Gardening (And Other Things) At The Old Rectory

Those I meet in my lovely gardening work

Gardening (And Other Things) At The Old Rectory

At the Old Rectory I work in the slight drizzle all morning. My customer, Rosemary, comes to tell me it's coffee time. Just as well, as it begins to pour. I take off my coat and hang it on a defunct bell pull, under the porch, where it drips its steady drip drip, while I go inside.

The two older dogs, white muzzled now, bark as they always have done, to announce my arrival. There is a new puppy, called Smidge or Widget, depending on whether you ask Rosemary or her grandson, which wags its whole self and which I cannot resist, despite not being a dog lover.

Rosemary makes the coffee, and we chat, comfortably as we have always done over the last several years. Inconsequential, catching up. I think she must be my oldest customer, ninety is the rumour, though I don't ask. But she is young in spirit, having a gentle sense of humour and keeping track of absent grandchildren via facebook.

Her daughter, who lives with her family in the main part of the house, comes through to check her son's clothes drying above the aga. He is off to a festival in the rain. He washed his clothes too late; as she so rightly says, they won't dry in a tent.

Rosemary adds birdseed to her daughter's shopping list. “But we were in the shop yesterday. There were shelves full of it.”

“I know,” says Rosemary, “I walked past it but didn't want to carry it. Forgot it in the end.” After a short pause she adds, “I'm old.”

“Good excuse,” I say quietly, and I notice a small smug smile.

Outside again, I meet Rosemary's son in law, something of a philosopher. He is very nice, but talking to him can sometimes be like trying to find firm ground in a marsh. I don't know where I am or how I got there, or indeed, how I'll ever get out. I usually leave Anna, my gardening partner, to chat to him, as she cannot help herself, out of a deep ingrained politeness, asking the fatal question, “How are you?” a phrase I have learned to avoid when talking to him.

But this time I'm alone. He says he didn't venture out when I first arrived because of the vortex of energy surrounding me and Rosemary. What nonsense; he has a thing about the power of female energy, and he bangs on about it for a while. So I say, jokingly “Well, you'd better watch out then!” and he backs away, grinning, temporarily vanquished.

In the woodland, beyond the lawn, lives a family friend, John. He stays in what is affectionately known as the Mausoleum, a sunken building, which used to house a swimming pool. He is somewhat itinerant and lives his life like a travelling gipsy. A hundred years ago he would have had a horse drawn caravan, or horse and cart. These days he has a jeep, full of clutter, and has been known to cook his dinner on a cast iron stove on top of the bonnet. He sometimes opts to sleep on the sofa of a local pub or do a month's building work for a friend in France.

He is a cheerful kind of guy and we always exchange a few words about the relative doings of our children etc, before pottering off, me to garden and he to attend to some maintenance job.

I love working in the Rectory garden, but I'm not sure which I enjoy most, the gardening or

the feeling that for a short time, I am enveloped in the warmth and eccentricity of these very individual people who go to make up a family, and the brief glimpse I get into their very interesting lives.