by Tony Hawks
We lost our cabbages, kale and broccoli to another foe. This came as a bitter blow, as we’d worked so hard on our defences. Following the advice that we’d picked up on our organic gardening course, we’d covered the brassica2 with protective netting and I was fairly convinced that it was impenetrable. This is why I was confused when on each successive visit the leaves were increasingly more decimated. No slugs could be in there, so why the damage?
One evening, I lifted off all the netting and surveyed the bed that lay beneath it. It felt like I was looking down on an aerial photo of Manhattan after a nuclear attack. The remaining kale, cabbages and broccoli resembled the shells of buildings after a horrific and devastating strike. Then I saw the problem. A small and brilliantly disguised caterpillar crawling across what was left of one of the leaves. Upon closer inspection, I saw that every leaf in the bed had several of these hungry little larvae hiding away on its stems.
I had made a schoolboy error. Fran and I had been delighted to see butterflies flitting around the garden. Simply divine. Our spirits had been lifted on a summer afternoon by the sight of these delightful, fluttering dashes of colour. However, unbeknownst to us, they’d been up to no good. They’d laid their tiny, almost invisible, little eggs on our brassica. I had then compounded the problem by placing netting over the bed and trapping the caterpillars inside. Even if the little pests had wanted to get out and feed elsewhere, they couldn’t. I had incarcerated them and given them no choice but to destroy our crop. There might have been tastier pickings elsewhere, but there was no escape from my secure unit.
Was it now time, I wondered, to follow the advice of W. C. Fields?
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.
Well, he did use the word ‘try’ twice.
There was always next year.
***
Ding Dong.
We’d acquired a reasonably sophisticated doorbell from the previous owners. I’d probably spent half my life living somewhere with a sign up next to the doorbell, saying: ‘Please knock, doorbell not working’. Doorbells weren’t important enough to fix. Knockers are for knocking. Knockers rock.
I made my way to the front door. We weren’t expecting anyone this afternoon.
‘It’ll be a parcel,’ I called to Fran. ‘I’ll get it.’
I opened the door to find a little boy looking up at me. Surely too young to be working for the Post Office. Furthermore, he was carrying no parcel.
‘Excuse me,’ the boy said politely, ‘but there’s a sheep in your garden.’
I was rather taken aback. I wanted to do a double take. A big, comedy double take. I wanted to say ‘I beg your pardon?’ in a taken-aback voice, a bit like a character in a sitcom.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I said, in a taken-aback voice.
There. Why not? It was my front door, and my right.
‘There’s a sheep in your back garden,’ the boy repeated, confidently.
‘I don’t think there is.’
‘There is. My mum’s dog chased him in there.’
Two adults joined the boy at this point, and added weight to his argument. Apparently, the lady’s dog had chased a sheep, and it had separated from the flock, run through the field at the back of our garden, gone through an open gate, doubled back up the lane, darted into Ken’s garden and then squeezed through a gap in the fence and into ours.
‘You’d better come and take a look,’ I said to my visitors.
Fran looked a little puzzled, as I now led two adults and a child through the house and into the garden.
‘Just going to deal with the sheep,’ I said, setting her mind at rest.
Outside, we could hear a sheep making sheep noises,3 but we could see no animal. The lady, who hurriedly introduced herself as Susie, was a little anxious because she knew that if anything happened to the sheep, then as owner of the dog she would take the rap and compensation would need to be paid to the farmer.
The man with her, in his early thirties, introduced himself as Sam. He had no connection beyond having been out walking and then becoming embroiled in the sheep debacle.
‘The sheep is startled and frightened,’ he said.
A noise from the bottom of the garden.
‘It’s behind the shed,’ called the little boy/ace sheep hunter.
We made our way down to the shed, where we found the boy’s statement to be spot-on. The anxious-looking animal had clambered to the top of a pile of soil and general garden debris and was now looking longingly back into the field from which it had originally escaped. It could see its brothers, sisters, friends, cousins, parents – or whoever the other sheep happened to be. They were clearly more preferable company for this sheep than the three adults and a child who were now hovering nervously behind it.
‘Get it to jump over the fence!’
This new voice was neighbour Tony’s. He had wandered around the back of his house and into the field, which actually belonged to him and that he rented to a tenant farmer.
‘Get it to jump over the fence,’ Tony repeated.
The sheep certainly looked like it wanted to jump, but it was hesitating like a swimmer at the end of the high board. It needed some encouragement.
‘How do we get it to jump?’ I asked.
‘Kick it up the backside!’ he called back.
Ah, the subtleties of country life.
My new acquaintances Susie and Sam now turned to me, as if I should do the kicking. The sheep was on my land, after all. It would have been rude to kick a sheep on someone else’s patch. It seemed that this was my responsibility, even though I had been blameless in the process that had led to the sheep’s presence here. I moved behind the sheep and took a step towards it. Then another. Soon I was within booting range.
I hesitated, a bit like a swimmer at the end of a high board. That made two of us now. The sheep and me. Anxious high divers. This wasn’t easy. I needed to get myself into a new mental state for this action. I’d never kicked a sheep up the arse before. Nor indeed had I done anything else with a sheep’s arse. Honest.
I stood there, unable to swing my foot into action. It was no good. The sheep looked too much like a sheep and not enough like a football. I felt too much like a city boy and not enough like a farmer. As far as I could recall, I’d never even touched a sheep before. How could I make a sharp kick up the backside my first contact with this kind of animal?
In the end I was spared the humiliation of having to explain to everyone that I couldn’t do it. The sheep must have sensed that someone was about to kick it up the arse because it jumped. All on its own, the sheep made the leap to freedom. Perhaps it was an act of compassion. It sensed that someone was expected to kick it up the arse but couldn’t do so, and it had taken pity. Either way, it was gone, and it was gambolling back to join the other sheep, as if nothing had happened.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ said Susie.
‘Hooray!’ said the little boy.
‘Fancy staying for a cup of tea?’ I suggested to the trio of unexpected guests.
‘That’s very kind,’ said Susie, ‘but we were late before this happened, so we’d better be off. Thanks so much for your help.’
‘My pleasure. Your boy has excellent sheep-gathering skills.’
Sam stayed for tea. His story was fascinating. He lived the other side of the valley in a farm that he and four other friends had bought six months previously. They’d all met as volunteers, offering their labour in exchange for free food and accommodation on an organic and eco-friendly farm. Now they were setting up on their own, establishing a market garden growing vegetables and soft fruit, and delivering door to door in the local area. Their aim was to make a living on the land, but for the moment, all of them were doing other jobs part-time as well, just to ensure that they didn’t go under.
‘That sounds like a brilliant plan,’ I said. ‘Can we sign up for some of your veg deliveries?’
; ‘Sure. Why don’t you pop over for a tour of the farm?’
‘We’d love that.’
The phone rang and even though Fran took the call, Sam took it as a cue to head off.
‘Come and see us soon.’
‘We will.’
By the time I’d seen Sam off, I returned to see Fran looking a little shaken.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘They’re coming in the morning.’
‘Who are?’
‘The Dartmoor National Park Authority.’
‘What for?’
‘To check on our property and see if they’ll approve our planning application.’
‘Right. So why are you looking so anxious?’
‘Because of the trees. They’ll see the trees.’
‘Ah yes. The trees.’
***
Perhaps I should take a moment here to clarify this exchange a little. Fran and I had applied for permission to add an extension that would enable us to enlarge the kitchen, and make the most of the views over the garden and beyond. To do this work, we would need to cut down a big cherry tree that was in the way, and which happened to block out most of our afternoon and evening sun, too. We’d already had it checked out and we’d been told that it was at the end of its life, and that a fungus growing out of the side of it provided the proof.
However, various people had told us that the National Park Authority could be tricky customers and that they liked to throw their weight about, and should they choose to stick a preservation order on the tree, then that could scupper the whole plan. Fran and I had decided that the best thing to do was simply to cut the tree down ourselves, thus averting any issue. This phone call, therefore, had rather wrong-footed us.
‘What time do they want to come?’ I asked, not quite in a panic, but getting there.
‘Nine a.m.’
‘That doesn’t give us much time,’ I said, delivering the line with an urgency that made it sound like it belonged in a Hollywood thriller.
‘What shall we do?’
‘I’ll call Ken.’
Fifteen minutes later, Ken was in our back garden with a chainsaw at the ready, and a spare one for me. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what all neighbours should be like – ready to drop everything and produce a chainsaw the moment you want a tree chopping down at short notice. I can only sympathise with those of you who have the kind of crap neighbours that might be out, or who don’t own two chainsaws.
Cutting down a tree requires planning. It’s important to ensure where the fallen tree will land after it has been cut. Ken made some measurements to ensure that we didn’t destroy our greenhouse and began attaching a rope to one of the higher branches. It would be my job to hold onto the other end of this rope, once the cutting began. Following a flourish of Ken’s arm on the pull cord, the chainsaw cranked noisily into action and was soon munching its way through the tree.
I looked on with mixed feelings. Cutting down this tree, dying though it was, seemed like an act of eco-vandalism. Trees, we’d all been constantly reminded in recent years, are good things. Cars, planes and consumer items are bad. Chainsaws are bad, too, especially when cutting down trees. They are quick and efficient, though. In less than two minutes, the fallen tree trunk laid across our back garden, testimony to man’s massive technological advantage over nature. Perhaps the sight before me represented, in microcosm, what we humans had done to our planet. It is precisely because of the speed and ease with which man can transform the natural world around him that we may be standing at the precipice of an environmental catastrophe. We’ve just got too good at stuff.
All except me, that is. If left on my own, I probably couldn’t even start a chainsaw. So there – I was doing my bit. Being crap at stuff is ecologically sound.
‘Well done, Ken,’ I said. ‘Job done.’
‘Not yet,’ he replied, ‘I’ll lop the branches off and cut them into log sizes so you can use them in the log burner next year.’4
***
I didn’t warm much to the lady from the National Park Planning Department, as I showed her round the house. She had that air about her, often displayed by people who perceive themselves to have power. It wasn’t disdain, but it was well on the way. She didn’t communicate with me as another human being, but as a subservient underling. She behaved as if my wish to build this extension was an irritation to her, forgetting the fact that if people like me didn’t want to make changes to our houses, then there’d be no job for people like her to turn up and sullenly consider whether to grant permission or not.
What is unfortunate about this kind of situation is that one feels that it would be foolish to be anything other than especially accommodating to these types; the fear nestling at the back of your mind that if they didn’t like you, they could invoke an ancient bye-law that not only prevented you from doing the work you wanted to do, but also meant you’d have to knock down part of what was already there. So, when they’re bossy or surly, you smile obsequiously, reply politely, and offer them a totally undeserved cup of tea.
‘So, why do you want this extension?’ the lady asked, as she ungraciously nosed around our kitchen.
‘Because it’s so dark in here,’ offered Fran hurriedly. ‘The window is so small we have to turn the lights on in the day.’
This had indeed been the case – before we’d cut the tree down. However, today as Fran uttered these words the sun blazed through the window, dazzling our visitor and causing her to squint before she could answer. The idea that we now needed lights on during the day was patently absurd, and Fran was given a sharp look by our visitor which expressed as much.
‘Can we go out the back?’ she asked, choosing not to question the logic of Fran’s remark.
‘Of course,’ I said, at my submissive best.
I was only too aware, as I led this lady out of the back door of the house, that the first thing she’d see would be a bloody great felled tree. I had already considered the things that I might say, as and when she commented, and had rejected the following:
‘Blimey, how did that happen?’
‘Helluva breeze last night, wasn’t there?’
‘That’s always been like that.’
‘We were lucky the lightning didn’t strike the house.’
Unable to come up with a suitable line, I’d just left it and hoped that the inspiration would come to me when required. Now that moment had arrived.
Or had it? The planning officer looked at the fallen tree, made a mental note, and simply moved on. Maybe she didn’t like trees. Perhaps she’d seen the fungus and recognised that it was already a dying tree? Or was she experienced enough to realise that a tree, once cut down, couldn’t be put back up again? Revenge for dispatching the tree might be exacted further down the line in the planning process. Time would tell.
‘How did it go?’ asked Fran, once our unwelcome visitor had departed.
‘I don’t get a good feeling,’ I replied.
***
As autumn set in, some unwelcome things started to happen. Firstly, the weather became wintry and with a distinct penchant for cold and damp. With a disappointing foresight, supermarkets started to stock ‘Christmassy’ items like mince pies and crackers. The assault had begun. It’s the time of year when people cease to be people, but simply consumers who should be relentlessly targeted, wherever they are, and whatever they are doing. What should be a short, and fun, winter break is preceded by this wearisome, extended period in which we are urged to indulge in an unwarranted, ill-advised, and unwelcome spending spree.
Oh yes, and the days got unreasonably short too.
***
‘It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it!’ announced our beaming sonographer.
Were we just being lucky, or were all NHS women working in childbirth unfeasibly jolly? Could they really be this happy, or do they go on acting courses, as well as the ones that teach them the difference between a perineum and a pelvis?
The occasion was
the twenty-week scan, and the sonographer was checking that the baby was developing normally, and taking a peek at where the placenta was lying in Fran’s uterus. There would shortly be the opportunity to see our baby on a screen,5 and to make out its head, torso, little hands and little legs. This ought to have been exciting, but it wasn’t – it was scary. How could one disguise the fact that this event was all about checking for abnormalities? They even called it the anomaly scan. Now was the time, far more than at the ten-week stage, when if there were any problems, they were likely to be spotted.
So there I sat, looking on anxiously as a deadly serious examination took place against a backdrop of the sonographer’s extroverted and misplaced bonhomie. Fran seemed to cope better with this onslaught of bubbly banter than I did – I was far too intent on listening for a change in tone, a more serious expression, or an alteration in breathing. How would she react if she spotted something untoward? Surely the joviality would have to cease upon the discovery of bad news?
To my relief, it didn’t need to.
‘Everything is just as it should be,’ she said, unable to deliver this excellent news with any increased level in chirpiness, having peaked, quite irresponsibly, already. ‘I’ll give you a nice little printout of what your baby looks like.’
Soon we were holding a picture of a very, very young baby. Twenty weeks old and, though I say so myself, looking remarkably intelligent.6
As Fran and I marvelled at this incredible sight, our ultrasound hostess had time for one more question.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to know what sex the baby is?’
‘We’re sure,’ I replied, ‘we’re going for a surprise. Besides, it’s not one hundred per cent accurate, is it?’
‘Not far off. Ninety-six per cent. Sometimes if the baby has excess wind and too much tummy fat, it obscures the view and it’s hard to tell the gender accurately.’
Surely if the baby had excess wind and too much tummy fat, then it would have to be male? And an extremely precocious one at that. Some males can take up to thirty years before they do the farting and the beer gut thing, so a baby like this would be well ahead of the game.
