One of the early steps on assuming the
stewardship of Forges-L’Evêque was a critical view of the previous administration’s
planting out of the pocket handkerchief of land that came with the
masonry. At the top of the agenda stood
the huge numbers of leylandii all round the frontiers of the territory. We may perhaps be excused for guessing that
an earlier proprietor was a justifiably diffident naturist. We Got Someone In early on to take down the
line of trees down the east side of the garden, to trim and take a metre or so
from the hedges to the south and west, and to hoik out a few more leylandii
that stood where we planned to build the sitootery. That was much welcomed by our neighbours to
the east, who suddenly had sunlight in their garden. It helped, of course, in their view that we
then had to replace the fence (our responsibility), which had remained standing
thanks only to the leylandii. We got the
same firm in the following couple of years to keep the hedges in order, but
gave them the push when their prices escalated.
We’ve since been using a chap from down the road (who also keeps us
supplied with eggs). He charges us less than half the first lot's charges for
hedge-fettling. He came round on Friday,
sorted the hedges and took out a further leylandii from the front of the
house. He has also had a hack at the
overgrown cherry tree, so we’re starting to look a bit less worse, five years
on. I sowed some grass seed the other night on the
bald patch under what had been the canopy of the mercifully departed tree. Needless to say, we then had a hailstorm and
several heavy showers. I guess it was a
bit late to sow grass seed anyway, but let’s see what happens.
Meanwhile, a little mail-order parcel of
plants (primroses and pansies) has arrived, and they are now planted up in 3"
pots to grow on for winter colour. Our
tubs are looking pretty miserable, so it’ll be good to get them emptied out and
re-planted with new plants in fresh compost.
I hauled out one of the bigger clumps of iris sibirica the other day,
and have been distributing and promising bits of it to friends. If you want a bit, shout: there are four
other clumps of it that would benefit from division.
An observer in the public gallery of a
neighbouring Magistrates’ Court might tell you that an unfortunate and
impoverished defendant left the other day with TV licence fines remitted. A court may, of course, see him or her in due course
for Council Tax debt. Oh, and if you
feel like dodging a £2.30 rail fare any time soon, bear in mind that this
carries a £400 fine, plus costs and surcharge (fines tax) of £125, or so it
appears from the public gallery. And if
the bailiffs have to turn out to enforce it, that adds a further £300, whether
or not they take your flat-screen telly, or so someone in the gallery might have heard it
said the other day.
At two-thirds of the way through this year's Booker short list, I'm wondering why so many writers, if not all these days, feel the need to hurtle backwards and forwards in time in the course of the narrative. I could cope years ago with the Rahmennovelle, but the current bunch of hopefuls seem to be vying with each other to confuse readers. The likes of Mr Self sometimes shift 50 years and change narrators half way through a sentence. Do they write the various epochs in separate windows, then press some sort of random-mix button? I'm conscious that my MA Hons (failed) status doesn't exactly qualify me as a literary critic, but I think I recognise affectation when I see it. So far, my vote would go to Mr Tan's The Garden of Evening Mists: at least he has the decency to use 'tell me what happened back then' once in a while to signpost a chronological gearchange. Ms Mantel's latest is better than Wolf Hall from the point of view of accessibility (This time, she uses 'He, Cromwell, ...' rather than leaving you to work it out for yourself.) I rattled through Alison Moore's The Lighthouse this morning in about three insomniac hours, and might read it again to see what, if anything, I ought to have got out of it. I wonder if my MA (Ordinary) would qualify me for a place on next year's shortlisting panel. I agreed with their conclusion last year, but am not impressed with this or last year's shortlists.
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