Half Life -22 - lemons
March 26th, 2021
It was so cold the odds were against them. Sitting there, guarding the front of the house in their big square terracotta tubs, taking a pounding from the freezing wind, hail, and rain, they were unable to do anything other than try to survive. Planting lemon trees in pots, facing the wrath of a Midlands winter, was excessively optimistic. Reports that climate change was moving The Village closer to the warmth of Southern France were premature. Accompanied by the three small pomegranate trees lined up along the edge of the front lawn, positioned to let van drivers and our neighbour’s daughter practice missing them by inches, the lemon trees are not just a dedication to torturing inappropriate plants but testimony to the restorative power of spring. They are going to make it.
The day after being forced into seven days of radioactive isolation due to the latest treatment, life suddenly launched itself all around our tiny locked-in world. The garden, creeping back to more than a late-night toilet for JJ the dog, has woken up. The herald was the popping up of random single daffodils, planted all over our lawn by an alleged gardener, who’d worked for our house’s previous owner, and whose confusion between mess and ‘interesting and creative’ we have experienced ever since. His annual legacy is a timely reminder to check competence, capability, and sanity before allowing people you don’t know to take decisions about your garden. Not to be outdone, the silver birch trees have re-established their command of the garden with their first invisible assault on my soon-to-be-nonstop-running nose, and the cherry and hazel buds poked their heads out to join the move from brown to green.
The week-long nuclear exclusion zone means keeping away from everyone. No cuddling The Boys, JJ the dog, or The Wife, who has been banished to the spare room at night. Given the number of additional nocturnal toilet trips the injection of a highly radioactive isotope generates, she should be thankful for the extra sleep. Eating alone in a different room was novel the first time, then quickly became a lonely table-for-one experience. One positive had looked like being my ban from washing up and other domestic chores, until the benefits of putting The Boys in charge of unsurmountable life challenges such as laundry, unpacking supermarket deliveries, and running the vacuum over the hall proved to be distinctly limited. The joy of redoing most of it again in a few days’ time is, at least, something to look forward to, along with the return of human and dog contact, the lack of which proved to be harder than imagined, even if they are only sitting in the next room.
Excluded from cooking until enough time has passed for me not to risk warming food with the microwaves beaming from my bare hands, food fantasy replaced real meal preparation. More importantly, dreams of the lemon, melted butter, and twist of black pepper being all that is needed to accompany the greatest gift spring’s greenery gives up. St George’s Day at the end of April announces the British asparagus season, taking over for a short time from the poor tasteless shoots dragged all the way from Peru by the supermarkets. A month in advance is about right to start pulling the cookbooks out in preparation for the smelly wee festival which becomes our meals, until the point when facing yet another plate of green spears becomes unbearable and whatever is left over from the inevitable excessive buying is turned into frozen soup.
The race to meet other people in our reawakening gardens, closely followed by the need to sit outside a pub and drink beer together, has every Village resident crouching in the starting blocks as get-togethers are arranged and diaries come back into use in advance of Boris’s release dates. Younger Boy’s most wanted present, as he faced his second locked-in birthday with typical stoicism, is the chance of having a celebration with friends. If the floppy blond haired one keeps to the timetable, his wish will be granted. Although the demands around the catering he wants for his small garden party will test the limits of my culinary skills, he deserves it and will probably get at least an approximation of a what he would have had at his favourite Japanese restaurant.
Food, friends, flowers, sun, re-growth, and the return to life of my lemon trees from the ravages of winter, with buds re-opening like the shops, brings freedom from my internal isolation at the same time as the end of mass incarceration. Dreams of a homegrown lemon cheesecake scattered with my own dark red pomegranate seeds will have remain on hold until significant additional warming, as making lemonade from lemons is impossible if the tree doesn’t hand over any lemons. However, the re-birth of the trees gives more than fruit. Life fights back and each leaf, bud, and pollen-induced sneeze melts away the fear that winter might never release spring. Nobby, my internal winter, has spring to fight now as well as the treatments and pills he is bombarded with, and there is more to come. I will keep my lemon and pomegranate trees company, chase away the dark and the cold, and bask in the warmth of the sunshine of life.
Another wonderful article Charlie. Thank you. xx
You bring the art of writing to life ,wonderful prose ,most enjoyable