Spring Garden Chronicles

Quince flowers herald spring

 The five stages of spring gardening have stayed remarkably static for me, whether I was living in B.C., Oregon, or here in Hertfordshire.  This account being chiefly about spring, it omits the hopeful months of late fall and winter, when you stand in the garden with your beloved discussing how next year will be different, and envisaging all the wonderful things you can/should/will do  in the off-season and planning wonderful new heights for the garden. It goes something like this:

Aren't the bluebells lovely?

1. Joy.  Sometime between January and March, you see the snowdrops and crocuses rise defiantly up through the snow or the grass, depending on the year, and you can't help it: your heart fills with joy. As the weeks pass, more and more of the garden comes to life, and you thrill as the garden fills with flowers from bulbs: daffodils, tulips, bluebells, lily of the valley. Fruit trees bud out then blossom in riotous pinks and whites. Giddy with spring fever, you get out the garden table and chairs, prudently leaving on the rain covers. Maybe you even make a hopeful trip to the garden centre.

2. Concern.  As the sun comes out, and showers start, you wonder when the explosion happened. All the old stalks you left for the over-wintering critters now stand dead and ugly amongst the greenery. The trees you didn't get around to pruning early enough go from bare branches to a breathtaking array of green within hours. The lawn is looking shaggy and suddenly one day appears to be more dandelions than grass.

Forsythia in Bloom

3. Panic. You have been glancing with growing alarm at the garden as you dash from the car to the house in the pouring rain carrying sixteen grocery bags.The grass that was dormant now stands three feet tall and surely harbours everything from giant rats to tigers. The vines have overtaken all the trees. Weeds have choked out nearly all the flowers in the beds.Now, after several consecutive weeks of rain, panic sets in. At the first sign that the downpour is letting up, you dash outside and fire up the mower, which groans in dismay as you wade into the lawn, and dies.

4. Despair. As the weeks pass, you manically hack and cut and pull at every opportunity. It never seems to make any difference. One day you realize that the horrible brown-specked scraggly plants you have just industriously cleaned out of the beds were your gladiolas. Your shoulders slump and you drag yourself inside, dolefully clutching the few small stalks of rhubarb you have managed to salvage.

5. Apathy. As the weeks of summer wear on, your sense of community pride shrivels. You mow the lawn every 3 to 4 weeks.With what you won't admit to yourself is a sense of relief, you finally don the mantle of utter failure. You invite people over for garden parties or BBQs and just before they arrive you halfheartedly run the mower over the grass where you'll be sitting.  After a few Pimm's or margaritas, no-one notices anyway, right?

Wisteria temporarily under control

I am hoping to cling to my hapless urge to garden for another few weeks, maybe hang on until the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June, in case anyone comes over or they have a street party in my neighbourhood. Then all bets are off. I even have a vacation abroad planned this summer; any residual guilt feelings that I harbour can be shrugged off with "What can I do? I was away."  So if you're planning to visit us this summer, do it now before it's too late and you have to hack your way through the holly to get in the front gate, and get tangled in the wisteria before you get to the door.

Julia’s Story

“It was a gentle curve! She just kept turning, and rode right off the road!” Sarah was near hysteria, trying to explain to Robert what she had seen. It was about 2 in the afternoon and Julia lay dead in the ditch. “I-I don’t know why; why did she do that?”

As the sun had crawled up into the blue sky over Vancouver that morning, Julia had eased the lavender motorcycle out of the cramped garage space behind her parents’ restaurant on 4^th Avenue. Soon, she would be cruising through the turns of the Sea to Sky highway, winding along past Howe Sound. The Hayabusa. Her symbol. All of her bikes were purple, but when she rode this one, she was almost a caricature: the tiny Asian woman, barely 5’3”, riding the most powerful and fastest production sportbike made.

The route they had chosen for today’s ride is legendary: the Duffy Lake loop rises out of Vancouver, climbing hundreds of feet above sea level as it takes multiple thousands of tourists to Whistler each year. Past that worldwide icon of recreational excess, the road drops into oblivion, going through the small ranching and Indian towns then abruptly turning east to head over to the leeward side of the mountains. It leads up into the blistering desert of the central interior, where tumbleweeds loll on the verges of the road, which crumbles away to steep drops on one side and sheer rock faces on the other. For motorcyclists, sport riders who worship the twisty ribbons linking curve on curve, for mile after mile, this road is black asphalt nirvana.

“Where are you going?” It was her mother, speaking to her in Chinese, from the door to the cafe’s kitchen.

“For a ride, with Robert”. Her mother got that look on her face. The one she always got when Julia went out on a bike. Kind of a pursed-lip, not-quite-frown, look.

Her wedding was in a few weeks. Robert was to be her husband. Robert, who had stood by her in the days and weeks following that harrowing ride last year; who had been a good friend to her and Bogdan when they were together. It would be a fitting end to this year of sadness, and a tribute to all of her friends. Julia thought about how her passion for riding, ignited such a short time ago, had grown to encompass her whole life, from the restaurant after she took over, to the women in motorcycling she had gathered around her. The community was awesome, and she swelled with pride when she thought of the success of Motorcycle Mondays and the Hot Chicks Ride. Everyone would have a blast at the wedding.

Not like the last gathering at the Flying Swan Coffeehouse. Lines of bikes down both sides of the street. Riders standing in somber groups. The slow procession to say goodbye.

Inevitably, her mind was again delicately pondering whether Bog would approve of her impending marriage or not, when the road suddenly demanded all of her attention back. A deer had bounded into her peripheral vision, and was poised to dart in front of the bike. She grabbed a handful of the front brake and squeezed with increasing force, slowing the big bike down to a crawl as she passed alongside the deer, which paused long enough to let her by. Letting out her breath, she eased the throttle back on, resuming her pace and spacing out with the others.

Robert rode ahead, and she saw him look in his mirror briefly when she slowed, waiting for her to catch back up to take his wing position. Behind them, the others were evenly spaced, with Sarah riding sweep at the back. Everyone rode at his or her own pace, with the result that the bikes broke apart in a long line, then grouped up together again at a turn or a town, slowing to regroup. The effect was like a long string of pearls, Julia thought, on an elastic rope that stretched out and then became taut, bringing the pearls back in proximity. The sight was captivating, and she never failed to enjoy the sight of the whole string of bikes stretched out in front of, or behind her.

Now the bikes had climbed out of the mountains that surrounded Whistler, and were headed up into the desert of the interior plateau. Julia caught her breath as they rounded a turn, and the brown blazing hills shimmered into view. She had seen it many times, and repeated all the way down the continent, from rides like US 20, winding across the arid country around Winthrop, Washington, to the creeping back roads of central Oregon and California. But it was nevertheless, and still, spectacular.

The bikes hummed along as they traversed some of the sleepy little ranch towns, where childhood games of cowboys and Indians were still occasionally played out in real life. Momentarily, her heart leapt as they passed the spot where she had last held her beloved Bogdan. Bogdan, her soulmate. Her riding partner, her muse. The most wonderful man and the best rider she knew. What had happened? What could have caused the bike to carry him out into space, off that corner, into oblivion? She remembered coming round the corner, bikes pulled up, running to the edge, looking into the abyss…

Too late her attention returned to the road in front of her, to the bike, to the process of a million small decisions a rider makes every second to keep human and machine in that delicate dance of equilibrium with the road. She could have made the curve, could have turned, leaned, cranked it over, but it was too late. Her lizard brain rose and took over. The bike went straight.

Later, the lines of bikes filled the lanes, snaking through the streets of Vancouver, like a dragon’s tail for the hearse, in eerie repetition of the procession that followed the hearse carrying Bogdan to the graveyard, almost exactly one year previously.

Motorcycle Blues

I find ranting can be a bit insufferable and tedious, so I planned never to do it in this blog. But it has been almost two years since my motorcycles arrived and I have yet to (legally) turn a wheel on either one of them on a public road. I am almost past despair and into hopeless apathy, but while I still can get a good head of steam up about this, I’m going to let fly. It may get a little insufferable and tedious.

For the most part, I deal with bureaucracy in a fairly sanguine manner, never really getting in a flap over anything. Twenty years as a lawyer has even taught me to enjoy it a little, like a frustrating game or puzzle that you have to figure out. But I am taxed. Taxed to the limit.

In Canada, public servants tend to be a largely neutral group who will reflect back any surliness in spades. They are often officious, but generally you can get whatever business you need transacted with persistence, preparedness and polite determination.

American bureaucrats are a different breed. They tend to be quite the picture of petty tyrants, and sometimes no amount of groveling gets you the information or piece of paper that you need.

British bureaucrats, in my limited experience so far, are extremely cheerful and earnestly striving for competence. But there is an ominous, almost imperceptible feeling of hopelessness that pervades any public endeavour, and it’s almost like the expectation is that it simply won’t work, no matter what we do.

I have two motorcycles. The motorcycles arrived in this country on February 19th, 2010, after which I set out to go ride them. First task was to get them registered, licensed and insured. I assembled the paperwork: insurance was required before I could get the registration. After about 30 lengthy phone calls to insurers, and innumerable websites visited,, it was determined that I could not insure either motorcycle because I was not licensed to ride them. Apparently the grace of being allowed to drive for twelve months after arrival on my Oregon driving license did not extend to the bikes and I had to go through the entire 3 or 4 level testing procedures in order to get the top level bike license that would allow me to ride the 700cc and 750cc bikes I own.

After several hundred pounds, a couple of Saturday classes and several trips to the DSA (practical test agency) and DVLA (theory test agency), I now possess a full, unlimited, ride anything I want anywhere I want, UK motorcycle license.

Bonus, so I call and get insurance on the Hawk. On to the next piece of paper: I need the customs forms. No problem, I go through the moving papers. No customs forms. What??! My limited knowledge here tells me that those bikes came in a sealed container, beyond a big fence, and someone had to show someone something official to get them released through the import centre and onto the truck that hauled them to me, no? They must have forgotten to give me the piece of paper.

Phone calls to the movers in Portland sent me to the consolidators in St. Louis, on to the guys in New York that shipped them, who in turn pointed me at the guys in Aylesbury who actually picked them up at the dock and brought them out to Tom’s Lane. OK, now we’re getting somewhere: talk to the nice lady out there and after three or four calls she tells me to talk directly to the logistics brokers who were in charge of clearing them though Customs. Meanwhile, I have been on the phone with Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue myself to determine what is required to get this elusive C&E 388 for each bike.

After a few calls with the logistics people, I get the nice lady to forward the documentation to HMRC, which she does, and then gives me the direct e-mail address of the HMRC representative who is seized of the task of issuing the two forms. This wonderful man issues the GSX-R paperwork that very afternoon, and-get this-it slides through the mail slot in the front door promptly at 8:30 a.m. the next morning! Clearly both Canada Post and the USPS have something to learn here from the Royal Mail.

The Hawk C&E388 didn’t get issued because he couldn’t find the date on the title. This is odd, since the both titles are virtually identical forms from the State of Oregon. So I scan and send over some additional documents, translate the stupid American-style date from the title for him (“062705” or something meaningless like that), and he says fine, it’ll go out today. I hover over the letter slot for the next several days in anticipation, and…nothing.

Email correspondence with the nice man at HMRC (who is so responsive, and still sounds like he cares, and actually *gasp* apologizes to me) indicates that the C&E388 was in fact sent out to me on November 11th, and he has no idea what’s happened. The otherwise-efficient Royal Mail has apparently had an epic fail and so he now has to send out a duplicate one to the DVLA office of my choice. Haysoos H. Chreestos.

Stay tuned for the next installment.