He opens the last door into an unrenovated larger room. One side is a large glazed balcony. Osian rips the newspaper on one of the glass panes and we both look down.
Just as I suspected, from this vantage point it’s easy to see how the trees run in three lines radiating from the narrow end at the base of the house and outwards to the far boundary.
“See? All the trees are planted in straight lines with topiary in the middle.”
“My God, you must be clairvoyant.” Osian whistles softly, looking out.
“No need for psychic vision. It’s easy when you’ve worked on lots of restoration projects. You pick up a lot of history.”
“For example?” He invites me to say more.
“Until the mid-1800s, these big estates favoured the Italian Baroque styles, like architectural gardens. The basic designs followed four basic templates: squares, rectangles, circles and triangles.”
His eyes narrow. “All I just heard was, blah, blah, blah, Ginger.”
He makes me laugh, and it’s a full minute before I can pull myself together. “Sorry.”
“Not at all; it’s me who is the amateur.”
“It’s the ‘Ginger’ that made me laugh. From the cartoon?” I check.
He nods, a little surprised. “The Far Side, yes. Not many people know it.”
“I like weird humour.”
“Me too,” he says quietly, and his face softens.
The moment feels mellow and sweet with this shared liking. Forging a new friendship based on a shared taste for surreal and absurd cartoons.
“So.” He clears his throat and turns to the window. “What did you mean about the trees? In simple English, please.”
“Okay.” I answer the unspoken request to change the subject and move back to business. “Late Hanoverian and early Victorian houses had formal parks in the Baroque style. Very geometric, less natural than we’re used to, now. And they followed set lines. Your garden down there is a triangle, the trees planted in lines radiating out like the spokes of a wheel.”
He watches, trying to decipher the shapes. “Yes, I see. It’s easy to pick out the design from above, but how could you tell when we were down on the ground?” He looks at me.
“There are clues, like the spacing.” I trace my fingertip on the glass to point out the regular intervals between trees. “Also, the way the privet seemed concentrated in the middle. It’s always the same. Once you’ve seen enough of these old parks, you recognise the shapes.”
He says nothing for a long moment, watching the land below us. I have the distinct impression he’s arguing with himself.
I leave him to think and walk around to one of the other windows. We’re high enough to see North Park behind.
That’s a huge park I’ve agreed to manage. Two weeks ago, looking at it on ground level, I had a micro-perspective. Lots of fascinating small things to do. I’m a dreamer and get carried away with best case scenarios which can distract me from practical realities. Like my dad used to say, the drunk dreamer in the back of the pub.
The big picture seen from up here is overwhelming in a way I never expected. Ten acres? That’s the size of… I don’t know… ten football fields of thick weeds and grasses under a million dead bushes covered by a blanket of ivy. How long will it take me to dig all that up? My God, weeds will grow as fast as I can pull them out. It’ll be like pushing back the tide with a spoon.
Maybe hire people to help, the optimistic part of me suggests.
Are there any unemployed labourers in the middle of the Brecon Beacons?
At £100 a day each? That’s five thousand pounds a week. It’ll soak up all my savings in no time at all. I won’t have money left to buy the special – and expensive – cuttings and seedlings I dreamed of.
Suddenly I wish all I had to do was plant a few carrots and cabbages. Small successes. Because ten acres is too much. What if I fail like that guy they had before me?
Then another memory lands on me like a carpet dropped from a top floor window. My resignation meeting at Styler TV.
“You can’t be serious. You want to take on a massive restoration by yourself?” The Head of Productions stared at me, jaw dropping. Then her gaze hardened. “I don’t believe you. You’re making this up.”
When I assured her I was serious, she frowned at me. “I don’t like this kind of negotiation. You could have just asked for more money.”
