Thursday, March 22, 2007

Wild garlic, lawn-mower, donkey

There is a stall selling wild garlic, otherwise known as ramsons, in the WI market this morning. The flowers are white and the leaves, long and pointed. Both the bulbs and the leaves are ready for gathering at this time of year. If you walk in the country where they grow, you often catch the savoury aroma before you see the plant. You can use wild garlic in salads or make a frittata with it.

For some years now there has been an old lawn mower standing under a hedge in the corner of a front garden near here. It seems to have rusted and merged into its surroundings so that you don't notice it often. It moves me somehow with a sense of fellow feeling.

Coming out of the news agent in Chapel Place I hear the immense, creaking sound of a donkey. When did I hear it last? In Cyprus, where some friends run a donkey sanctuary? Or in some village in Spain where donkeys were still used as beast of burden? Only it isn't a donkey. How could it be in Chapel Place, where the church of King Charles the Martyr and the book-lined frontage of Halls bookshop preside? No, some men are working on scaffolding above the sandwich bar next door to Halls, and the noise comes from a hoist at the top of the scaffolding, which is being used to raise cement in a black bucket.

1 comment:

Fire Bird said...

Near where I live, someone keeps donkeys in a field. Their braying across the valley sometimes sounds hard to place, like the sound of some odd mechanical apparatus.