Letters to garden makers

Dear Monty, From Hay on Wye  to the Dales, a ramble of thoughts. Hay on Wye I too muddle through most days, I am a muddling type of person. I identify with the French desire not to be bound by bureaucracy (which we seem to have a love affair with - so much so we are binding ourselves with bonds that are getting tighter - but we seem to accept them as though they are good for us !) Your ramble through France is akin to my ramble through life. I am not intellectual, but I ended up going to hear Rowan Williams and Neil MacGreggor discuss the relevance of Christian Imagery in art, a few days before trundling back again to listen to your presentation/promotion of 'The Road to Le Tholonet '. There is a tenuous link in my life with Rowan Williams, he has relatives that I have met in Ystradgynlais the next door village and a place I have worked in for the last 20 years, but also I discovered he went to my old school when it was a Grammar School. (not a Comprehensive School f

Prayer flags 10 tea towels Blue green yellow red Billow on the line Above the bed The bed is of Columbine A hedge of Box Meadow Cranesbill Sage Redcurrant And Gooseberry. This is the bed on which my head rests The light illuminating the greens And the pinks and purples. It is remarkable how by accident, self seeding and failure That this picture is revealing itself A prayer to the start of the day And an end to the turmoil in my head ? Borrowing I find myself borrowing trees Landscape Garage And rats From my neighbour Though we share the rats in equal measure. The trees are there to mask our ugly house And the mountain is hidden from us But the Montana has created a spectacular tower And the Forest Flame crackles skywards. Love Love Is patient Is kind But these attributes are hard to find In me. You however are a different matter Exuding it from your pores Like a fine perfume.

Worn and torn with journeys In the wet and cold Sun and heat Snow and frost To compost heap Chicken house And shady corner They grow thin soled Leather creased and cracked We become ghosts of ourselves. P.