Déjeuner sur l'herbe

An exciting day. Just as the Taoiseach was announcing his resignation (not before time), Susanna and I were behaving like voyeurs, watching the neighbours making love on the lawn!

As I was waiting for the press-conference to start, listening to RTE on this machine, what should I spot through the window, bounding through the Labyrinth beds, but a hare. Not our usual demure greyish resident hare, who is a good neighbour - almost a lodger - of whom we are proud, despite her partiality for crocuses, and latterly scabious, but a larger almost ginger creature. Susanna called me to watch him as he broke cover on the Lime Alley.

And then we saw the two of them. Our demure resident is definitely female! They were at it. Repeatedly, though each tryst was quite short. He was enthusiastic, and she was up for it, though I think he must have been a bit rough, judging from the little tufts of fur I discovered later. And then we spotted a very much smaller hare loitering not far away - a teenager perhaps, excited to see the grown ups behaving oddly?

Later on our demure resident disappeared, very sensibly, because a second big ginger fellow appeared. The two guys were not at all friendly, racing after each other, and scrapping - Susanna saw them box a bit, but I missed that. Jealousy over a woman is a terrible thing to watch. Neither one would back down, but eventually they disappeared into the distance in the next field.

I fancy this would be the song of our demure resident, in the words of the Song of Solomon (no one can persuade me it's about anything but sexual passion!):

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among maidens.
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his intention was love.
Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!

We look forward to seeing leverets in the near future!

Sixty Years Young!

My 60th birthday has come and gone!

I’d expected a quiet one, but Susanna had been plotting behind my back. “The courier is here”, she called. And when I opened the door there were my daughters Amy and Lucie, with their partners Ben and Tim, and my grandsons Cal and Gabe. I was taken completely by surprise - but what a lovely one! Among the presents they brought were a framed collection of happy family photos, and a CD of birthday greetings from them, from my other children Elinor and Barnaby who couldn’t be there, and from old friends, with more photos, and movies, and singing. Replaying it now by myself brings real tears of joy to my eyes - what a silly, sentimental old man I have become!

We were joined that evening by my brother Tom, with his wife Lucy and my nieces Hetty and Sophie, for a great family dinner, with a turkey hand-reared by a friend, and scrumptious birthday cake. And we played games: Are you there Moriarty?, Cahoots, and Holiday Planning. Over the meal Tom and I reminisced about our grandparents, in the presence of my grandchildren: if they were listening, they were hearing memories of their great-great-grandparents, from people who knew them. The continuity of memory that runs in families is amazing, and I think a very valuable thing, rooting us securely in a shared history.

Our gardens are often like that too. So many of the plants in our garden have an ancient history that I treasure. The tiny daffodils that have just flowered are an old cultivar of Narcissus minor from the Pyrenees: I got it from my mother, but it came originally from her Devenish grandparents' house Clonteem in County Roscommon, so I know it as the Clonteem daffodil. The balsam poplar, just coming into leaf and scenting the bottom of the garden, is a baby from my parents’ one, which in turn grew from a branch broken off her tree in Adare by Cousin Marjorie. “Here Lucie, stick it in the ground and it will grow”, she said: it did for her, and it did for me too. Other plants came from friends, or we have grown them from seeds or cuttings collected from beautiful places we have visited. They are now joined by a cherry (Prunus mume 'Contorta' I think) given me by Tom and his family for my birthday. A whole treasury of memories, rooting Susanna and I in our own landscape.

Despite the wind and rain, spring is bursting out all over in the garden. My birthday breakfast was scrambled eggs with our own asparagus from the polytunnel. There are tadpoles in the pond, so the frogspawn had been fertilised. Magnolia stellata (a house-warming present from a friend) is in full bloom, and M. 'Leonard Messel' is just showing pink. The first scarlet tulips are looking gay in Susanna's labyrinth garden. And the blackthorn has come out, so the fly will be up in a calendar month. How exciting it all is!

The theme of last Sunday’s readings was faith: the faith in Jesus the risen Christ confessed by Thomas who we wrongly call Doubting; the faith boldly proclaimed in public by Peter on the day of Pentecost; the faith passed down from the Apostles over the generations to us, which by the grace of God we will pass on to our children and grandchildren. It is a great gift from God which firmly roots us in the family of Christians of every place and age.

The Gardeners & The Hare

My very talented cousin Heath Rosselli has painted this fine diptych portrait of Joakim and Susanah in the garden. The Lime Alley and the wild-flower meadow are behind us, and if you look very closely you can also see a portrait of the resident hare!

We are really delighted with the painting, though the quality of the photograph does not really do it justice. I know it's rather self-indulgent, but I thought regular visitors might like to see an image of the garden I write about.

Heath lives near Bury-St-Edmunds, Suffolk. You can see more of her work here. She is also a Church of England Lay Elder at All Saints, Worlington - the equivalent of a Reader with us - though she doesn't look old enough for such a fierce title!

A brisk Spring walk

Only a few days ago we were back in winter’s grip, with freezing fog decorating everything with hoary rime. But at last its spell has been broken, and I seem to have woken from hibernation to begin putting manners on the untidy garden, which I have so neglected since November.

I’ve started to push back the hedges and shrubberies, though much still needs to be done. Glyphosate has been applied to the overgrown vegetable garden, which I didn’t cultivate last year, in readiness for digging and rotivating. If I’d tackled these jobs when they should have been done they would only have been half the work! The mower hospital has fixed the broken clutch cable and sharpened the blunted blades, and as soon as I collected the machine yesterday I made a start on the main paths and the croquet lawn.

The later purple and white crocuses are making a fine splash down the lime alley, though the slightly earlier yellow ones were a disappointment this year. When I checked, I found most of the new leaves and buds had been eaten down to the ground. My suspicions were confirmed ten days ago when I spotted the resident hare grazing where they should be. And I suspect he has barked one of the young walnut trees, given us by a friend who grew them from seed. It and its twin are now protected with ugly curly plastic guards, but I fear the barked one may be a goner. The hare has made a form among the Verbena bonariensis seedlings in one of the yew beds. He (or she – I can’t sex a hare at a distance!) gives Susannah and me so much pleasure that we don’t mind putting up with the little damage he does. I also notice that one of the limes in the alley has been used as a scratching post, and some species tulips I planted in the wild-flower meadow have been grubbed up: I’ve never heard of hares grubbing in grass, so perhaps this was done by a visiting badger – I have been told of a sett not far from here - I rather hope so!

Yesterday Susannah came rushing in from feeding her birds in great excitement: she had found a big mass of frog-spawn in the small pond on the patio. We have had frogs in the garden since we came here, and when I strim the wild-flower meadow in autumn I always dread the occasional splat as one gets in the way, but we have never had spawn before. When I went out to look I could only see the one frog in the pond, a female I think by its size. I do hope at least one male had been there earlier to fertilise the eggs, so that we will have tadpoles! Susannah’s birds must be the best fed in the county, and have been entertaining us all winter from the kitchen window. This morning I was delighted to see a charm of goldfinches. They were feeding on peanuts, which is unusual because they are specialist seed eaters, and we rarely see them on the bird table.

Spring started in January like a toddler, but has already moved into a brisk walk. The snowdrops are almost over, I can see the daffodils nodding as I write, Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum) is in full blow, and the Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis Rosea’ by the front door has bright pink flowers on bare wood – the latter is badly named I think, because for us at least it never flowers in autumn. Spring will be racing around like a ten-year-old by Easter!

Easter is so early this year, March 23rd, before my birthday which is unusual. I was born on Easter day. According to my mother, God bless her, I caused the nuns tending her to miss Mass, and I’ve been a trouble ever since! In fact Easter will not fall on March 23rd again until long after my death in 2160. The earliest day Easter can possibly be is March 22nd, which last occurred in 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. Easter will be very special this year!

When is kissing out of fashion?

When the gorse is out of blossom!

But then the gorse blooms 12 months of the year here in Ireland, as I was reminded as I drove country roads on New Years Eve. We Irish seem to have become very kissy people in recent years - which I think is lovely - so this made the perfect justification for kissing all the ladies at the New Years party in the Club later on! It was a very civilised affair, bring-a-bottle and a dish to share, plenty of chat with old friends and new, and great jollity. 2008 is off to a good start.

A cousin sent me with his New Year wishes this BLUEBEAUTY link with amazing photos of our planet Earth from space. If you have Powerpoint, click on the link, open it and click on the screen to see the slideshow. If you don't, you could try this link, but the Powerpoint version is better. As a Buddhist, he says it has a spiritual message: we are but an infinite speck on an infinite speck, so nothing should be taken too seriously! As a Christian, I agree that it has a spiritual message, but a rather different one I think. I see in this delicate jewel the traces of a loving Father-like God, through whose creative power we humankind have evolved. He has endowed us with this bountiful planet to meet all our needs. He has made us in his image to be souls: moral beings knowing right from wrong; with cleverness to understand creation; and with free will to use it for good or evil. We must take it all very seriously I believe. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy a good party, as they did at the wedding in Cana of Galilee! As in so much else, Jesus shows us the way, and the Spirit sustains us!

Christmas Greetings!

Every Blessing for Christmas

and throughout 2008

Gaudenzio Ferrari, Glory of Angels, in Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Saronno

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace, good will toward men and women!

from Joakim and Susanna

God in the Garden in July – Fruits

Summer has arrived at last, after twelve weeks with at least a little rain every day, I think. Of course we haven’t suffered as badly as so many in England. I offer a prayer for those with flooded houses, farms and businesses. But I was blessed with sun for my commisssioning as a Reader last Sunday, and it has been sunny and dry since, thank God for it.

Today I attacked the fan-trained Victoria plum. ‘Pinch the side shoots back to six leaves in July’, advises the pruning guide, ‘and after harvest cut back to half their length’. That may be the ideal if you’ve kept the fan properly, but I have let it overgrow, and it’s grafted on too vigorous a root-stock for the space allowed it. So I just hack it to size and trim it to my best judgement. There’s a good set of fruit, but as usual I notice some with the drop of resin that betrays the plum sawfly grub inside. The pears and apples too have set well. The raspberries and loganberries are finished, but I’ve just picked a good bowl of blackcurrants. Not a big yield from four bushes, but sufficient for a summer-pudding. They are quite overgrown by goat-willows eight feet tall that should have been dug out ages ago, which is why the yield is poor – proving that open ground here will revert to willow scrub within five years if it isn’t mowed or cultivated!

The fruit swells too on the wildlings, the damsons, sloes, elderberries and brambles in the hedge, and the Whitebeam and Spindle in the wilderness. The berries on the Mountain Ash and the Guelder Rose are starting to colour, as are the haws. Autumn is almost upon us, before we have had time to enjoy the Summer!

To my surprise I see that several of our young trees are also starting to fruit. There were seeds on one of the Limes in the Alley last year, but this year there are acorns on one of the hybrid oaks, grown from seed collected in the Botanical Gardens in Glasnevin. There are also cones on Cupressus goveniana grown from seed collected in California, on Cunninghamia lanceolata ‘Glauca’ bought as a seedling at an IGPS plant sale, and on Cryptomeria japonica ‘Elegans’ given to Susanna by a friend and barely four-foot tall. I think most gardeners feel their trees are a bit like children, but it seems Joakim may not have to wait too long for trees like grandchildren!

To my great joy three real grandsons, Cal, Gabe and Finn, came to stay for my commissioning. It was lovely to watch them playing together in the garden, cousins reforging old friendships. One game they played they called ‘mob’, a name new to me, but a kind of tag in which the one who was ‘it’ had to touch the last tree in the Lime alley without being caught by the others. So much hiding and stalking, and squealing, frantic dashes down the paths and through the wilderness. Now they’re gone, I’m surprised to see how little damage the garden has suffered: a small boot print in a flowerbed here, a broken branch on a shrub there, nothing of any consequence. This is what the garden was made for! They too are fruits; fruits of love, the apples of my eye. Some of the loves that went to make them are broken now, but I pray they never doubt their origins in love.

Not all fruits are good to eat. After the commissioning service, the boys were clambering in the old Laburnum trees beside the Church, and discovered the pods full of seeds like tiny little peas. Forgetting mother’s warnings, two of them ate some of the very poisonous seeds. They had to be rushed to A&E, where I’m glad to say they were given very nasty activated charcoal to drink, to neutralise the poison. They are all fine now, thank God, but they won’t be such silly boys again I’m sure!

Paul in Galatians describes the fruits of the Spirit as ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’. Please God these fruits will flourish in this garden too.