Setting a bad example to the children?

Thank you for your lovely thoughtful comments on my returning-to-Nepal quandary, outlined in my last post. While I'm thinking about that - here is another, far less serious, dilemma.

Some years ago we lived in a little house with parking spaces in a courtyard at the front. It was a lovely little house, with lovely neighbours ...

... Except for the couple who lived at the end of the row. Well, they didn't actually live there. They visited some weekends, but much of the time the house stayed empty. Even so they seemed to think that they owned their parking spaces - so if they should turn up and find anyone with visitors had allowed them to park in their space they had a hissy fit.

To be fair, they had a hissy fit at everything. A child in the front garden with a ball was enough to screw their faces up till they looked like dogs' bottoms.

We never knew their names. We knew them as 'the Miseries.' Even when they were here, surrounded by these wonderful Wiltshire Downs, they grumbled. I'm afraid we laughed at them behind their backs, they made themselves look so ridiculous. 

There was a little passageway beside their garden - leading to the back of the row of houses. There was nothing but a little wire fence between the gardens, so it was easy to see the rather bland, pristine arrangement of their little plot.

Now one year we had a surfeit of sunflower seeds ... I can't remember why ... nor whose idea it was to plant them in the Miseries' garden ... though it was easy enough to slink round there at sundown. The planting involved a lot of rather childish giggling and possibly wasn't a great example to my children (who must have been in their early teens at the time). Or was it? Surely it's okay to respond to people who are terminally grumpy by planting sunflowers in their garden?

So - it is vandalism? Or a justifiable response to people who had a serious deficit in the humour department?

The garden needs a headache.

It's that time of year. Everything is overgrown. The air smells wet and soggy leaves clog the lawn. The roses have have a few brave little flowers but the glories of June are behind the. I've a vine that straggles across the back of the house. The quince tries to attack me as I squeeze past it to get to the compost heap. The ornamental pear looks like it's just woken up after a night on the tiles: it needs a haircut. The mock orange was beautiful in June but now it's trying to take over the world.

I don't climb ladders any more - mainly because I live alone, and if I fell off I'd be really stuck. Nobody coming to the front door and finding me out would think, 'I know, she's fallen off a ladder in the garden so I'd better find a way to get in and rescue her.' No, off they'd trot, assuming I was out or had my head buried so deeply in a book I was refusing to answer the door.

And so I have a trusty pruning-man. He comes with his ladders and electric thingies and long-handled whatnots and whizz, snip, chop - and the lawn is thick with twigs and leaves and general debris. My job is to come behind him and sweep it all up, and lug it down the garden to the compost heap. Give us a couple of hours and the garden will have its annual headache. It will look a bit surprised for a day or two, and it might sulk for a while, but by spring all will be forgiven. (Except, maybe, the vine - which has produced just one bunch of grapes in all the years I've lived here. It hung over next door; eat them, I said. But they didn't. And so, in a fit of childishness, I chopped that end off the vine. It has never produced grapes since then.)

The garden sorted, I need to do the same for my writing. Pass it over to someone with a serious red pen. Someone who does not linger over dead wood. Someone who can spot a weak shoot or crumbling branch and not grieve for it. I, too, might sulk for a while But eventually I'll review the remains of my lovely words. It will all feel very bald for a while, but will hopefully blossom next year. For we all know that writing, like gardens, need a serious chopping from time to time.

The spring is sprung, the grass is riz ...

The spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where
The birdies is?

(Attributed to Ogden Nash, to Spike Milligan, and to Anon!)

My mother used to recite this every year - it was a sort of annual ridiculousness. And irrelevant, really, as we had plenty of sparrows and starlings in our garden nibbling on the goodies she put out for them. (Those that weren't eaten by my brother, that is - who often refused his breakfast only to be found eating bread put out for the birds. A long-ago story.)

I, too, have a bird feeder. And I live near a forest, so my garden should be full of them. In the past, as well as the usual blackbirds, robins and tits, I've had nuthatches and woodpeckers. Plus some I don't recognise. It's one of life's pleasures, standing by my back door and watching birds squabble.

So where are they all? My garden, this April, is unnaturally quiet. The nuts grow soggy for lack of attention. The seeds fall to the ground and wait for passing pigeons.

I blame the mayhem out there over the winter - the fallen tree and decimated shrubs. It was a mess. It's cleared now but still looks a bit surprised. Maybe the birds haven't forgiven me for allowing their hiding places to disintegrate like that.

But yesterday I learned of another reason. For everyone around me is complaining that the birds have abandoned them - so it's not just me. It seems the birds are all staying in the forest. Which, when you think about it, is where they should be - and where, after our mild winter, there is plenty of food. Insects already out and about. Berries unscarred by late frosts.

They've no need to venture into gardens where there is a risk of cats, or in full view of the red kites and sparrowhawks. Far better to hide in the forest than take a risk like that.

I get that - I miss them, of course, and there's a corner of me that still feels a twinge of abandonment. My bird food isn't good enough, that sort of thing.

But the birds are doing what they need to do. They'll feed their babies in greater safety.

Last week the woman who runs my Life Writing group left to take a sabbatical. She, too, is doing what she needs to do. I wish her well, too.

Sometimes, however much we may prepare a feast, birds (and people) need to eat at a different table.