My forced incarceration comes with an added bonus. Now that I can wonder aimlessly as a cloud around the garden, I actually have time to look more closely at the multitude of flowers blooming all over Hyde Parc in this fertile season. All I have to do is attempt to ignore the weeds...
With flowers come bugs. The garden is alive with them. Everywhere you look.
Some as beautiful as the flowers themselves.
Some as detailed as they are bizarre.
Many have evolved their own methods of self-preservation.
A sting in the tail...
Or a sting at both ends...
Others may look beautiful, but decimate the local plants. This one's larvae eat palm trees...
Whereas others are both beautiful and work hard to keep the garden fertile...
So here, in summary, are sixty seven photos taken in the garden over the last couple of weeks.
Another of our much-loved 'Gang of Eight' has left us.
Sue may have had many skills and loves, but one thing is for sure, she could talk the hind legs of several donkeys at the same time. (Hmm, it’ll be interesting to see how that translates.) This propensity for chatter made it even an even more cruel blow that her long illness first chose to steal her voice, a long year before it stole her life.
There are many phrases used in this kind of situation, ranging from 'blessed relief' to 'a life well lived'. I’d just like to add how bloody awful it is to lose another one of us.
We’ve been close for a long time, our Gang.
(Note: I wasn't in the photo because I took it, and Roger wasn't there because he was working. Again.)
Here’s a list of random memories in no particular order:
When she redecorated the front of her house with a Mongolian meal after a heavy night out.
Although, as noted above, she did used to chatter a lot, much of what she said used the phrase 'To be honest' repeatedly.
Any answer to a question would entail a very long trail of vaguely related subjects before finally (with a gentle reminder from Tony) getting to the point. If she could remember what the point was...
Although she would dance non-stop to Gangnam Style, it seems that she most loved doing the dusting to Phantom of the Opera.
Her ability to eat was world renowned. Her highlight was demolishing an entire 'Death by Chocolate' after already having gorged on a large meal. We could only look on in admiration.
When she visited us over here in the south of France, her greatest delight was searching for duck eggs. Her face would shine when she found one.
Er, that may not be from a duck Sue...
In her memory, we’ve added yet another statue to our garden. The obvious choice:
I’ve revisited a video I made a year or so ago, so as to include Sue. This is a video you really don't want to be in.
I, too, have recently had a close encounter of the terminal kind. This has led my ever-loving wife to urge me to get into print all the details of things she would need to know and do if I ‘ended up in hospital’ (a metaphor for shuffling off my mortal coil - erm, another tricky translation). I guess that now has to include how to edit videos so as to get my ugly mug into it.
There were happier times. Many of them. This video is a compilation of the last couple of times we were all together…
It's gutting that we shall once more not be able to attend a funeral of one we love. There's only one thing for it, and it's called Penderyn...
As some of you will have gathered, much of my time is spent in conflict with my garden, attempting to control its every attempt at plant genocide. It does take time, surprisingly, but it’s good for the soul.
Except now. Having somehow taken host of a large boudin (blood sausage) in my lower limb area, a thrombus of giant proportions, I find myself struck down (although, somewhat obviously, still alive) and unable to don army kit and attack my apparently sentient plant life.
Thus, all I can do is sit here and think of what has been achieved in this ongoing war. I have subsequently stumbled upon several photos taken back when the garden was just a twinkle in my eye, somewhere between 5 and 7 years ago. What if I could take some photos of the garden now and compare them to those old ones?
Thus, sneaking out without my hospital guard spotting me (“just going to the loo dear!”) I slowly realised that this was nearly impossible, due to the ground levels being different, brick walls having been built, and trees hurling themselves upwards at crazy speeds, often obliterating the old view.
