There it sits, constantly in view from the glass wall that separates me from the garden, here in the room where I spend most of my time. It’s “ornamental” as they say. It certainly doesn’t ornament my life in any way. It just sits there, all stumpy and bent, dwarfed and battered by the constant wind off the fields, a constant reminder to me of the utter seventies hideousness of this garden when we moved here.
Great big clumps of ugly pampas grass, front and back. Is it true or is it one of those urban myths that you planted pampas grass to indicate that you had swinging parties? This house was built in 1974 – not a good year for architecture – huge picture windows that boil you in summer and freeze you in winter, great big oddly shaped chimneys that only someone deeply disturbed would find attractive. What were they thinking of when they designed houses like that?
When we first bought this house, two of my friends came to visit and we sat on the floor in the empty ugly sitting room, mocking the wall-to-wall shag pile carpet, for which the previous owner had generously left me her rug rake. I looked at her blankly and said “the what?” After a few drinks we amused ourselves by taking a sledgehammer and a crowbar to the York stone feature fireplace. It had handy built-in niches in which to display your knick-nacks. It was extremely satisfying to watch huge chunks of it come away from the wall with each dull thud of the big hammer. Next, we started on the woodchip wallpaper, ripping as much as we could off the walls. That was almost as much fun as peeling off sunburnt skin.
By the time they left, we were all slightly drunk and standing at the front door, by the horrible pampas grass; we shouted desperate housewives insults at each other. “Go then! I will never forgive you for stealing my husband! I will put on my kaftan and drink myself to death with martini!” “If you didn’t want me to steal your husband you shouldn’t have put your car keys on the table with the others!”
I am pretty sure the neighbours heard, even though the houses are widely spaced apart. What the retired bank manager across the road thought, heaven only knows. Hopefully he was already fast asleep, wondering in his dreams which of his five lawnmowers he would use the following day to further his march towards the perfectly striped front lawn.
I spent much of the following week pulling out as much of the horrible garden as possible. The hateful bedding plants; I really don’t like killing stuff but they just had to go. All those over-bright fake colours. Each spring, stuffed into holes in the neatly edged beds by the gardener “I’ll leave you his number – he is such a treasure”. Each autumn, pulled out again and thrown away, to be replaced by equally hideous winter pansies, “for year-round interest”, as they say.
The pampas grass at the back that made me wince each time I caught a glimpse of it, was harder to kill. I had to get a boy to help me. He’d just dropped out of university – skunk and vodka; not a good combination – however, he was very strong and very broke, and fifty quid saw the end of that nightmare.
The neatly trimmed twenty foot high leylandii cost me much more to lose. It was worth every penny. I think that’s what upset the neighbours the most. I had destroyed the precise boundary front and back. They visited each other to share their sadness.
It’s getting better now. I have planted a great straggly line of English hedgerow, and big swathes of love-in-a-mist and forget-me-nots are spreading wider each year as they self-seed among the lavender. Honeysuckle and rambling roses are quickly covering the red brick of the walls. Buddleia and mock orange blossom are doing their best to plug the empty space where the pampas grass stood.
But the cherry tree is still there. I would like it gone but there is something about trees – I just can’t bring myself to kill one. Each spring the hideous blossom appears – not the delicate white-pink of a wild cherry. This is day-glo pink – like a child’s painting.
When it’s in flower, the pigeons land on the branches to peck at it. They look so stupid – huge great fat birds, landing on the tiny, dwarfed boughs. I bet even they feel embarrassed to be seen on it. It doesn’t look quite so bad now. No one’s pruned it for two years and so its branches trail along the grass making it less of an eyesore. I still hate ornamental cherry trees though.
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Comments
Ewan | July 4, 2009 - 16:06
A lot of fun, then? You're missing a full stop after it though.
"That was almost as fun as peeling off sunburnt skin"
Would have loved to see the picture, can't help with how to sort it I'm afraid. Did you try the add image option on the edit page?
Ewan | July 4, 2009 - 16:15
Obviously not, because the add image option has gone!
I don't think as many as 1% of the users ever tried it.
ashb | July 4, 2009 - 16:57
Glad I clicked through. Enjoyable read, especially for someone who has spent (endured) time in a house very like the one described here.
Also, I did think "Insertponceyfire" was a strange pen name.
Insertponceyfrenchnamehere is much better.
;)
insertponceyfre... | July 4, 2009 - 16:58
I think I corrected the bit you mentioned. I did try to add with the add image option - I've tried it another way now and you can just about see it, though it's very tiny. Such a shame - I took it especially this morning.
thanks for reading and helping : )
insertponceyfre... | July 4, 2009 - 17:01
hi ashb - thank you for reading and liking it - amazing to think someone actually sat down and designed houses like that isn't it? (I bet I have offended another ten people now)
Charlie O | July 4, 2009 - 17:04
A really great write. Just fun really. I got a real sense of this being a snapshot of someone's existence. As far as I could see there were no errors in it.
insertponceyfre... | July 4, 2009 - 17:06
thank you Charlie O - very kind of you to say so
InspiredWriter | July 4, 2009 - 19:33
That's funny! I love the sarcasm and the reality of it. Just a human beings thoughts made into something special.
You just said what you felt and made a story out of it! You're amazing!
It kind of felt to me like something Jeremy CLarkson would do, rant about anything and make something out of it!
It's great fun to read! Well done!
(p.s sorry if i offend you about Jeremy Clarkson reference if you don't like him, it was just a...way to describe it)
Also, i don't really understand this site much but could you possibly read my stuff and comment? Thanks a lot!
sarah wilson | July 4, 2009 - 21:33
I like this a lot having been brought up in a house just like it! I'm lucky enough to have moved on now!!!
sarah x
insertponceyfre... | July 5, 2009 - 04:32
thank you so much for reading and enjoying my rant. I am not offended about j clarkson but I bet he would be. I am always torn between wanting to laugh at his stuff or run him over - sometimes one wins, sometimes the other.
this site is brilliant - full of really kind helpful people who are much better at intelligent criticism than me. i hope you enjoy using it as much as I do
c
insertponceyfre... | July 5, 2009 - 04:38
sarah - I am glad you liked it, and happy to have given you a moment of pleasure at the fact that you no longer live somewhere similar - can't believe I forgot to complain about the artex ceilings - did you have them too? hideous! c
sarah wilson | July 5, 2009 - 07:46
OMG - I had forgotten. There was artex everywhere and peach coloured glass doors which were the height of 70s chic. And of course, where there was no artex, my parents put up wood chip! Aaaaaah!
insertponceyfre... | July 5, 2009 - 07:49
avocado bathroom suite?
Ewan | July 5, 2009 - 07:57
Brown furniture, brown clothes... brown! Everything was effing brown! Even cars! Morris Marinas, in brown!
insertponceyfre... | July 5, 2009 - 08:01
or orange
Ewan | July 5, 2009 - 08:07
Yes, brown sofas, orange curtains. Truly gruesome.
sarah wilson | July 5, 2009 - 08:29
Yes! Avocado bathroom upstairs and Pampas ( a shade lighter than avocado) downstairs twinned with brown and orange wallpaper. My mother had a brown Austin Allegro which she hated.
whiskey | July 5, 2009 - 10:04
Lol! Great piece of writing, and your wildlife-attracting garden sounds perfect - having just done something similar to our once-hideous back garden I heartily approve!
We too have an ornamental weeping cherry, in our front garden I hasten to add, and it too is perfectly framed by a large window. We loathe it (pretty pale-pink blossom in spring but utterly hideous, scraggy and boring for the rest of the year), yet, like you, we can't bring ourselves to chop it down. Weird!
insertponceyfre... | July 5, 2009 - 11:24
hello whiskey, I'm glad you enjoyed it. wildlife garden now showing downside as we are all being bitten to pieces by wildlife. you're lucky not to have the day-glo pink variety. odd how we can kill flowers but not trees isn't it? c
celticman | July 6, 2009 - 07:36
angling for a cherry, with a story about a poor old cheery cherry tree that never did anyone any harm. Now if it was a story about pampas grass which I hate, that I could understand. You need to burn it and even that just makes it mad!
insertponceyfre... | July 6, 2009 - 07:45
actually I was surprised to get a cherry (it was such an anti-cherry thing). you wouldn't feel so sorry for it if you had to look at the hideous pink blossom every day. I never thought about setting fire to the pampas - think the trick is to dig really really deep and wide -it is a bastard to get rid of though
celticman | July 6, 2009 - 07:50
Send it on tour to Japan. Supposedly they love cherry blossom and have...
Miss_D_Meaner | September 12, 2009 - 17:23
Enjoyed this.
My sister had a carpet rake in the seventies. I was actually jealous of her for having one.
insertponceyfre... | September 12, 2009 - 17:43
oh really? i never even knew they existed until we bought this house.
thanks for reading