Playing With Water Read Free

it was that made me such a fool. But nobody ever regretted making a garden. (Unless they beggared themselves and lost the lot perhaps.) This is a clean pure love, wise at last. A noble obsession, released from the ignominious by age, grace and experience. I intend to relish this. This is my rejoicing and my last stand for something truly worthy. A small suburban garden, but to me a form of salvation.
    To explain exactly how this place lies, think of a clock. The front door faces twelve. The side path runsdown to six and a lattice screen with white potato vine stands at two. At three the big deciduous unnamed tree. The gum and a small camphor laurel are at four. The plane tree grows at five. A jacaranda staggers in too close beside the plane tree at six, with purple bougainvillea twining through its branches.
    Coming up the southern side now, at seven what I call the meadow garden, a small sunny plot with white cosmos and opium poppies, leads to the lemon tree at nine. The little shed’s at ten with blue potato vine beside it and a screen next to that with more vines. Then the house begins and leads up to the pink oleander and the frangipani joining up to almost twelve. Outside the gate, at eleven and two, the olive trees grow with pink geraniums below.
    That’s the layout and now all I need is time to get it to perfection, to have realms of shade and luxury, privacy and peace. A glory that is mine to share with whom I wish.
    It is the finest form of freedom to be able to say that all the mistakes are my own and the successes, the things that grew to fullness and to bloom, grew from advice, fertiliser and a passion that gripped me like a bridle.
Saturday, 8th January
    Sowed basil seed beside the shed. The seed was gathered by Terry, my neighbour, from his basil last summer.Terry lives with Daphne, his wife, on the southern side of this house. A retired mechanic in his seventies, he stoops over his big oblong vegetable patch in a straw hat looking like Mr McGregor with Peter Rabbit watching. He has taught me to soak many kinds of seed in warm water for half an hour. Those that sink first are the most viable and so, if there is little space for sowing, it is best to use the seeds that sank first. I use all the seeds, just in case, as there is plenty of space.
    Every Thursday, Philippa comes south from Thirroul to spend the day working in this garden. When we both lived at Leura, in the Blue Mountains, Philippa taught me a lot about gardening as I watched her make two gardens one after the other when she moved house. She just digs holes and plants. No clearing or digging out weeds, no cutting out big beds. Nothing but a knife and a plant and in it goes. It is an extremely cheerful way to begin and it works. Philippa used to be a fibre artist while she reared her children but she seems to have abandoned this. I nag her to begin again. She prefers gardening and it too, I suppose, is a form of fibre art. Thin, with blonde curly hair, she is immensely strong, body and soul. I watched her walk up to the church alone and upright at the funeral of her son, Alexis. Nobody else I know could have done that with dignity and silence.
    At dusk, we sit on the deck facing the sea, looking down into the garden. Sitting with a drink, talkingabout the day, making plans and looking at the garden has been useful. Often just passing through or working in the garden, I don’t look closely at the whole. Each plant or tree takes the eye one by one, but sitting a while, looking, does show gaps and mistakes. We see what is thriving and where things have been planted mistakenly. We look and look and point.
    The sea is at the bottom of the garden. The sea that goes right round the world. This world which is the garden of the universe.
Sunday, 16th January
    An electrical storm with heavy rain is beating down on the garden. After weeks of no rain, it is a relief. The Meyer lemon in a big pot at my bedroom door has caterpillars eating the new leaves that