Saturday, June 23, 2012

reflection friends pipe
















Sissinghurst gardens from the outside.

"I've made more friends here," says the Belgian nurseryman at The Farmers' Market, " than in Belgium ." He greets me with a handshake and the one word "pigeons" because we are both plagued by them in our gardens.  The pigeons have now started to nibble the tops of my Little Gem lettuces. Until  now lettuces have proved the most successful crop thanks to the rain.

I watch as a man stops to light a pipe in The Grove. He is practised smoker. Despite the wind it begins to puff out a cloud of smoke.  He walks on his pipe emitting skeins of smoke as though he is a steam engine and the pipe is a component of the machinery which propels him forward. He greets me with a cheery wave  of  his hand, the pipe still clenched between his teeth. The smell of freshly lit tobacco lingers in his wake.  

3 comments:

CC said...

Handsome photo.

Roderick Robinson said...

There's some inter-galactic force at work here. A few days prior to your posting this photo of Sissinghurst, I was making a visit to that same location work usefully in the unfolding plot of Blest Redeemer. Perhaps your talents as an editor are moving on and you are now capable of commenting on passages yet to be written.

herhimnbryn said...

I saw your image today and thought, 'Ah, Sissinghurst gardens'

I have have photographed almost the same image.

Weill have to go there again when we are in the UK towards the end of the year!