Gardens

Paul Johnson, writing in The Spectator, mentioned how gardening in this country was something so very English. He had visited a small village where 15 or so gardens were open to the public and said how magnificent they were in their various ways.
I passed a garden the other day that was magnificent: it had well mown lawns surrounded by well tended flower beds; there were hanging baskets ablaze with blooms and a water feature which the owner was seeing to.
"Lovely garden," I said.
"Thank you," he said with an Italian accent.
Here in deepest Wales there are wonderful gardens; here in Cardiff there are gardening competitions, fought hard and sometimes unfairly too.
I spoke to a man who had a beautiful garden with the greenest lawn I have ever seen, except for a patch that seemed burnt at its edge.
"Vandals?" I said.
"Competitors," he said.
I only half believed him. Then I thought back to that wonderful cauliflower I had grown in my allotment. It was bigger and better than anything I had grown before. One day I went to pick it to find it had gone, slashed expertly off at the stem.
I spoke to another allotment gardener nearby, one who had been there for years, not months like me. "What do you think of that?" I said. "The vandals!"
He shook his head. "No, one of your fellow gardeners here, I'm afraid. Jealousy."
How very English!