Falling in love in the rain

My best dog, by which I mean the one that steals the least and barks the least and doesn’t stand on tables to look out of the window, is Morag. She is getting on a little and her heart beats a little irregularly, but it is a heart of gold.

This evening, we set out to walk. In light of the impending rain which I could see coming down the flank of Corfe hill, I thought we would do three brisk laps of the back field rather than head further out, just im case we needed to make a dash for cover. We did need to do so, but just as the first big drops of rain fell on my completely inappropriate jacket, I realised Morag had disappeared.

We are due to go to a wedding tomorrow. It is some six hours drive north of here. A commitment in anyone’s book, and one that requires an overnight stay and therefore dog care. Only minutes before I was wondering if the dog sitters would mind if Morag came without a collar. She hasn’t worn one since she damaged the nerves in her neck crashing into a lurcher but it does always feel slight irresponsible. Somewhere at the point where liberated and foolish meet, at the very least.

She did turn up again, of course she did, although goodness knows where she had been. By that stage, she, I, another setter (who was even more panicked than me at Morag’s disappearance) and a spaniel who wanted his tea were drenched to the skin.

In our dejected state, we took the short cut home, through the hay field (now flattened) at the back of the church, and snuck through the big gate that leads onto the track leading to Malus Farm. This isn’t a right of way and we shouldn’t really, but in the circs, I just couldn’t quite face going the long way round.

Taking this lesser trodden path means coming around the outer boundary of the flower field. Looking up at it from the slope of the valley, I notice that the beech hedge, now in its third or fourth year, is starting to really take shape. The gaps have filled in, and the top is hints at squareness, without yet having quite achieved it. This summer’s cut, I think. Above the hedge are the domes of the canopies of the fruit trees. The quince that gives fruit only every five years, just often enough to remind us how much we like membrillo, and just rarely enough for us never to get habituated to its delight. There are glimpses of the many sweet pea teepees that I have managed to squeeze into the flower beds, jute netting sagging in the weight of the rain and the wet vines. Yes, finally, I have sweet pea plants growing.

Seeing the garden from a different angle, even through the driving rain, and trailing three bedraggled dogs, lifts me. This season has been marred (marked?) by disappointment, mess, confusion and slugs. And yet somehow, the flowers that have arrived have been all the more precious for their resilience. However much I have regretted how my kitchen garden does not yet resemble my Pinterest fantasies, we have been through a lot together. She is allowed an off year, a year of looking a little tattered and battered, bruised by the reality of existing through a time of climate change and epidemics of slugs. I know I am not the only one to feel hopeless and helpless this year, but seeing the garden from the back, like turning over a tapestry, made me see everything differently.

I was reminded of Joni Mitchell’s words:

“I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.

You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”

Maybe we won’t get through this and get back to how we were. Maybe this year of unseasonal cold and wet and slugs and snails is how things are now and we’ll all have to be different from now on because how things were has been broken.

But we will get through it somehow. Me and my garden. You and your garden. Things will die and be rekindled. I will change. She will change. The dogs will age and the grass will grow and the leaves will fall and things will die and be rekindled. And I know that this is love and that together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.

I have bemoaned the slugs and the weather long enough, it is time to count blessings.