26 March 2006
CdP
It felt most strange, yesterday, dodging raindrops as I measured the lengths of watering system tubing I need to ensure that my garden flourishes. The raindrops were few and far between, but the air was damp, and my paper was damp, and my pen marks were squishy somehow. Not just scribbly and illegible as usual, but actually sodden.
That's the way it has been for months, if you work outside. Soggy. I can't remember quite such a wet winter. Not in 21 years in Italy. The sky has been grey and low and almost... well, British I guess is the best way to describe it. The only difference being that in Britain, it's mostly gentle, infuriating drizzle that oozes from those hanging clouds, whereas here, there has certainly been drizzle, but also downpours. Week in, week out. It's not what you expect of an Italian winter. Those heart-lifting clumps of unseasonally hot and sunny days that keep you going through the miserable season have been noticeable by their absence. So depressing for a meteopatica like myself.
So, thinking of a time when it might be so dry that a watering system would be essential seemed almost... foreign. A watering system for a patch of ground, around the well, where the mud attaches itself to your wellies in such a way that you're constantly in danger of moving off without them? For the area immediately below that where every time I pass, the rain seems to have washed – if that's possible – more stones to the surface, where they sit mocking me, smirking at the thought of my future attempts to pass over them with a lawnmower?
But what a difference a day makes. Today is popping. With most of our little world swathed in damp, chill mist, it was difficult earlier on to know what sort of a day we were dealing with. It looked, in fact, very much like yesterday. But if we were ignorant, the bees and wasps weren't. They were out in force: the very first we had seen, and in all their annoying, multi-hued sizes and varieties. On the stone pile by the chicken house, a lizard was basking. Strange, because at that point there was nothing to bask in... nothing resembling sun I mean. But it was basking anyway. (Why do lizards appear fully grown from nowhere? Why aren't they tiny at this point in the season? Or do they last over the winter, hibernating somewhere?) And what were minuscule, tight, hardly green buds yesterday were half-inch-long splashes of emerald.
As the mist lifted, these things all fell into place on this glorious day, the first of true spring. Not quite spring enough, perhaps to justify L removing even his t-shirt as he wields his chainsaw about a pile of old beams which has been lying in the grass for two years or so. (One beam so hard the chainsaw postively groaned as it went through... cypress perhaps? Others soft as rotting cheese, though heavier than a pile of whole parmesans to heave across to the carpark where the chainsaw-wielding was going on. The hard ones have been chopped into handy step-lengths for use around the garden.)
And suddenly all my measuring made sense. So why did I stop? Partly, I guess, because it's dull. It's certainly less fun than seeking out seed packets and deciding where I can have some extra blooms (which reminds me that my catalogue-bible from Baumaux – www.baumaux.com – still hasn't turned up, so spring can't really be said to have begun in earnest...). Or than delving beneath the leaf debris around the caravan to see just how many new little sprouts of honeysuckle have rooted (lots), then digging some up carefully to train up my makeshift trellis around my makeshift front gate. L looked on dubiously, complaining that beautification would make us less anxious about replacing this temporary entrance with something more permanent/elegant. But a quick glance at our bank balance is enough to show that we won't be having any glorious gates installed in the near future, so why not forestall an invasion of weeds – well, not forestall because they will come too, but at the very least give the weeds something to compete against? And anyway, in my usual recycling way, I'm sure that the honeysuckle, once it is no longer needed, will be dug up again and reused. If, that is, I get my watering system in place quickly enough for it to survive.
Measuring is less fun, even, than spraying my fruit trees with Bordeaux mix (any sooner and it would simply have been washed away) or than planting a couple more trees – two peaches and a nectarine – down the front drive. Or even than weeding around those few areas where things are flourishing, and tying in branches of climbing roses that are already, with even these few hours of sun, galloping along the walls of the chicken house in a fabulously unruly way.
Thinking about my irrigation, moreover, brings on attacks of extreme guilt. When I plan other people's watering systems, I stick to the rules, coming up with grandiose – and expensive – plans involving state-of-the-art timers linked to numerous sectors, each with its elettrovalvola and snazzy sprays. My own private system, on the other hand, is an awkward agglomeration of whatever is cheapest in the local DIY shop. It's a bit ungainly... indeed, a bit unsightly in places... but it keeps my garden growing more or less, and seems to be quaintly in keeping with the general laid-back look of the place. I like to think that I could never ask any self-respecting garden contractor or plumber to stoop to my level in this, and am therefore obliged to do the professional thing. It's a case, really, of not losing face. But short of getting out there with my pick for my clients, there's no way around it. Unless of course they wish to do it themselves – perfectly possible with much backbreaking work and a childish pleasure in coping successful with something which is, basically, a useful construction toy for grown-ups.