It’s raining it’s pouring…
The old man is snoring….
He went to bed with an artist’s head, and woke up in a garden bed in the morning.
Not exactly Wordsworth but it sums up my week. Nothing has gone to plan and it’s all gone a bit sad.
Monday’s Child
I started the week with high hopes and good intentions. I had a “to do” list as long as my arm. Sculpture was right up there, as was topiary and cleaning out the greenhouse for winter. I’ve now run out of arms to list unfinished jobs.
Under Pressure
The trouble started when the date for completion of my son’s house move was brought forward and, all of a sudden, he and his young family had to get their temporary move to ours underway on Monday.
I had a tooth out on Tuesday which I now know is a major operation during lockdown. I felt like E.T. must have, when the government officers arrived in full quarantine garb and breathing apparatus. I’m not good with pain, even at the best of times, and there was no magical bike ride to whisk me away back to my home planet.
Wednesday began one tooth lighter and gargling with salt water. More moving. This time it’s shrubs and trees in pots from the garden which I’d designed for them, heading off for storage at their new, currently rather dilapidated, house. The old garden felt sad and seemed to be saying: “Hang on! What about me? I thought you loved me?”
Don’t Leave Me This Way
It broke into a sad song it had heard by the Communards: “Don’t leave me this way. I can’t survive. I can’t stay alive. Without your love… I can’t exist. I will surely miss your tender kiss. So don’t leave me this way!”
Heartbreaking? You don’t know the half of it. I felt like a cad from an Ealing comedy. All week I’ve been going backwards and forwards to their house and trying to avoid her gaze. “It’s not that I don’t love you… things have changed… you’ll be better without me… you’ll find someone new… you’ll learn to love again”.
Keep On Truckin’
And now it’s Friday morning and I’ll be off to collect the Removal Van in an hour. The garden at my son’s house will know that this is the end of our affair. And I don’t know what to say to her.
“Sorry” just doesn’t seem to cut it.
