I have an uneasy relationship with nature. I like a good country view and feel the need to periodically walk on earth rather than concrete, but I don’t altogether trust the natural world.
I treat it with respect. If I see a single magpie, I salute it and say, “Good day Mr Magpie, how are your children?” to avert the threat of sorrow. However, my efforts don’t always work. A week ago, a lone magpie was sitting in front of my house, and I went through the ritual, only to find when I went indoors that my whole ground floor was flooded. Perhaps my salutation was not sufficiently devout. Recently there seems to have been an increase in the magpie population and they have malignly taken to flying solo, so that I am in danger of crashing my car while paying obeisance to these harbingers of trouble.
As well as my magpie phobia, I am finding my little roof garden very disturbing. I created the garden to compensate for the fields of lavender, cherry blossom and sunflowers I was forced to relinquish when I left my rural home in France because of growing decrepitude and Brexit. I have planted colourful flowers in pots. For a while I gazed at the roses and wallflowers and poppies through my study window and rejoiced that I could enjoy the countryside in London without actually going there. But when I sat outside, I felt uncomfortable.
One chilling day, it occurred to me why. The place was dead.
Apart from occasional visits from a belligerent crow whom I befriended during lockdown, there was no sign of life. No other birds, no bees, no butterflies, not even a fly. It was utterly bereft of living creatures apart from sad, old, me.
Keats knew what that was like:
Ah what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
I went to the garden centre and asked for some unwithering sedges that would attract wildlife to liven up my pale loitering. I awaited the arrival of grateful creatures keen to enjoy my special plants. All I got was a visit from one tired bee, legs full of pollen, sniffing a flower and then flying off, doubtless to nearby Kew Gardens. I got very excited when a bedraggled white butterfly took a look around, until I remembered that my father hated them because they made caterpillars that ate his cabbages. The butterfly would have been welcome to have its children in my one potted lettuce, but there are bigger and better gardens up the road. So off it went.
A friend told me of a food that looks like dead worms and which birds cannot resist. I sprinkled it everywhere, then watched and waited. For days it was ignored. Then one afternoon, I was having a cup of tea and looking out of the window, and—glory be—a little skinny robin landed on the garden table. Robins are meant to be the souls of dead loved ones, and God knows at my age there are plenty of those. They also predict good luck, hopefully more accurately than magpies.
When you are old, thrills are rare, but when that tiny bird arrived in my barren garden, I was ecstatic. Over a few days, he visited regularly and we began to have little chats. And then the wretched crow discovered what was going on and started to gobble up all the worms. War was declared. I put out children’s windmills to deter the crow, covered up a mirror that he thought contained a friend, and hastily fed the robin when the crow was not there.
During the loneliness of lockdown, I tried to train this crow to sit on my shoulder. We became friends. Maybe I can persuade him to live in peace with the robin and welcome newcomers, so that my garden throbs with vitality. It is hard work bringing life to barren places: which we will discover when we try to rebuild after our present wars. Perhaps my roof garden can be a good example?
I am not overly confident. I once saw a cormorant use its beak to systematically stab a duck to death as it struggled to reach the river. Animals are not very nice. Especially human ones. But I will do my best to create a few square feet of peaceful accord.
The other night, I suffered a lot of pain in my rheumatic wrist and fingers. I dreamt the robin landed on my hand and, when I woke up, the pain was gone.
Miracles do happen.
