July 14, 2003
My father hacks at the hedges of his garden with a gusto not normally associated with a man of his age. There is no topiary and little finesse involved, it is a task he performs biannually and one that he feels steals time from his work of painting pictures of boats. The garden in question is one that lacks the prettiness of herbacious borders or the utility of a vegetable garden, but it is a green bowl that grows large about my parents and thanks to the foresight of some green thumbed ancient sports many colourful explosions, mainly of the shrub variety. There are two palm trees, a handful of somewhat unproductive cherry trees, two beautiful lilac bushes, a japonica, and my mother’s roses which smell and look splendid, perhaps due to the fact that she annually seeks out fertiliser from the dwindling farmer population or horse owners in the area. I have come to realise that the joy my parents derive from this garden is worth the physical work it requires of them. My mother injured a hand last year with the hedges; this year my father toppled from a ladder onto the road that passes their house and was carted away in an ambulance. He split open his head and injured his shoulder. After a night in hospital and extensive x-rays they released him to my mother, his house and his garden.
The odd romance of accidents not fatal or with consequences long endured.
I phone to hear of his progress and they are teenagers freshly met. Concussed and giggling. I remind him that ladders have evolved quite a lot in 60 years. He inherited this ladder from his father. My father has forgotten, until I remind him, that this very ladder was the one that his father met the beginning of his demise on. He retired from the world of car maintenance, climbed ladders to escape his wife, fell off, and subsequently lost his mind and was removed to the loony bin. Death followed soon afterwards.
They are having a summer in Ireland this year, not a season to be presumed upon in those latitudes. When my mother phoned on Sunday at 5.30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time my father was drinking tea in the garden and doing well.
|
My father hacks at the hedges of his garden with a gusto not normally associated with a man of his age. There is no topiary and little finesse involved, it is a task he performs biannually and one that he feels steals time from his work of painting pictures of boats. The garden in question is one that lacks the prettiness of herbacious borders or the utility of a vegetable garden, but it is a green bowl that grows large about my parents and thanks to the foresight of some green thumbed ancient sports many colourful explosions, mainly of the shrub variety. There are two palm trees, a handful of somewhat unproductive cherry trees, two beautiful lilac bushes, a japonica, and my mother’s roses which smell and look splendid, perhaps due to the fact that she annually seeks out fertiliser from the dwindling farmer population or horse owners in the area. I have come to realise that the joy my parents derive from this garden is worth the physical work it requires of them. My mother injured a hand last year with the hedges; this year my father toppled from a ladder onto the road that passes their house and was carted away in an ambulance. He split open his head and injured his shoulder. After a night in hospital and extensive x-rays they released him to my mother, his house and his garden.
The odd romance of accidents not fatal or with consequences long endured.
I phone to hear of his progress and they are teenagers freshly met. Concussed and giggling. I remind him that ladders have evolved quite a lot in 60 years. He inherited this ladder from his father. My father has forgotten, until I remind him, that this very ladder was the one that his father met the beginning of his demise on. He retired from the world of car maintenance, climbed ladders to escape his wife, fell off, and subsequently lost his mind and was removed to the loony bin. Death followed soon afterwards.
They are having a summer in Ireland this year, not a season to be presumed upon in those latitudes. When my mother phoned on Sunday at 5.30 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time my father was drinking tea in the garden and doing well.
- rachael 7-14-2003 9:15 am