Wells Voice Newsletter April 2021

For now sits Expectation in the air   (Henry V )

Like some old car left idle in the garage some of us need a sound cranking up to get into the right gear to tackle the remnants of the winter garden, those battered and disordered little beds and pots of neglect awaiting a spring clean. Once fired up however there's no stopping us. Not this year, especially not this year. We are raring to go for we might, just might be in a position to show off our efforts to someone else. Even if we haven't got things just right. Even if our hopefuls have turned into failures and even if, after all our fussing and grubbing, the garden looks as though it was landscaped by Incapability Bruno. With a bit of luck, and if everyone behaves themselves, we might allow a friend or two to see it.

Tentative plans are in place to enjoy those summer afternoons, preferably in someone else's garden and even if it rains. Wells Gardening Club has a few prospects for mid-summer for the simple pleasure of a garden visit. This is one of the joys of the Great British Summer which has been too long denied to us. No other nation does it with the great enthusiastic zest as the British. It's a serious obsession, not born out of nosiness but in the fervent wish for sharing particular ideas and simple pleasures. Groups descending upon gardens exhibit a variety of individual approaches. Some garden addicts go straightaway for a particular plant down on all fours, scrutinising every petal like an earnest galanthophile. Others take a broader view and wander off heads in the air ingesting the atmosphere. The determined ones leg it quickly into pole position, first in line down the garden path to enjoy the vistas unimpeded by the backs and hind quarters of+ fellow visitors. Another priority is a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. Shopping is high on the agenda for the single-minded who make a bee-line for the plant sales or pots of fancy jam. Whatever category we may be in, we are so looking forward to doing it all over again, come rain come shine. There are rather too many ifs still about but here's hoping.  Pip.

 

Time is Nature's way of stopping everything happening at once.  (On a sundial)