A DAY IN THE GARDEN

So finally, the weather turned, and, after Friday, the first day of the second test at Headingley had been completely washed out, the three day Bank holiday weekend following it turned out against all the odds (and historical precedent) to be a rather sunny one.

Mind you, with that all said, I recall that the equivalent weekend last year was equally spectacular, but the holiday had been shifted away from it so that we could all get rained upon for the Jubilee instead, and I only mention that to remind us all that we really need to grab the nice weather when we can because it might all be gone by the next time a weekend rolls around.

Nevertheless, sunshine is what we got, and nearly three full days of it too, and it was even enough to drag this old troglodyte out blinking into the sunlight and soak up a few of its life-giving vitamins, something I have been sadly lacking as I work daily in the gloomy bowels of the grey cube when the sun is never allowed to penetrate and seldom venture out into the daylight unless the window cleaners want me to move my car.

So, on the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend I had a day that lacked all responsibilities and, after getting up and failing to write anything, I had my breakfast, plonked my Mendocino cap (circa 1996)  on top of my head, and headed outside to put up the sun umbrella, sit on the new bench (which – I noted - already has a hint of rust around the screw heads), and read the remains of the latest Mark Billingham paperback, whilst waiting for the cricket to start.

Granted, I did miss “Soul Limbo” because I was pfaffing about indoors brewing up some coffee and grabbing a few garden tools, and I could hear other people chatting somewhere beyond the bushes, but other than that, it was all kind of perfect.

At lunchtime I went indoors and made up some spectacular Pastrami sandwiches to have with our tea and a bowl of Doritos, and I returned to the John Lanchester novel that I’d picked up and then put down a few weeks ago, and read a huge chunk of that whilst New Zealand wickets tumbled all afternoon.

However, it still didn’t grip me – it could be that the “range anxiety” of the batteries was distracting me too much – and I went inside and picked up the book of theatrical reviews that Diana Rigg once compiled (“No Turn Unstoned”) which I had picked up in a charity bookshop a few weeks ago and placed by the bedside, and read some of that instead.

In the late afternoon we were joined by a neighbour’s cat although, despite the fact that it lay there quite contentedly under the shade of the umbrella, I knew it was only really hanging about because it had seen a couple of tiny voles moving around which had grabbed its attention and it was simply biding its time and waiting to strike.

Meanwhile I treated myself to a beer, which had been lurking in the fridge since the dawn of time. It had a bit of sediment, but it was only after I’d drunk 90% of it that I noticed and read the label which stated “Best Before August 2010…”

So, only just under three years out of date then…

In and around this, we managed some very minor-league gardening, pulling up some weeds and so forth, but it was all rather blissful and, for the first time in ages I felt that I had been able to unwind and forget about things for a few hours, and that my Sunday actually had felt like it hadn’t just vanished in the blink of an eye like it usually does.