Sunday 9 August 2020

Notes from a Very Small Corner.


 


Surprisingly early in the evening the light begins to fade. The little puffs of cloud balancing above the hills turn pink and apricot before they melt in the haze. The hills darken to deep lilac.

What happened?

I've only just had lunch, with a friend, in the garden, socially distanced, behaving properly, keeping the rules....and another day has gone, whizzed by, apparently almost empty yet full of  very small, mostly unrelated incidents. It is a recognised fact that the perception of time changes with age. It speeds up. It really does. 

For the next week or so I'm following a regime of eye-drops every four hours. This is for the second life-enhancing cataract surgery. I do the eye drops, go out into the garden, look at some things growing, watch a few birds sunbathing unwisely on a slate roof in 30 degrees of heat, go back in, top up the water-baths in the garden and indicate to the birds that they should use them, make a cup of coffee, look at the clock.....and it's time for the eye drops again. What happened?

Nothing and everything hasn't happened, and goes on not happening here in Middle England. Here most of us are keeping the rules (when we can work out what they are), wearing masks, washing our hands, sanitising ourselves and not cuddling each other. The heat may have made some of us reckless, but not me.

Being good is not all it's cracked up to be. I have ventured into two shops now that I'm allowed to do so. I've been into the cafe in M&S, partly because I can, mostly because I'm hoping to see another elderly, rule-abiding citizen attempting to drink a large filtered coffee while wearing a mask. No luck so far. You have to find your entertainment in very tiny doses these day. I do, anyway.

In this small corner of a small town near to some large hills I like to see the avoidance techniques on my daily walks. The sashaying on and off narrow pavements, the darting into the nearest gateway, the dilemma of eye contact - wanted or not? The protocol of the mask, worn when driving alone in the car? Worn above or below the nose? Removed in order to speak to someone wearing a hearing aid? Kept available at all times by being round the neck? Not worn because you say you don't like it and you can't breathe properly? Neither can infected people, strangely enough, but perhaps you haven't thought of that? Designer-made, home-made, reusable, colour co-ordinated? I await the arrival of sponsored masks bearing adverts.

When I'm not venturing out, looking for diversion of the very mildest Covid-controlled form I'm at home, watching my vegetables. I have not grown vegetables previously, and now I have four plants, given to me as small, helpless infant seedlings by a neighbour on a suitably distanced and sanitised day in early Lock-Down.

Four! Two different tomato plants, a cucumber and a courgette. I cossetted them into adolescence and then I watched their adult struggles for space in a small border. If I could do this on a time lapse I would see the fights, the pushing and shoving and elbowing of each other. The thuggery that goes on in a vegetable plot. The fight for light, for food, for life from any source, at any expense to anyone else. Gosh, it's powerful stuff! The cucumber is making a desperate climb up the fence, hauling itself out of the melee with its initially soft tendrils that can cling like metal within a few days. The courgette had experienced a death-defying struggle against a determined and destructive enemy until I found one huge viscous and vicious invader tucked beneath its prickled leaves, ready to pounce as darkness fell. But I got there, just in time and the slug and its bloated orange under-belly met a sticky end. Ha! How satisfying a squelch was that!

Now that I appreciate the emotional impact of vegetable growing I shall need to do it again. Until I've finished the eye-drops I mustn't bend or lift, so other parts of the garden are getting a bit over-run, but with my new brilliant eyes and action-packed fleeting days I can do a great many other satisfying things. Sorry about the slug to those who care about such things, but all is unfair in love and gardening.



14 comments:

  1. I hope the surgery is very, very successful, and the recovery swift.
    And yes, gardening (with or without my inept assistance) definitely includes thuggery.
    Love your skyscape too.

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  2. All the best with the op. Pirate has had both eyes sorted..now he sees details and depth in trees and clouds and fields, the only drawback for him is reading, specs on, seeing specs off! However the surgeon did sort vision defects as well as cataracts.
    Glad to hear that you are enjoying gardening! The cuke will do well up the fence.
    You will be wanting less lawn and more veges soon!!

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  3. Attenborough should make a documentary about your garden — except he doesn't have to, because you've evoked it so well.
    I can never get my head around the concept of time — how one minute it takes forever and the next it's history. The annoying paradox, though, is the way deadlines don't have that characteristic. They plant themselves there, blocking the way, and their only Protean aspect is that they're either too close or too far away.
    So glad you've had your eyes done, and good to hear you're taking precautions. And thanks for the wonderful post.

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  4. Battle in the Garden, it really is. Not mentioning the fighting off of weedy incursions even.

    Mask on, over nose and mouth, and I bow from a distance. Don't wear it in the car, although if I were driving anyone but Dylan, I would keep it on even then. But it seems like it takes a bit more than a brief minute of conversation to infect, and even that requires someone with the virus in the first place.

    I've had most of this week off, due to low census, and it's felt like retirement. I think I'll do quite well with it. My weakening eyesight has been a struggle, but even then, it's not so bad really.

    Hope you are seeing and feeling better very soon. Drops away!

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  5. I have had the surgery and it is eye opening. Wait till you see the color(?) white, and dust.

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  6. Brilliantly written! Love the way you manage to put into words all the things I too am thinking and feeling. I swear that an effect of the virus whether or not one tests positive seems to be that time is greatly afftected and seems to whiz by just when one might expect it to slow down. Although I dare say if one does test positive it might slow down instead but luckily I don't actually know about that! I loved the bit about masks. I find it difficult to know whether exchange of smiles is recognised or not and how much we normally depend on people's whole face to understand them. It is yet another way we contact each other that has now been lost. Keep safe and hope your eye op will prove to have been successful - I am currently waiting for laser treatment and it is very frustrating to be unable to see clearly again.

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  7. E.C. and g.z.: Thank you for your comments. I had the first eye done just before Lock-Down with great results. The eye drops are post-surgery for the second eye, done ten days ago even more successfully. Cataract removal has been really life-changing.
    g.z. Your gardening is inspirational, but I need to keep the lawn in case the grandchildren return.

    Zhoen: It's a shame you can't come over here to write clear and concise posters for Boris and Co. But who wants to come over here? Drops away, indeed,

    P.Pete: Many thanks for the kind comments. Perhaps the deadlines are hurdles, rather than blocks? Think of the freedom when you've jumped over them. Oh dear, I should be writing 'inspirational' greetings cards.

    Starting Over: I hadn't appreciated how decorative cobwebs can be in every corner, but the wrinkles are something else.

    Marigold: Good to read you again. I hope your eye treatment is as successful as mine. I didn't realise how bad my vision was until it was better. Now it's a whole new world, full of light and colour (and cobwebs and wrinkles).

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  8. Gardening is big around here too. With less and less control of things in the larger world, the OC, who is made of sterner stuff than me (I balk at the thought of having sweat dripping into my eyes in 90+ degrees and equally high humidity) has taken over in the garden. We now have pepper plants the size of small trees, herbs that have turned into bushes and shrubs from which he coaxes flashy flowers. Just this morning, before it was quite so hot, I cornered a large slug who I suspect of vandalizing some orchids we keep on our front porch. I'm usually considerate of all sentient beings but I made an exception of him. He was tougher to dispatch than I expected but he is no more. I'm happier and so are the orchids. We also have lubbers, grasshoppers the size of robins, who have enormous appetites for anything we like to grow. The good days are when we send more than three of them to lubber heaven. As you said, "All's fair in love and gardening!

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  9. Molly: Good gardens are springing up all over the world in this pandemic. Perhaps the vegetables will take over unless the slugs get there first. Slugs and orchids, what a horrid combination. Your grasshoppers sound awfully like locusts. Are you sure they're not?
    I think I actually said, 'All's UNfair.....' and it's certainly what I believe in, especially where slugs are concerned. I don't feel quite as strongly about snails, which it not logical as they do just as much damage.

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  10. You are right, I misquoted you, oops. It is unfair. Why should these pests dine on beautiful flowers, and shiny new leaves when there are plenty of weeds for the munching and the humans won't kill you for it? Also meant to add how glad I am that the treatment for your eyes was such a success.....

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  11. Molly: thank you for both comments! We agree on the unfairness. If slugs and snails would restrict themselves to certain plants and areas of the garden they would be tolerated - but it's always the best and most carefully nurtured plants that are attacked. Better not to pursue the analogy about love......
    Thank you for the comment on the cataracts, too. Such a life-changing effect is wonderful.

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  12. I don't really go places indoors when I am likely to encounter people (apart from at home of course) so I only wear masks if I am going to be face to face with anyone for more than a couple of minutes. I wear a mask for the farmer's market shopping - you can do contactless at arm's length. AS for bullying and mayhem in the vegetable patch, have you ever seen speeded up blackberries? Absolutely sinister!!!!

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  13. Jenny: Yes to the blackberries. Is it from Attenborough's 'Life in the Hedgerow' showing the bramble plant leaping along, making a new plant every time it touches the ground?

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  14. It might be the Secret Life of Plants, but I've seen quite a few images. What's more, with my altered perception of time, I have sometimes felt that blackberry branches are coming to get me even as I stop for a few minutes to pick the berries!

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