I am a modest fellow. Friends — true friends — will agree. They will confirm that I am not given to vulgar exaggeration of my achievements, few as those may be.
This I say for no reason other than to give weight to the claim that our garden is, without question, the most picturesque in this garden-conscious neighbourhood of ours. In fact I must go further: our garden causes passers-by to turn their heads and point in admiration.
Just what do these passers-by, admiring, see when they pause their evening summer stroll to enjoy our garden's splendour? They see a solid, red brick bungalow of modest proportions, with front steps and a porch. Across the woven wire fence they will not ignore a blazing bougainvillea, and round about a cottage garden ornamentangle of lavender and stock, a purple sage, geranium and pendulous wisteria.
We work together in this garden, man and wife, to make a splendid place. It is central to our sense of identity and to where we live our lives. It is a place in which we labour when there is work to be done, and where we sit, and where children play and friends may laugh with us.
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The garden takes our time, as is the way of spring. And we labour in the dry heat of summer, while flowers bloom and tendrils curl with growth for the coming season.
On occasion, neighbours gather in our garden with their drinks to pass the time. Conversation leads to a future under threat of the warming of the earth and the inevitable changes to lifestyle this will mean. There are as many views as those who speak.
Some, they tell us, have purchased storage tanks, piped via an elaborate pumping system to toilets, to all corners of the garden and to a high-pressure hose to wash the 4WD. Eileen is consumed with guilt. Even the watering can, when she applies it to a narrow band of rose stalks along her fence line, causes minor paroxysms.
Louise says: 'I won't flush my toilet with drinking water — I refuse.' Dianne stands in a succession of buckets under the shower. I'm not sure of the family round the corner. Behind their high wall is a lush garden. They are not given to carrying bath water. I'm just not sure ...
Our gardens must survive. For this