January Musing ~ A Smorgasbord Of Delights

"Somebody needs to invent blinkers for humans. There are novels to write, tax receipts to collate, but where is the harm in standing at the glass for a little look? A light drizzle is usually falling; I am shoeless because I prefer to write in but not with bare feet. No sane person would step outside.
I step outside.

...... Unlike most British people with our nice calibrations of weather, our conversational grumbling ('wet enough for you?') and outrage at any climatic extreme, I don't pay attention to low temperatures. I feel them obviously : I'm not a rock. I just don't remember to do anything about them. So while others would stop to shoe themselves appropriately before walking over grit or bramble or several centimetres of snow, I persist in believe I'll be able to tread lightly towards the compost bin, like a fairy oe'r stepping stones.

'Where's your coat?' people ask. 'Aren't you freezing?'
'Yes' I tell them and we look at each other, perplexed.

Yet my plants are calling to me. From here I can see the garden table, which was bought for Mediterranean style meals in the sun, but mysteriously is covered in improvised plant crutches; broken teapots; ice-lolly-stick seedling markers, treats for compost worms; postmans' rubber bands for attaching things, a child's stolen kitten-patterned pencil; takeaway cups labelled MANGO I THINK and ??MISC DON'T THROW OUT; stiffened gloves; rusty spoons and. To a non-gardener, it looks like dismal rubbish. To me, it is a smorgasbord of delightful and necessary tasks. 

Addicts are ingenious. They lie, even to themselves. A gardener can always think of an excuse to wander outside.
'I'll just ...' we mumble. 'Give me a couple of moments'.

This is obviously nonsense. How could one do anything in a garden in two minutes? It's just one drink, one cigarette. A garden is a knotted rope along which small tasks and satisfaction are laid out at optimum intervals, as in a computer game, or a punishment devised on Mount Olympus to drive mortals mad. We try to resist; we fail. We always do.
'This won't take long', we lie".

Extract from ~ 'Rhapsody in Green' by Charlotte Mendelson.
Illustration ~ Lena Anderson.