Setting a tree free.

There is nothing so English as getting out to do a spot of gardening. And to do it on a Sunday afternoon after a large roast lunch is even more English. We must be getting assimilated, as that is exactly what we did today. Actually, I have been wanting to adopt the tradition of making a Sunday roast ever since moving here, as we all love it so much. Today I managed it for the first time. A joint of roast pork with crackling and mustard, roast potatoes, carrots and runner beans, followed by a bowl of toffee ice cream... Something  subconscious must have happened after that, because never in Uganda on a Sunday afternoon did I feel like gardening. I would say, not once, ever. It was too hot, too overgrown, there were too many spiders and ants, and Baker was going to do it anyway...

Even though we are in a rented house, we think we will be here for quite a long time so we have to keep the garden under control at least, and we want it to look nice. I had been wanting to strip the encroaching ivy off the two big old apple trees, and Abby had been wanting to plant out some primroses and other flowers... So we visited the garden centre (another quintessentially English pastime), bought some pots of primroses and a huge blue anenome (my choice), and a welly-boot-puller-offer which we've been wanting, and came home and all four of us then set to it in the garden. It was sunny, warm, satisfying and fun. Honestly we could have been Adam, Eve and their first two children, working away in our own little Eden.

The trunk of the old apple tree felt warm, strong and good, whilst the creeping thin ivy felt evil, determined, and cold... The ivy roots went off into the ground far afield, and the ivy clung onto the tree by millions of little brown threads. The more you pulled at it, the further away and the tougher the roots and tributaries became. The parables were simply flying into my mind! It would be easy just to pull the ivy's leaves off, and the tree would look a lot better, but everything would just grow back. The satisfying thing was in yanking away at the ivy roots as they led away from the tree, even underground, right back to the edge of the garden - knowing that I was really setting the tree free, literally pulling away its chains. I also want to be freed like that. I bet we all do. But it might take some pulling and yanking. It might not feel that good. But so much better afterwards...