Happy Little Bees

 Deadheading. Terry’n’Mary Rose, snip. Sweet peas that are mostly peas. Snip, snip. Oregano, thyme, lavender snip chop snip. For days, with temperatures in the low 30s I had felt unable to do it, creeping up the garden from patch of shade to patch of shade - oh! all those fluffy aster heads, wilting roses, drooping brown buddleia candles, spiky geum pincushions - to look at everything ‘gone over’ as my ma-in-law would have said. Back past the lime green parsley flowers putting on a far better display than the pathetic Ammi Majus.

I’ll do it later, and retreat to the dark, cool house, flinging out my usual thought of ‘Idiots’ towards a nearby cottage where they throw their south-facing windows wide on hot days. Perhaps they like glaring sun bringing its 33c heat into their bedrooms. Emma, arriving yesterday said “Thank goodness, it’s so cool in here”. She has finally acknowledged the French practice of opening the house to the cool of the night and shutting it against the heat of the day works.

But later it is still 30c and enervated, we flop and watch Bob Ross.

A week ago golden marjoram, lemon thyme, lavenders pale and dark, were full of happy little bees. I imagine, fancifully, the bank they are on, in front of a hot, white sky as a happy little mountain just here. Let’s colour in the sky with lots of little criss-crossing primary colours. The golden herbs invading the heucheras, swallowing the penstemons, the leaning lavenders, all painted with a knife and a decorator’s paintbrush with magical rapidity and in alarming colours. Then, over the clever floral effects and threatening sky, let’s put, right here, yes, a big cloud of Vandyke Brown happy little bees. Noo.oo.o you’ve covered that perfectly rendered cloud, that happy little tree that was just right. We do wonder if Barb Rarse had had some sort of visual disturbance, as they say Monet had, that makes him see black skies with violet skies, navy blue seas with lime green waves, rocks, trees, sheds, mountains, and paths always brown. What would he have done with the landscapes of Cumbria, Torridon, Snowdonia? Had he heard on Payne’s Grey, sepia, light olive green? I wonder if he is on French tv? Inside their shuttered houses, the people are busy painting and crafting. All the DIY stores have aisles with craft materials of all kinds.

But he, Bob, has been one of our lockdown heroes, with Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin on Facebook, Grayson and Phillipa Perry with Art Club, Craig Charles and RadMac on 6 Music, Neil Oliver’s history books and the birds and our garden. Now we watch it succumb to heat and watch people who have been trapped in distant towns flock to ‘our’ beaches so we still can’t go there. But Mr Oliver’s books have given us a list of places to explore. Dorset and Wiltshire are full of hill ‘forts’ and ancient sites and hidden pubs with tranquil gardens.