Queuing Behind The Coffin-Builder
Buying bamboo for the roses
One very small slice of Falmouth life.
We had an excellent day on Sunday, sorting out my small garden at the back. I used to have — on second thoughts, I won’t try to describe it — and now I have a “garden room” with a tiled area and visible roses.
The tangle has been removed, as has the underfoot. I have arches for the climbing plants, and I have a chair-and-a-table (two chairs) and a sit-back-and-read-the-paper chair. Yesterday I was inspired to go out and buy myself a(nother) honeysuckle.
I like climbing plants. And scents. And I’m trying very hard not to write at length about my lovely red climbing rose, which has come into bloom without my noticing. It’s — no! Moving on.
Bamboo time
So today, after sitting in my garden room drinking coffee and reading the weekend paper, and then planting the honeysuckle, I was inspired (hey, I like the word) to go down into town and buy myself two three-packs of “bamboo u-hoops”.
That’s what it says on the label and it’s a perfectly accurate description. My lovely pink climbing rose turned out on Sunday not to be as well supported as I had thought, and the temporary arrangement is not pleasing to the eye. Nor secure.
I’ll fix it tomorrow. And if I haven’t pressed Publish on this by then, I’ll also fact-check the names of the two roses mentioned so far. But — tomorrow.
Not walking but waving
Anyway. I went down into town. I went into Trago Mills and down into the lower ground where they keep the gardening department. There’s a bit right at the back that butts out over the water — that’s where they keep the plants.
Bamboo. I found what I wanted and headed for the till. Coming from the other direction — the DIY department — was a young man clutching a lot of very long strips of wood — the word “beading” feels right, and the pictures at this link will show you what I mean.
His arms were full. Our eyes met. And because I’m far too grown-up to do that walking-slightly-faster-while-not-being-obvious-about-it thing, I stopped and ushered him forward. We smiled at each other.
Two, four, six, seven widths
His hair was various colours from yellow through various shades of orange to red, and I could have stared at the back of his head quite happily while I waited.
Except that his strips of wood were different widths. And he was being very precise about it.
“There are two of these,” he said, separating them out for the man at the till. “And four of these. I’ve got six of these.”
He had various numbers of several other widths. He glanced back at me.
“Really, no hurry,” I told him.
He nodded and gave a faint smile and we were on the same wavelength.
“What are you making?” I asked him.
“Oh,” he said, and hesitated like somebody deciding that the full explanation would take too long.
“I built a coffin,” he told me.
“You built a coffin.”
“Yes.”
He wasn’t going to tell me any more. I was going to have to ask. I could see it in his eyes.
He was smiling, waiting. The man behind the till was also smiling, waiting.
And then I thought: I like this town.
This is a town in which young men with brightly coloured hair who have built coffins venture out to buy long strips of wood. In various widths.
If there’s a boringly prosaic explanation for that — I don’t want to hear it.
I held up my bamboo.
“I’ve just planted a honeysuckle,” I said.
And we left it at that.
