“Oi ‘ev scranletted three hundred furrers fro’ Nettle Flitch to Ticklepenny corner!” With these words I greeted my wife as I came in from the garden for lunch this morning. Let me explain.
This is one of my favourite quotations from Cold Comfort Farm (my favourite novel) by Stella Gibbons. Reuben, the solid and hard-working eldest brother comes in to lunch, which Flora is preparing. Unlike Flora (who hadn’t the faintest idea what he was saying) my wife recognised instantly that I was claiming recognition for the morning of hard physical labour I had just spent in the garden. My hours of diligent scranletting mean that we now actually have a lawn again instead of a patch of scrubby grass sprinkled with sprouting sycamore keys. If that were not enough, I have thinned my salad seedlings and sowed beetroot seeds. My word! I feel virtuous …. that is, until I reflect that it is quite some time since I did any serious painting.
At the moment I am aware of an idea germinating (like the sycamore seeds) on the edge of my consciousness, although right now, despite a couple of preliminary doodles, it refuses to come into focus.