The large packetful of grass seed that my son's friend informed me had been the inspiration for this unaccountable and heroic level of activity, had largely been eaten by the birds. Continuing the Saga of Jane and her grown up family, and her deaf white Staffordshire Terrier, Snowy...
Some things one can get upset about. Some things may even provoke tears. There are even instances of little foibles that drive me to distraction, in outbursts of frustration and anger - but this was bigger than those.
I had just come back from following a three-week programme of pain management, held at one of the Nation's two hospitals for Rheumatic diseases, as I suffer from fibromyalgia which gives rise to, among other symptoms, chronic (long standing) pain.
On my return I was anticipating a certain level of disorder - naturally, youngsters in their teens do not wish to be bothered with things like washing up when there are computer games to be played; indeed, their friends would think them peculiar if they did.
I was prepared for a sink full of dirty dishes, a dishwasher loaded with an assortment of clean crockery and filth (why bother to empty it when you can just stick another few crocks in and watch the cycle go round again?) - which is why, perhaps, the sink was also full - there is a limit to how much filling is possible without emptying.
In common with many student households, there was not a clean cup, plate, teaspoon or knife in the 'proper' place; pans had been put on top of the stove in varying degrees of burnt-out enthusiasm, and the plants were gasping their last in faint vegetable cries of woe, their limp leaves a reproachful reminder that no-one had watered them, much less spoken to them or even noticed their sentient existence.
Snowy was of course inordinately glad to see me; wherever I wandered, wherever I roamed, she made sure to remind me she considered me home. As soon as I flopped into the sofa, she looked as though she was considering climbing onto my lap, in a moment's mad aberration, but she soon thought the better of it, remembering that we don't DO that in our house... However she contented herself by lying across my feet, 'Don't get up until you've had a rest' being the obvious intention.
I had made the journey back from hospital with all my luggage by a combination of means; a lift from another patient to within ten miles of my home, and then the inevitable two buses, with waits in between, ensuring that the entire journey of twenty five miles took four and a half hours. I was peevish, tired, and would dearly have loved the proffered coffee - which I had to provide as they'd run out...That was hoping for a bit much though, as they sat outside in the garden, my son and his friends, saying they could not find it.
When I had finally summoned the strength to move and make my own blooming coffee, I stepped out in the garden, and noticed that they had indeed found the coffee I'd brought, and the biscuits, which were half gone and they had not even offered me one... I was just wondering how to respond to this, feeling too tired and defeated to make much of an issue of it, when I happened to notice the lawn.
Well, I would have noticed the lawn had it been there, but since it had disappeared, I noticed what had the appearance of dry, bare earth, bestrewn with what looked like bits of straw, stretching from the patio to the shrubs and mature trees. It used to be a small but perfectly-formed soft green jungle, about twenty feet by thirty feet.
The daffodil beds, the peonies, the bluebells (naturalised) were all bare earth, their long thick stems and leaves vanished, along with the softer green of the over-long 'lawn', which had been knee-high, and mixed timothy, rye and wheat grass, along with at least eight varieties of the cereal as evidenced by the many different flowers.
The remains had been heaped up against a dilapidated, flimsy, and almost fallen in, previously-creosoted fence that my neighbours had painted about five years ago in order to preserve it, which had killed all the plants growing next to it such as mallow, aubretia, sweetpeas, nasturtiums and marigolds. This was the second year that daffodils (hardier than most) had returned, as had the peony, giving a glorious crimson early summer bloom.
That was then, however. I stared in bleak dismay at a bone-dry cleared earth, looking as though someone had very thoroughly searched, unsuccessfully, for my departed body (perhaps no-one told them I was in hospital) and had left the scene a wasteland; a parched, dessicated, dusty yard.
The large packetful of grass seed that my son's friend informed me had been the inspiration for this unaccountable and heroic level of activity, had largely been eaten by the birds, as they do, and was now no longer liable to hang around to the grass-planting season (when a little more regular rain might be expected) in the autumn or spring.
With a prospect of rapidly marauding weeds; dandelions, brambles, bindweed and goose grass, couch and creeper, seeming dismally certain, I felt my spirits sag further as I surveyed the ravaged soil. Memories of thick, lush, meadow-sweet grass with bent necks, that my dog loved to chew, and which softly and fragrantly cushioned me when I wished to sit with a book in the shade of the buddleia or the silver birch on a hot day, flitted into my mind.
The last time my son (eighteen tomorrow).... (perhaps) had been left there alone for a weekend, he'd had the brilliant wheeze of cutting down the elder tree which shadily protected the back (kitchen) door from the gaze of the houses across the way, and cooled the kitchen from the heat of the noon summer sun. His excuse that time had been that there were too many black fly on it.
His excuse for demolishing the lawn, though, was that it was over-long (as I liked it) and uneven, therefore hard to cut. He said that he'd thought if he pulled it all up, levelled it, and planted seeds, they would grow into a fine smooth-cropped new lawn in just a few days... It occurred to me that it was perhaps my fault his education had been sadly neglected.
Bindweed and goosegrass were encroaching on the roses and Irises. Forsythia and one of the apple trees were on more than a nodding acquaintance, entwined as they were in the embrace of the green, tightly wound creeper. In short there were countless useful jobs that could have been done with all that energy...
One day, if I say little now, memory may yet strike when it is least expected. Perhaps my grandchildren will be digging a sand pit in their father's flower beds, or his dog might try to bury a bone in the lawn...
I shall laugh like a drain if he attempts to tick them off.
'Oh!' I shall say,
'I thought that's what lawns were for...'
