PROBABALY THE MOST BORING PLANT IN THE WORLD - THE RAMBLING RECTOR - THE BOOKSHOP LADY - AND THE BROOM

I’ve had to bring her home - the bookshop lady; poor thing.

Ming doesn’t seem surprised. I think he knew it would happen.

But if I hadn’t gone to Manchester, I wouldn’t have understood.

And I wouldn’t have bought her a train ticket before I knew she'd be coming.

And I wouldn’t have wanted her to come - unless I had gone.

Which I did.

So it’s worked out fine after all.

(Well, not exactly ‘fine’ - but it will in the end.)

(I hope.)

(For the future of our world is at stake.)

* * * * *

Ming’s stuck an awful plant in the garden.

It’s about two foot high and two foot wide - with sparsely clad thin twigs arranged stiffly at inelegant angles. Its leaves are small and dark and dull. There should be thorns - but it seems to have lost them.

Ming says he ‘got it off’ some council workers who were ‘landscaping’ (ha!) a roundabout. They’d filled the available space - so they didn’t need it - and couldn’t be bothered to take it back to the depot - but they said it’s good ground cover and needs little care.

(Which is all it will get!)

Ming says it reminds him of a guinea pig he had as a child.

(They must have some very odd guinea pigs on Mars.)

The bookshop woman's called Marjorie.

She's very nice.

* * * * *

In the two days I’ve been away, the garden has lurched from Spring into early summer.

Snails are mating.

Convolvulus is at the top of the currant bushes (again).

(If Hitchcock had been a gardener, he wouldn’t have bothered with 'Birds'.
‘Bindweed - The Movie’
Would have been made instead.)

Flowers on the Spanish Broom are coming out; starting at the top and working down.

The first Rambling Rector Roses have opened; one here, one there; mostly in strange places - like underneath leaves.

Didcott and Worthing have grown during my absence. They are now sixteen and have jobs in the Riveting Department at the M.O.D..

Marigolds have come up - which is encouraging. (Calendulas.) (Not Tagetes.)

Californian Poppies too.

* * * * *

I'm going to start some new tomato plants.

For Tomorrow

MESSAGE FROM MING

For Tomorrow

NOTES ON THE KITCHEN TABLE

Air - chill

Sun - stings

Every leaf; every vein in every leaf - distinct.

It will rain.






For Tomorrow

THE PLANNING STAGE

.

I’ve been imagining this:-

Manchester.

A bookshop.

Me.

“If, once more, you charge £5,000 for botanical books I’ve not bought,” (I’m saying this in a tough, gangsterish voice) “I’ll go to the police.”

The woman behind the counter pales. Shrinks into her suit.

“Pressed geranium flowers,” I whisper (menacingly).

She’ll send no more. (I can tell by the way she clutches fearfully at her beads.)

I leave.

Oh! Very likely!

Truth is as floppy as a Spider Plant leaf.

As squashy as a ripe persimmon.

But with invisible threads (like a prickly pear) - and the skin slicing power of grass.

The bookselling woman would ‘sing’ about Ming.

Identity - uncertain.

Papers - forged.

Date of birth - unknown.

The police wouldn’t look for Algerian Goths.

(In Dorchester.)

They’d soon find out where we live.

We’d run.

But where?

Not Mars!

(No air!)

I need a lie.

A good one.

Believable.

Bad . . . . . .

She steals books from the British Library and sells them in brown-paper covers?

Her cleaning lady is paid a pittance?

Both?

Does she drink while she drives?

Take drugs?

Grow them?

Plants . . . . . .
Ferns . . . . . .
Pluto . . . . . .

Hmm.

Flower power?

. . . . . . Might be worth a try.

For Tomorrow

BAY TREES - AND BLACKMAIL - (EVEN MORE THAN BEFORE!)

I’ve been sitting in bed, watching rain.

Watching the bay tree too.

Upright. Still. Doing nothing.

(Either of us.)

Me and the Bay Tree.

(The Bay Tree and me.)

Inactivity should be boring. It isn’t. I’m mesmerised by its greenness; by the golden yellow of new growth.

There’s a snail at the top of the Spanish Broom. I’m companionable with it.

Blue Tits come and go. And sparrows. They’re busy - too busy for Saturday.

For once, I prefer the snail.

* * * * *

The house is silent.

The street is silent.

Even the rain falls without sound.

* * * * *

Earlier, when I went to make tea - I pulled convolvulus away from the currant bushes.

(While I waited for the kettle to boil.)

I was hoping Mrs Rustbridger was seeing me. I’d very much like her to say something nice.

I wish I didn’t.

* * * * *

Three pressed geranium flowers arrived in the post.

(At weekends, just when you’d expect postal workers to sleep in - they deliver the mail before breakfast. Other days, it's not till noon.)

* * * * *

Blackmail works on Plutonians.

Maybe it would work on the Manchester Bookseller?

'Around the World Looking at Yellow Geraniums' shouldn’t cost £5,000, however good it is.

There’s something fishy about all this.

Perhaps I’ll visit her on Monday; see what I can do.

I’ll buy Indian treats from the Wilmslow Road - with real silver on!

I’ll serve them as pudding - on Wednesday - when the chauffeur comes.

* * * * *

SHOPPING LIST

Bread
Milk
Butter
Eggs
Self-raising Flour

For Tomorrow

OH! LET THE HERBIVORES EAT THE PLANTS IF THEY WANT!

.

The National Convention of Snails was held in my garden, this morning.

Effort eluded me.

I left them.

I’ve a cold.

Can’t be bothered to move.

Couldn’t catch a snail if I tried.

And snails - snails they can’t half leg it!

Under-rated as racers; snails are.

I pluck them from walls.

Detach them from gravel.

Tug them from leaves.

Lift them from the soil.

Then, while I’m pretending not to be frightened of slugs and I’m bending round the garden, bravely scooping them onto my trowel - while I’m doing that - half the snails have got out of the bucket and are careering back to finish their breakfasts.

Even on our way to the waste-ground - they keep clambering out.

Briefly, I let go of the jacket with the broken zip that I’m clutching round my chest (to conceal my nightwear) and knock them back in.

Then I go into my tipping and shaking and flinging routine, stopping now and then to say ‘Good Morning’ to dog-walkers.

Today - today I simply couldn’t do it.

I looked at the Sage instead and pretended it was Lavender.

If it were taller. If the flowers were smaller and more densely packed along the spike - and closer to blue than to purple. If the leaves were narrower; less mottled; smelled better and weren't hairy . If it were later in the year - they might be lavender.

Then I would like them.

* * * * *

Ming’s taken my runner beans to the allotment.

I’ve tried to say he should leave them till the ground has dried a little; get a head start with slug traps - put the plants in later.

He says there aren’t slugs on the allotment. Slugs prefer the next one along.

(!)

He’s says he’s invited Miss Martin’s chauffeur to supper next week.

(We may not be talking by then.)

There’s a blue-tit bouncing on the broom tree.

The Lilly of the Valley have started to grow.

The bean plants are growing tall.
They can’t stay in pots for ever.

(I’ve bidden them a fond farewell.)





For Tomorrow

ROOTS

Roots balance trees.

Like keels.

You never see carrots flying round the garden in a gale!

After the hurricane, fallen trees became climbing frames.
(Until they were cleared away.)We could see them - immense, sideways mirrors of branches.

Exposed Beech roots are like tough lace.
Roses grow shallow.

* * * * *

Trees on Pluto are sort of broad-trunked broad beans - or tall, tall clover - with nodules in their roots.

(For fixing nitrogen.)

Plants and bushes thrive in their shade.
(They don't mind that it's dry.)
(Earth's different.)

For Tomorrow

TEA AND AQUILEGIA (CLEMENTINE) (PURPLE)

LAST TUESDAY: PART THREE

The sense of power was immense.

Pleasant.

I glanced round at elderly shoppers with bags; tourists with cameras; waitresses with black dresses - and sucked in the secrecy.

I have no idea why extra-terrestrials are travelling round Dorset on a bus.

But this much is clear - they don't want people to know.

. . . . . . . . . . Of course - Didcott came home.

* * * * *

I wish he weren't called 'Didcott'.

Didcott is an uninteresting town with a power station and a railway museum.

'Worthing' is worse.

People only know it's there because Bernard Shaw bought a ticket for Worthing when he left his baby at Victoria.

(In a handbag).

.

* * * * *

The Clematis Armandii is sprouting long, wavy shoots from its fibrously dead-looking branches.

(Relief!)

* * * * *

Ming's given me a purple Aquilegia for the garden. The proper ones are called 'Granny's Bonnet'.
The flower on this one looks like a sparse chive.

I shall plant it next to his clump of dead grass.

* * * * *

Ceres, Robert and Caddis have a new baby sister.

.

Sharon.

For Tomorrow

THE GOLDEN FERN AND THE BLUE GLOWING MAN

Last Tuesday (Continued)
(The dining room of the M.O.D. Bus.)

It wasn't long before guards and prisoners drifted in from their shopping and fossil hunting expeditions.

Some made tea in the kitchen.

Some went to the upper deck.

A guard called Fred came over to chat about rickshaws.

(He'd been with us when I had a fit on the Bournemouth bypass while visiting Ming.)

I slid my hand away from the flower press.

Fred's eyes flickered to the fern.

Away.

Back.

Away.

He looked puzzled.

Frowned.

Went outside to talk with the driver.

Didn't return.

Then the Second in Command on the Bus (a sort of Governor) came and picked up the flower press.

In a streak of sudden sunlight, the fern shone - dully gold.

The Second in Command glowed too (in the sunlight) - blue.

"You want to talk?" he asked.

We went up the hill - to a restaurant I know - and ate smoked mackerel and salad with brown bread and butter.

He suggested strawberries for pudding.

In May!

For Tomorrow

MORE ABOUT TREES

I've travelled in an aeroplane twice; once at night; once over cloud.

So I've never seen a tree from above.

I can guess, though, what they look like.

.

Oak Trees

Apple trees

Horse Chestnut and Lime trees (and some oaks).

Cordylines

.

.

Small, stunted hawthorns, blasted by salt gales clinging to the tops of storm swept cliffs.

In a West Wind.

In an EastWind

When we landed on Pluto, fear distracted me. I didn't look at trees.

But I've looked into their branches.

From above, the larger ones probably look like this

or this.

Two shapes.

Fewer than on earth.

But Golfing Umbrellas have even fewer.
(Just one.)



(Unless furled counts.)(Which it doesn't!)

For Tomorrow

TODAY IT IS SUMMER

.

Today, it is summer.

The street is full of sounds; children; adults; parties.

Heat.

My head hurts.

I feel sick.

I wish Didcott and Worthing had quiet, book reading friends.

Friends who close doors gently.

Who don't eat so many biscuits.

Perhaps some nice, anti-social friends who never visit?

I've sent them to the park.

(The ones who are here.)

(All of them.)

(With money for ice-creams.)

I'm going to bed.

Tomorrow, with any luck, it will be winter.

For Tomorrow

THREADS AND FERNS

I mustn't lose track of my threads.

There's the inventory of Plutonian Flora.

And I started to say what happened when I went to rescue Didcott on Tuesday.

Then I got distracted by the Lyme Regis landslide.

Then I started to worry about a bush in my garden.

(The Landslide - I'm beginning to suspect that had more to do with the Refuse Department than alien invaders.

According to newspaper reports, a Council Rubbish Pit tumbled forward onto the beach, along with the boulders and rocks and earth and trees and bushes and grass and mud and fossils.

But, as gardeners know, digging holes close to each other is asking for trouble. The sides simply crumble . And what is a cliff by the sea if it is not a hole with one half missing?)


And Ming walked in yesterday evening.

He said someone had given him a lift.

He wanted to know if there was any supper left or had the rest of us eaten it?

(The 'rest of us' being me and Worthing and Didcott.)

So, now we are all together again - which should please Merlinprincesse.

Right - Tuesday.

(We had eaten the supper. Why not? We hadn't known he was going to walk in just then!)

(Ming.)

(And if he'd let us know in time, we would, of course have made something special. (We might even have risen to a carry-out from the very excellent Indian Restaurant on the main road.))

Anyway.

After I'd left the driver, I went to talk with some of the guards who were drifting back to the bus.

(This is Tuesday.)

Two of them were having an argument about 'Corporate Hospitality' - a topic unlikely to be of riveting interest to extra-terrestrials.

So I put them down as Chelsea Supporters.

But I was getting worried about the timing. Didcott would be back any second now with a pocket full of Belamites - and I didn't want him asking questions in public. So I asked a guard if I could sit and read on the bus.

He showed me to the dining area.

Which was useful.

I made myself comfortable, sat straight, removed the flower-press from my pocket, put it in on the table in front of me, unscrewed the little wing-nuts - and laid bare a small, yellow frond from a methane tolerant fern which I had 'collected' from the Botanic Gardens when I was on Pluto.

Then I waited to see who would notice.



For Tomorrow

WESTRINGIA FRUTICOSA WYNYABBIE - (GEM)

My Westringia Fruticosa Wynyabbie is causing me thought.

It's stands (dark green and glossy) between the kitchen window and the dustbin.

Instructions which came with it (that is, with the Westringia Fruticosa Wynyabbie - not with the kitchen window) (nor with the dustbin either) say it should be planted in very dry, not very fertile soil in full sunshine.

(I think people are meant to know what to do with windows and dustbins - which is why you don't get little labels hanging off them when you buy them.)

(Actually, the window came with the house. I didn't have to buy it separately.)

(Though I did buy the dustbin - which probably had a price on but nothing more.)

(And, I suppose, when I think about it, there were a few instructions along with the house - like how to set the timer on the central heating - but I don't use the timer so the instructions were superfluous.)

(Which is a wonderful word - 'superfluous'.)

. . . . . Back to the plant . . . I dug a pit, threw aside the clay the house builders had hidden in the ground - and refilled the hole with gravel mixed with whatever earth was left over.

Then I made a low wall from lumps of Purbeck rock (which came from a Portland Stone quarry - the people who ran the quarry didn't want it - but why they had brought stone all the way from Purbeck when they didn't want it, I don't know! There's this vast, barren landscape with huge boulders and slabs of Portland Stone




- and they go to the trouble of importing a few small lumps from somewhere else. (Testing the opposition, perhaps?) Such are the mysteries of life. Sometimes, all you can do is to accept the inexplicable.)

Anyway - I made a little wall around the Westringia Bush (to stop water flowing into my newly created gravel pit) and hoped for the best.

Only the sun was missing. Lucy's house is in the way. But I hoped a small amount of light falling on the bush in late summer afternoons would be enough to tide it through the rest of the year.

Well, it seems to have worked. It grew high - and wide - and healthy - and happy (in so far as I can tell) - and spread its branches across three paths.

I didn't mind. I was happy to duck under. But visitors complained - especially when it was raining.

Last autumn, bowing to their opinion, I thinned it out and cut it back.

My poor Westringia Fruticosa Wynyabbie didn't like this.

It has refused to flower.

At this time of year, it would usually be encased in thousands of small, pale purple petals.

It isn't.

- Except for a branch I missed which has fallen sideways across one of the paths. Of all the branches on the bush, this alone has flowers.

I could prune it - but what is the point of a flowerless, dustbin revealing, should-be-flowering-but-isn't-bush standing outside the kitchen window?

Which is why my Westringia Fruticosa Wynyabbie is giving me cause for thought.

* * * * *

Lovely name though.

If ever I have a Martian daughter, I will call her Wynyabbie.

For Tomorrow