The Scrivener: No Naked Youths And Maidens
…A nature strip in this part of the world is nothing more exciting than a narrow piece of grassy land between the footpath and the road. It's the same as a grass verge which, come to think of it, sounds almost as erotic. In reality, it is a mundane fact of suburban life. ..
An anguished Brian Barratt reports that the nature strip outside his home has been under attack from a variety of assailants.
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Nature strip? Ah, fresh air, sunshine, nudity. Persons removing their clothes while the dance beneath the trees. Youths and maidens disrobing as they cavort in gay, or straight, abandon through the fields. Oops, sorry, my mind wandered.
A nature strip in this part of the world is nothing more exciting than a narrow piece of grassy land between the footpath and the road. It's the same as a grass verge which, come to think of it, sounds almost as erotic. In reality, it is a mundane fact of suburban life.
The City Council has a yearly pick-up of domestic rubbish. Items which are too large to go into wheelie-bins — legless chairs, defunct pictureless TV sets, indecent pre-loved mattresses, that kind of thing. As soon as they are put onto the nature strip for collection, kerb-crawlers and scroungers come along. With utes or little trailers, they collect what they like. And that is illegal.
Technically, all items put out for collection belong to the City Council. They are not public property. Surely that implies that the nature strip is also the responsibility of the City Council? Oh no. Guess who has to mow the grass?
Nature strips can also be sites for demonstration and excavation. About 35 years ago, a dysfunctional family lived in the house opposite. The sweet teenage children demonstrated their independence by strewing their own rubbish on my nature strip. Orange peel, dirty food wrappers, selected dog droppings, whatever. Technically, these items then belonged to the City Council, but guess who had to clean them up?
Excavation is a more serious matter. I have the most excavated, nay, ravaged nature strip in Melbourne. Years ago, the gas men had to dig a trench all the way along it when I had gas heating installed. I carefully tidied it all up afterwards, and scattered grass seed.
A few years later, the water supply company came to remove the old, corroded metal pipes and lay nice new plastic pipes. Up came the nature strip. The workpersons filled up the trench when the pipe had been laid. They left a delightful little valley all the way along, because the soil soon subsided. When I put my wheelie-bins out they just fell over, until I worked out a critical position for them.
After a torrential downpour of rain, the earth sank even further and a crack appeared in the ground. I phoned the City Council, whose nature strip it is. Sorry mate, not our business. Eventually, the water people came again, added more soil, and scattered more grass seeds. All was well.
The dysfunctional family across the road moved out long ago and a pleasant family have been in residence for quite a while. They recently decided to have their house pulled down and to build two home units. They moved into temporary housing, of course, while this was going on.
Demolition proceeded. Our quiet, leafy, little crescent is not very wide. It certainly isn't wide enough for huge trucks to swing round and reverse into someone's property in order to take away building rubble. So what did they do? They drove over my nature strip. The resuscitated area took on the general appearance of a ploughed paddock.
The water persons came back to dig another hole, in order to connect the new units to the water mains. Not long after that, the gas company came along, and dug it all up again. And then there were other vehicles driving over it, or simply half-parking on it.
During the building, cars, utes, small trucks, vans, bobcats, excavators, concrete and asphalt trucks, lined the street, up to ten at a time. The noise was driving me bonkers. I'm totally deaf to high treble tones but ultra-sensitive to low bass tones. The engine noises rumbled and vibrated through my head, body, and house. Sanity was at risk.
I escaped into the study at the back of the house, to write and write. On a few occasions, in despair, I went — getting my car out of the drive with some difficulty because of inconsiderately parked vehicles — to a local coffee shop and spent a contented couple of hours doing the newspaper crosswords.
Hurrah, the major work has now finished. Sanity has been restored. A few inoffensive quiet vehicles are still here and workpersons are adding the finishing touches. Peace has returned. Mind you, part of my nature strip still looks like a ploughed field, but no youths and maidens are gaily disrobing upon it.
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2008.
