I’m Bayleaf, I’m the gardener,
I work from early dawn.
You’ll find me sweeping up the leaves and
tidying the lawn
Ah yes - The Herbs. Happy times.
As you may have spotted me twittering earlier, I’ve bitten the bullet and have contacted a trio of local horticulturalists with a view to getting the grounds at rARsh Manor cleared/tidied up and then maintained in an ongoing mano a mano basis (or something like that).
The first of these popped around this evening to see just how overgrown the grounds are.
“Hmm. You’ve got ash trees in there. They’ll ‘ave t’be dug out.”
then
“Hmm. Popular trees too.”
“Popular?”
“No, poplar. Did those blackberries start ‘ere or next door?”
“I’ve no idea. One minute they weren’t here, the next they were taking over. Like Triffids.”
<blank stare>
“Never mind.”
“They’ll ‘ave to be dug out too.”
He is, at least, easier to understand than the chappie who (currently) mowes the lawns. There was an amusing point when he hesitatingly suggesting a figure for the clear up. He’d been laying the ground by warning me how big a job it would be:
“So you’ll be wanting us to come in, trim the hedges, clear the borders, dig out those saplings, dig out the brambles, …” I was expecting him to mumble: “… write the theme toon, sing the theme toon …”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, that clearing’s going to cost a lot. Maybe as much as two … or even …”
“Yes?”
“Yes, two or two fifty.” 1
“Oh, ok. Well, I’ve got a couple of chaps coming around tomorrow but thanks for that estimate. It’s very useful. I’ll give you a call.” I hope my glee didn’t show - that’s a damned sight less than I was expecting it to cost me, and this is from the largest of the three businesses (as far as I can tell).
“Rye choo arrrr then.”
So that was the good news. The bad news is that my glee at having a lesser spotted woodpecker in my garden may have been premature as the juvenile great spotted woodpecker looks more like a lesser spotted woodpecker than a great spotted woodpecker. Whoever decided that needs their head examining.
See for yourself:
The drawings are © the RSPB but the photo’s a PD image from WikiPedia. If I’m lucky I’ll get a photo of my visitor and hopefully we’ll get a positive ID one way or the other.
1 There’s an unspoken “hundred and” in the there, of course. “Two or two and a half” would have meant an unspoken “thousand” and would have also led to a vocalised: “Aye right. Thanks for your time but you can feck right off.” on my part.