I have a hedge. Its a lovely hedge. Its made from beech trees. Which, unlike the more normal privet hedges, are deciduous.

You bored yet? Gardening?? I’ve never written gardening before because… because… because I haven’t. But its fascinating? exciting? scintillating? erotic? well, its about gardens an’ shit, innit? And you have to have something to do when the football season ends on Sunday.

So my hedge is made of little trees, which shed their leaves every October, all over the fucking everything, as if they don’t have a care. And then, for 7 months the hedge is a bunch of dead-looking twigs and branches. Which is fine. Its winter. Ok, and a bit of spring but as spring never really sprung here til last week, I’m happy with the feeling of bleakness that the bare, bald, brown hedge provides.

Then in May something weird happens. Something spooky, spiritual, almost, when a few leaves appear. Then a few more. And then, all over the space of about 10 days, it turns green. But not just, like ‘a bit green’, no. It turns FUCKING GREEN!!! with 3 exclamation marks. And vibrant and fluffy and soft and it says ‘SUMMER’S HERE!’ and just looks gorgeous. And that happened yesterday, so I thought I’d share.

And now we enter the fabulous 10-day period of wonderment and delight, every time we come home and see all that greenness and life and vitality. After that two things happen. Firstly it gets covered in greenfly and whitefly, no matter how much toxic shit and carcinogenic, fox-killing, bird-eating poison we spray on it. And secondly, the bitch from Barnet council phones me and tells me that the hedge is overhanging the pavement and needs to be ‘seriously!’ cut back.

‘FUCK OFF BITCH!’ I say to her. But only internally as its no way to start a negotiation. The hedge is fine, I say, its gorgeous, leave it alone and go fill in some potholes which are a genuine plague. Overhanging hedges don’t ruin cars, potholes do. She sends me photos. Seriously, emails them over with all quantified measurements of terminal overhangingness and projections from our property onto public land!! and shit. My normal argument is ‘but it looks lovely’. The ratbag doesn’t care. Nor just she seem to care about the dozens of hedges nearby which you have to avoid by stepping into the road. I don’t care about those either, they’re just hedges.

Its written into our house deeds that our house, like all others in the conservation area, has to have a hedge. Just as Dame Henrietta Barnet built it a hundred years ago. She never mentioned overhanging the pavement by 42cms being a crime. (If only it was just 42cms). So we prune it back about 6 inches and I sent her photos. Which have been edited, photoshopped and prove that ‘the camera does lie’ and that’s it for another year.

I await her phone call. I’m reading on how to train white and greenfly to attack.

Happy green-fingered Friday

A xxxx