there I expected them to have all dropped dead but they looked just the same. So I got up onto a step ladder to have a closer look to check.

Imagine my surprise, I nearly fell off the ladder I got to giggling so hard. I’ve been watering the damn things for weeks and she’s been watchin’ me, the old biddy, and I keep waterin' and waterin’ but she just lets me do it!’

Teddy nodded understandingly and laughed. After all he was not someone who would have noticed very readily.

*******

With me in the tea shop Ann was saying ‘I daren’t tell him really.’ she was fiddling with her spoon nervously. ‘His eyesight must be very poor to wear such thick glasses and I know because he is so short, he finds it difficult to reach the hanging baskets. Perhaps if I suggested he lowers them it might help.’ She sighed glancing up at me as if she was seeking a little advice.

‘He is a very nice man.’ I ventured, maybe you could drop a little hint.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t hurt his feelings, I enjoy his company and he tells me such interesting and funny stories about his life in Ireland. I would miss his company every second Tuesday. Why, it wasn’t until after he came to do my garden I eventually began to make other friends and feel at home here. In fact there are some people who say ‘hello’ when we pass in the street that I don’t know where or when we met. They are all very nice however.’

Later that same day Hugh was saying to me he didn’t like to mention the baskets, after all this time when the subject hadn’t been broached by either Ann or himself. She may get upset and think he had been making fun of her and it would hurt her feelings.

‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘when Ann goes away for her next visit to her family he could plant some real flowers into the baskets, remove the unmentioned plastic ones you have been watering so assiduously for such a long time, and present them as a welcome home gift.

‘Oh, that’s a grand idea Cynthia. I’ll do just that. After all, the other old girls who don’t have such large gardens or such large bank accounts would miss the vegetables I take to them out of her patch and the church ladies, bless their hearts, find the extra flowers very helpful during some months. Mind you, I have asked them all never to mention her gifts to them as it would embarrass her. I think they feel differently about her now, I hope they do.’

Teddy quoted Francis Bacon later as we smiled over our friends little dilemmas.

‘Without friends, the world is but a wilderness.’

Cheers from your ‘flower child friend’, Cynthia.

http://elizabeththompsonmywrite