May Encounters

I had a wonderful neighbourhood gardening moment on the last day of April.  During our very dry spring, we have been watering the garden every evening.  It's a long process at our house, as we don't use a hose, and the waterbutts are all at the back of the house. I pick up the watering cans (always left in the front garden, which is our main gardening space), I walk around our little terrace of houses (we're no 3 in a terrace of 5), to where the waterbutts are in the back yard.  I have to fill up twice to manage the sweetcorn, the carrots, the peas, the sunflowers, the lettuce bed, the potatoes and the random flowers in tubs. 

It's a really pleasant ritual, especially on these warm evenings, and nobody else ever seems to be around as I do it, a sort of oddly enchanted space in a very rushy day.  The last evening of April smelled warm and calm, and as I walked around the corner I saw a man I might describe as looking like a greying hippie (greyer, and more old school than me) carrying the most enormous armful of hawthorn blossom.  I asked him whether he wanted some lilac to add to his bundle, because the tree in our backyard is very generous.  We had a lovely chat about picking the may, and how it came of him having an Irish wife.  I maintained that he should be collecting dew for her at sunrise the next morning.

The lilac tree was at its absolute best that evening, so I bet their house smelled of rapturous spring on May day.  He was so thankful and cheerful about us offering something that we get more than enough of every May that I came back into the house full of peace and laughter. 

The lilac have all gone over now, so we need to prune what are really mammoth bushes, so we have a bit more light throughout the rest of the year and still get our blossom next spring.  Every time I see them this year I think about a man walking around our neighborhood looking for blossom for his love.
   N.