“Is the soil calciferous?”, the hero asks. Anticipating the far future of this, I would then be in line for all the heavy digging when his back was pooped. Plants weren’t my thing, so Dad made me read Love on a Branch Line, by John Hadfield, as it is a romance and he calculated that that would interest a girl, which might indirectly drag me into the hobby of plucking away ineffectually at gardens. I remember when he used to sit in his deckchair contented and raise a book instead, but that time is away and now he always has to be doing something.įor display purposes, our front garden is at the back and our back garden is at the front and anyone whosever does not comprehend that doesn’t know England or the secrets of composting (see leaf mould, uric acid and keeping what you do with them out of sight). They appear to irritate him, with their insolent yellow/white blossoms poking up like anarchists within a mile of Piccadilly.

I wonder what would happen if I said ‘pregnant’.ĭad is concerned about daisies today and wants to get rid of some from the lawn. How was I supposed to calibrate difference? They both ask me at least twice a week “How do you feel?” - but then don’t listen to the answer. Perhaps it isn’t difficult for everyone else reading this, but in my family a literary editor hardly ever gets carried away and a journalist exaggerates tears of one type or another all of the time, so I’ve learned to edit-out everything that sounds like their established pattern. Listen.Ī rare skill is required for a teenager to be aware of increasingly unstable parents, during the years when you live under the illusion that everyone is raised the same way as you. It wins, sounds opinionated and then I slip into the way I was then and weird becomes normal. That’s not a command, just being objective - and then there’s only one conscious version of me. Tell me about myself (trying to sort out the syntax). Really, you want to go back to 2012? Couldn’t you pick a less traumatic year? I’m falling into… It’s the summer of last year, so what are you doing? Okay, so you want me to go first? We don’t have a pocket watch, so you’ll have to light up your phone screen and swing it if you want this to happen.

Love on a branch line john hadfield