And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Spring is here! The grass is riz! I wonder where the… oh. It’s still freezing. I wonder if one way to put a stop to this appalling, never-ending winter – other than flinging oneself on the next flight to Antigua -  is to write about it. Whinging on in print about the rubbishness of the weather will surely instantly herald blazing sunshine and balmy breezes? Hmm, still raining, I see. Oh actually, that’s sleet. Let’s keep trying. “This is a very late spring indeed,” says the National Trust spokesman. No kidding, cupcake. Frogs are going back into hibernation, and who can blame them? I haven’t had a single conversation for months that didn’t revolve round fleece-lined tights. Little versions could perhaps work for frogs’ legs. And I have never before needed such a stiff drink after opening the gas bill, which was about the same amount as a flight to Antigua.

For years, it never snowed. As a child I prayed hopelessly every winter for a thick layering of the cold white stuff, but my prayers went unheard; now as an adult I pray for it not to snow, and the sky chucks it down non-stop. No wonder I’m an atheist. About fifteen years ago, during the era of usually-not-snowing, it snowed briefly, and though this was considerably too late for my childhood, I hadn’t yet become jaded. Man of the House and I squeaked with excitement and dashed from our Cooksbridge home into Lewes to buy two blue plastic sledges from Homebase, or Texas as I believe it was then. Of course, the snow had already melted by the time we got home, and the sledges spent the next decade forming a crucial bottleneck in the shed, preventing us from reaching the secateurs and other tedious gardening implements. 

Our children have had a completely different experience. Since they’ve been sentient it has snowed pretty much every winter (and this year, in March as well). Global warming, natural climate variation, snow fairies working extra shifts, call it what you will, the kids expect snow as their birth-right. They gaze at us with disbelieving eyes when we warn them each autumn that it doesn’t always snow, that they should prepare for disappointment. Their disappointment preparation is very poor, I’m afraid; they would never get a badge in it like we 70s kids did.
So we’ve passed on the pristine blue sledges to the younger generation, who have a graded system of local slopes (Baxters Field, steep but crowded; Paddock, more space to build snowmen; Priory ruins, less steep, but exciting bit where you can either whizz through a gap in the wall or get concussion). This isn’t working at all because now I see the wind has got up, making the rain dance sideways. For goodness sake! I guess it is we adults who need to work on our disappointment preparation a little harder: we must get ready for there being no spring.

Beth Miller, 18th March 2013. Published in VivaLewes.com

November has tied me to an old dead tree

Man of the House harvests our November crop: six wizened red apples. They seem smaller than they were two months ago. Meanwhile the Halloween pumpkins silently decompose on the doorstep, dead fireworks litter the herbaceous borders, and the shed falls down.

Winter gardens are no places for wimps, and I’m a wimp. I avert my eyes as I pass Wyevales so as not to see their banner exhorting me to ‘Tidy up ready for Winter!’ They have a Spring banner too, featuring an Easter chick chiselling out of an egg and the slogan, ‘Time to get cracking!’ That one also makes me feel guilty.

Now is doubtless the right time to plant tulip bulbs, scatter forget-me-not seeds, shove old tomato plants into the compost and pick up the pink plastic doll that has been lying across the lawn since July, limbs lewdly akimbo. Every year I convince myself that very soon I will stomp outside wearing waterproofs and a hearty smile, clearing and pruning and generally showing the garden who’s boss. In this mental image I am whistling ‘Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go,’ and waving a rake about smugly.

But it’s always raining when I look outside, or something more interesting is going on. And so every year the garden realises exactly who’s boss and takes advantage, sending underground forces of bindweed to annexe new territories, encouraging strawberry suckers to grow up the washing line, and marshalling battalions of evil slugs to slither about orange-ly.

If only I had the courage to embrace not tidying the garden. I wish I had the balls of the ESCC gardeners, who put up little signs around the Council grounds which say ‘designated biodiversity area’ wherever they can’t be bothered to clear. I might get some of those signs. ‘Do you think we could have some nice daffs here?’ ‘Sorry luv, can’t be done: that’s a designated biodiversity area.’ I only wish I’d thought of it first.

This is the list of actual garden chores I do in November:

1. Wait till it’s not cold or raining and there’s nothing on telly.
2. Run outside wearing coat over pyjamas.
3. Slip on orange slug, fall and bash bottom on plastic doll.
4. Grab bird feeder and run back into house.
5. Make tea and reward self with biccy.
6. Recoil in horror at disgusting state of bird feeder. Shake fist at birds and ask how could they let it go to seed like this, ah ha ha, have they no respect?
7. Clean bird feeder with Marigolds and industrial bleach. Then clean bleach off obsessively to avoid avian poisoning.
8. Refill feeder with fancy selection of seeds.
9. Notice it’s raining and resolve to put feeder out later.
10. Remember bird feeder in April.

I try one of the wrinkly apples. Delicious. Perhaps next year I’ll plant some raspberries. Or maybe I’ll just put in a few more bindweed plants – they always seem to do well.

Beth Miller, 17th November 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith