We plant rocks in our street now. It’s a longish street and quite elegant in its own understated Canberra way. Not too many of John Hewson’s ‘renters’ apparently, for most people seem to take a reasonable amount of care with their yards, front and back. It’s a quiet street, most of the kids seems to have grown up and moved on, and we live and work, for the most part without too much knowledge of what the others in the street are up to. But we look at the gardens and enjoy them and thank those who work to make our part of the place relaxing and so pleasant.
One man in particular, long retired, on a corner block, has the most beautiful lawn—bowling-green perfection. He seems modestly proud of it, in that understated Canberra way. Early summer mornings will see him, dressing-gowned usually, with a mug of tea, just looking. At the beauty of the lawn or the sun on the hills, who can tell? A cheery wave and shy greeting is all we ever get from him. Winter mornings you can hear him at his piano, early again, starting his day gently and graciously.
For us, though, the early morning walks around this street are no longer merely an opportunity to review and preview our own lives and to salute those of our kind who are out and about. They have become, sadly, an audit of the damage. Some person (why do I automatically think male and young?) has the habit of driving onto our lawns and gardens, spinning the wheels a bit for maximum damage and revelling, no doubt, in the deep tracks left.
Why does this distress me so? It is the sheer bloody-mindedness of it, I suppose, the unfairness. If you or I derive some pleasure in an orderly and mannered garden, in neat and careful work, why should someone want so needlessly to spoil it? Where’s the fun? Is the lawn-hating hoot reacting to being yanked out of bed too early on Saturday mornings past to mow the family plot? Or is he, in his own mind, a rebel against the modest aspirations of the ‘petty bourgeoisie’?
This has been going on month after month, for at least a year now, so it is not a whim or some drunken error of judgment. It is crafted and planned and, indeed, there is considerable driving skill in some of