It's the waiting!

I am waiting for the Job’s Comforters to start relating their stories of how they (or more likely people they know or knew of) almost got to exchange of contracts when the buyers decided to pull out. I’m not sure that I will be able to listen to their anecdotal horror stories with anything approaching equanimity. I have discovered that my stress levels have exponentially risen now that the process of selling the house has taken another step forward.

I must admit that, like Doubting Thomas, I will not believe even this small step until the sign saying ‘SOLD’ has been tastefully attached to the board outside my home.

With something like an organic appreciation of the pathetic fallacy the (expensive) vegetation in the front garden has decided to burst forth in bloom, as if in relief that another stage has been reached. The woefully mistitled ‘White blizzard’ trailing plant which was bought as an alternative to the missing alyssum is at last living up to its name, albeit in more of a scrappy partial slush drift rather than the torrent of white that I was expecting. The trailing multicoloured lobelia is still getting its roots settled in and has not yet deigned to blossom forth, but its greenness is vigorously encouraging. Wherever I look there are buds or swellings or growth indicative of future colour.

Going on the (optimistic) time scale given by the estate agents the maximum colour coverage should be at completion! Such is the possibility of metaphor exemplified by a garden. I’m sure that, probably in the eighteenth century, some gentleman gardener wrote an elegant little treatise on irony and gardening – with six hand coloured engraved plates.

As is usual at this time of year there is the traditional double (or sometimes triple) bluff played by flowers on the neophyte gardener. This game which plant delight on playing (sometimes at the risk of their own fragile existence) consists of the plant pushing up ambiguous foliage to tempt the nervous gardener into weeding mode and thus consigning it to the green organic recycling bin. Alternatively a plant may suddenly develop multiple shoots which look like precursors of flower stems, thus staying the hand of the enthusiastic and wanton pruner. In one case, speaking from personal experience, this led me to water, tend and nurture a large pot of what turned out to be grass! It was then used an a colour design way as a foil to more colourful pots to make it seem as if it were all planned.

The present plant prevaricator sending out possibly mendacious shoots is a plant in a pot in the front paved area. It is indisputably healthy and has developed what look like tightly closed buds promising a profusion of colourful flower heads. I am, however, beginning to suspect that these promising buds merely hold yet more greenery and the hint of colour in the tip of the bud is merely evolutionary camouflage for the confusion of the urban gardener. I shall pander to its virility and feed it plant food and report back on any spectacular floral developments.

Yesterday to Eleri’s 50th birthday party held in the salubrious surroundings of Cardiff Yacht Club. That title is perhaps a misnomer as my new little device for finding my way around the world did not recognise its existence. I have yet to use this device for any real journey but I bought it as a sort of good luck charm to ensure the sale of the house – buying the version of the machine that had maps of Europe at street level. You see my point.

Cardiff Yacht Club is in the Bay at the Windsor Esplanade. This is near a row of houses that at one time were in a very shady position (and I don’t mean sheltered from the rays of the sun) but now must be very desirably property indeed. The building of the Club House is of that type of modern architecture which looks temporary and designed by sticking together bits of other projects’ plans. The upstairs bar, still smelling of cigarette smoke (so pre-April my dear!) does have the advantage of panoramic windows. The full effect of this sweeping vista was somewhat lessened by the lack of daylight, but the night merely served to open up the view of the bay and surrounding area to an abstract interpretation of light on water. Even though we have summer weather the illumination of the various facets of the city deserving of optical highlighting has not yet persuaded the city fathers to squander the requisite electricity. So swathes of the shore line are dark and churches like St Augustine’s in Penarth are not yet shining out against the sky.

The Yacht Club seems to be situated on the shores of a swamp; which I’m sure is designated as a wet reserve for wildlife. In the darkness however the scraps of light illuminate scraps of vegetation fringed pools while the actual waters of the bay are filled with the reflections of the gaudy life of the restaurants and walkways. At night the view is most impressive, and there is even a balcony so that the nicotine addicts can indulge without infecting the wholesome majority!

A good time was obviously had by all and, perhaps reflecting the average age of the participants, the festivities ended at a more than civilized hour whatever the more raffish elements were intent on doing!

Late to bed and late to rise makes a man lazily content. Who can ask for more?