The onset of summer in the UK is something to be anticipated and savoured – though perhaps less so when it comes to the proclivities of my retired and recalcitrant neighbours and their fetishisation of noisy power tools.
The garden demands what feels like inordinate amounts of attention at this time of year as everything is stirred from the torpor of winter. This includes Horsetail, the cockroach of all weeds, a prehistoric perennial native and my arch nemesis in several parts of our garden. Bindweed, its cousin in colonisation, is a similar adversary, although it feels easier to control.
Emerson once romanticised the notion of a weed as a plant whose virtues are yet to be discovered, but I am confident that he never encountered Horsetail. Enmity may be in my gardener's eye, but after an eighth year of running battles, neither of us is showing any sign of relenting. Time not determination may be in the weed's favour, though, given it is prehistoric with specimens recorded from the Devonian period.
The view from the kitchen is now dusted with the haze of emergent green leaves and privacy on our frontage has been restored. The Limelight Hydrangea have been deadheaded and within the next six to eight weeks will generate fresh blooms.
It is also a time of renewal for the cars. Our daily driver has been caked in unavoidable mud patina from rural countryside roads and UK roads are without exaggeration, in the worst condition I've ever seen them in. We drive on the left - or, more accurately, on what's left of the road. That said, now that the roads are free of salt and the mercury has risen, I've put one of our summer cars back on the road so while we won't be holidaying abroad this year, a few day trips will provide relief from research and dissertations.
