My writing haven

Many people ask if I have a special place where I write. 

I’m extremely fortunate that I have, and one most beautiful. 

Our allotment garden is one of over four hundred within approximately fifty-two acres of hedge-lined avenues of what have always locally been known as ‘the gardens’, and close to where I was born and raised.

Our Tim (my second-eldest brother) took on a plot in the seventies. He’d often hand me his shears, saying, “Cut me hedges and I’ll buy you a single on Saturday.”  The following weekend we’d go down town, me with arms still aching from my arborial endeavour. After Tim bought some groovy apparel from Carnaby Styles, he’d buy me a single. Usually one which he also liked: Sparks, Cockney Rebel, Wizzard, The Sweet, Alvin Stardust, Slade, Gary Glitter, or Mud. Not T. Rex, though. Our dad had sole responsibility for feeding my Marc Bolan addiction.

The gardens also provided me with sanctuary. A considerable number were semi-derelict by then but still held a captivating, forlorn aura of secrecy and escape from the outside world. Years before they were covered with Tarmac, I’d wander the rutted avenues carrying a bottle of pop and a book, then once behind the rickety gate of a forgotten, neglected plot, and protected by unkempt, overgrown privet hedges, I’d revel in the intoxicating peace and freedom.

Enshrouded by the enduring calm environment I wrote the first two volumes of my memoirs, sitting inside Ariadne’s, our summerhouse named in honour of Ariadne Oliver, the mystery-writing associate of Agatha Christie’s celebrated Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.

You may wonder why Ariadne was the inspiration, and the answer is that we share a love of writing and are fiendishly devoted to eating apples, although unlike Ariadne, I never leave apples half-eaten. There is never a scattering of bronzed, rapidly dehydrating cores in the summerhouse.

I am so apple-crazed that I eat the lot: everything but the stalk (although that has been known before, albeit accidentally) and with cavalier disregard I ignore my grandmother’s warning that if I eat the pips then an apple tree will sprout from my head. My fun-loving Aunty Lu told me that the sprouting would occur from a different anatomical orifice. But then, she would. She was a bogger and like my mam, always made me laugh.

Within this bucolic idyll our several free-range chickens go about their business, pecking and scratching for insects and grubs, remorselessly kept in line by our Russian Orloff whom we named ‘Lurch’ due to her astonishing resemblance to the character in Australian soap opera, ‘Prisoner: Cell Block H’.

During summer we keep our eyes peeled for the buzzards that effortlessly circle on the rising heat thermals just in case they decide to swoop and help themselves to a free lunch. Our handsomely elegant Champion Belgian Shepherd Dog, Mester Gus, is always on high alert for foraging vulpine miscreants and rodent ne’er-do-wells whilst his best mate, our working Bearded Collie, Nancy, potters or snoozes.

Once our overgrown wilderness was cleared, into the blank soil canvas we planted apple, pear, damson, cherry, and plum saplings which now bear delicious fruit. The polytunnel is home to tomatoes, basil, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, and lemon mint sprouts from the raised beds constructed from used scaffolding boards. Our fruit cage is juicily laden with blueberries, raspberries, loganberries, and gooseberries, whilst in ‘the Delius Garden’ (a tribute to a favourite composer) our floral representation floats with subtle psychedelia – now that’s an oxymoron if ever there was.

And me? Whilst searching for an illusive word, or pausing the Niagara-esque flow of prose from my brain to a crisp sheet of papyrus resting upon my lap, I sip turmeric tea flavoured with star anise and orange blossom, and nibble the raggedly ripped leaves of a fresh green salad bejewelled with glistening ruby pomegranate seeds, and thank the Nature Spirits that although I may be many things, at least I’m not pretentious.