Yesterday by coincidence – or perhaps it was grâce à Siri delivering music through its always perspicuous algorithms – I listened to melancholic themes by Rodgers and Hart or Ivor Novello such as “There’s a small hotel”, “I can give you the starlight!” and “We’ll gather lilacs”. I don’t know about you, but for me these a crushing numbers. They are the perfect accessory to a wistful afternoon reflection.

Attracting a less mournful state of affairs is today’s balmy summer air. Added to the this mid-August weather was a productive cycle in the neighbourhood when by chance I came upon a collection of blossoming flowers. I can only imagine it was thanks to the cloudy sky shading the dazzling sunshine that I was enabled on this occasion to catch a glimpse of these bountiful plants as I slipped by upon my tricycle. The home owners clearly devote considerable effort to the maintenance of their gardens. Most frequently I have seen the property owners aligned with rakes and hoes or more judiciously upon their hands and knees attending to the grounds and growth.

While there is a “Yard of the Week” attribution, I doubt very much that anyone profits other than marginally from the public approbation.  My suspicion is that gardening is a personal affair of private significance and meaning (maybe even mystical import). However as I confessed to one of those committed gardeners this morning, the petition does not successfully implore everyone. I for example have never been big on camping. In fact, almost anything set upon earth and growing is I find most sufficiently viewed from a photographic distance. The flagstone by the pool or a gander from the patio is in my unqualified opinion adequate perspective for these natural absorptions (though I am among the first to acknowledge their inexpressible worthiness and beauty). But it is the difference between the site of an endless field of shimmering green corn stalks crowned in yellow specks and wandering through a mass of vegetation while stumbling upon shards of dry earth. In short I don’t require the objective chronicle.