SEVEN DOGS AND AN AWFUL LOT OF TEENAGERS

Esther, my next door neighbour has been away - and I was out when a man with long hair and seven dogs knocked on her door.

Apparently, he banged her door and rang her bell for half an hour. He even went round and banged on her front window, trampling across her bulbs on the way.

What I don't think Esther has mentioned is that after she scarpered off to Mars I found several pots of globe artichokes in her back garden. Spares. She must have been planning a globe artichoke farm, there were so many of them. (Talk about obsessed!) Anyway, I planted two out, one at the front and one beside the holly beside her front door. The one at the front remained small - but flowered. The one by the holly grew taller - but didn't flower. I kept a third in a pot on my windowsill (I still have it). I let the rest die. (I was having enough trouble with her tomatoes without having to worry about her potted artichokes as well.)

If I had seen the man, I might have called out to warn him about the artichoke and the bulbs. No I wouldn't. I'd have looked out and worried. And if Esther had been there - well, she'd have opened the door, so it wouldn't have happened. (Ming thinks it may have been a man about a boat. He has some funny friends.)

As it was she wasn't there and nor was I, so, after a half an hour of him trampling and banging a couple of teenagers who were hanging out on a nearby corner went over and said they thought Esther (I mean Mary) was out. Which she was.

After that, he went away. Maybe he was disconcerted by being spoken to by teenagers. Maybe he thought they were being insolent in pointing out the obvious. (Well, it should have been obvious by then.) Anyway, he went.

This has got me thinking about teenagers.

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A few years ago, in the winter, around nine or ten o'clock at night, when it was dark, about fifty of them ran up our road, milling about and shouting. They seemed to be chasing three young men who, finding themselves cornered, turned and managed to run back through the crowd and escape.

For a while, all was noise and chaos. Neighbours (like me) came to their windows and looked out anxiously. Esther went out and spoke to them. She asked one of the girls what was happening. The girl said they were playing Number Knock. Number Knock? A grown man was hurrying by on the pavement as fast as he could. Esther asked him if he knew what Number Knock was and whether it mattered. He said he did. And it did. And went.

But it wasn't clear why it mattered. Did it matter to him because he didn't like the rush and the noise. Or did he think it mattered to the three young men who had run back through the crowd? After a bit of caffluffle, it went quiet - and they were gone. All of them.

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The next day, Esther phoned the local Secondary School to ask about Number Knock. The lady who answered the phone didn't know and didn't see why she should. Esther said that since nearly all the teenagers in the area were in the school's care for most days throughout most of the year, the school might be presumed to be an authority on teenage activity. Ha!. So we were left with not knowing whether we should leave it be, or intervene, or phone the police if Number Knock came down our street again. It hasn't. But what if?

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Then, a couple of years later, there was another mystifying teenage event. About the same number of teenagers, forty or fifty of them gathered in our park. They arrived gradually, in groups, until there they all were, sitting on the tables, sitting on the little roundabout, sitting on the very little slide, sitting on the little rocking chicken thing - and telling the little children who were playing there that they should leave the park or have their heads bashed in.

Some mums went to remonstrate.

Some mums phoned the police.

Two policemen arrived in a car.

They ambled towards the teenagers.

The teenagers ambled away in groups, just as they had arrived.

And that was it.

They'd done no harm. They'd just sat. I don't think they would have bashed the heads of the little children. On the other hand, the meagre toys in the park are for little children to play on, not for the big teenagers to sit on. So it was right that they should give way.

So . . . there they were. Then . . . there they weren't.

I'm rambling on about this because I have the care of Ceres and it weighs on me.

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I've always reckoned that if you are confident and polite you can negotiate your way through most crowds, drunk or not, and find a way round almost all awkward individuals.

People with mental health problems who decide to harangue you at bus stops can be frightening and embarrassing - and you are stuck if you need the bus, which you do, or you wouldn't be at the bus stop - so you are an un-moving target. But the bus will come in the end (with luck) and whisk you away. So that's alright.

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But, over the last few years, I've noticed people with empty eyes. Un-meetable eyes. Eyes I dare not look into. There is no relating there. No negotiating.

There aren't many of them - but seen them, I have.

They walk straight ahead, full of fierce purpose, looking neither to the right nor to the left - just on, straight on. Fast.

I fear them.

They walk alone.

I think they walk in otherwise benign crowds - like missed grit in rice.

It's Ceres I have to advise. And I don't know what to say.

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P.S. He didn't stand on the artichoke. Phew!

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For the next post - A Welcome and a Warning to Witches

For the Post Before this - Mr Houghton

MR HOUGHTON

Mr Houghton was known not to be friendly towards children. There was probably a pre-history to this - that children were not friendly towards him. It was coming up to Christmas and I was fifteen or sixteen and carol singing . . . and the only one of us who dared to knock on Mr Houghton's door - was me. I don't know why I insisted on going there with a collecting can. The others were all for missing his house. I suppose it was a challenge, I didn't want anyone to be left out, and I didn't want anyone to be not-nice to me - and I think I wanted to prove (to myself) that if it was me at the door, he wouldn't be an ogre. So, while the others sang . . . I went up the steps to his narrow cottage door . . . and knocked. Mr Houghton was tall, thin, elderly and nicotined. He invited me in while he fetched some money. He gave me a copy of 'Be Your Own Lawn Expert' and 'Be Your Own Rose Expert'. I didn't have a lawn and I didn't grow roses. He said 'The History of Mr Polly' was the best book ever written. I said 'The Man Who Was Thursday' was better. We agreed to re-discuss it when we'd both re-read both books. I left with money in my can. He died before we could find out if our opinions had changed. The timing can't be quite right because he came to our house the following summer to take photographs of the Church silver (for insurance) and while there, he took a photograph of me in black and white. Or perhaps that is right. Perhaps I wasn't quick enough in keeping my part of the arrangement. (I take a long time still to fulfil promises.) But, whatever the timescale, he died before I could tell him Mr Polly was a better book than I had remembered. And I was left wondering, for ever, what he would have said about The Man Who Was Thursday. So, we met twice, only twice. Yet, in those two meetings, he influenced my life. - I realised grumpiness can arise out of intellectual isolation. Why else did he start discussing English literature with a teenager who happened to knock on the door one night with a carol-singer's collecting can? - The 'Lawn Expert' and the 'Rose Expert' - These weren't an introduction to gardening but they were my first gardening books. I'm not sure that's the point though. I've never had a lawn and I'm not much of a rose person but still I keep them. Whenever I move, they move too. They are a sign that the world is bigger than one's immediate needs and interests. (Really!) - Mr Houghton sparked my interest in photography too. Of course, there were lots of photographs in our family - but they were simply records of events . . . of family members being of a particular age . . . being on holiday . . . and, however interesting they were to us, there was never any thought that they might be of the slightest artistic merit or of interest to anyone except us . . . and once colour photography had been invented, it never crossed any of our minds to use black and white. The photo Mr Houghton took was nothing more than a casual 'snap' but it was a turning point none the less - because he had CHOSEN black and white.

And today I realised all this.

Today!

It's taken me that long. _____

For the Next Post - Seven Dogs and An Awful Lot of Teenagers

For the previous post - Such Things Are Left Where Our Eyes Can't See

SUCH THINGS ARE LEFT WHERE OUR EYES CAN'T REACH

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I once saw a lady with a dustpan and brush, scraping lichen from her front wall with a knife and tidying it away.

Housekeeping can go berserk.

People will sweep anything.

The last bit of ice from a pavement.

Leaves.

Others have the opposite instinct - to leave things lying around, to place things where they shouldn't be. Sometimes, they seem to put a lot of effort into taking inappropriate things to inappropriate places and going away without them.

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A lot of this we don't see because such things are left where our eyes won't reach. But I send my phone where my eyes can't go - and it reports back.

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Here is a box.

I didn't know I was taking a picture of a box. I didn't know the box was there. I changed the exposure on the phone so it could look (on my behalf) through a blast of July sunshine at what I expected to be a sort of cave in the gorse. And there was the box.

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Another place our eyes won't go is inside trees.

14th September 2008

Here is a pool of water inside a hollow trunk - with little creatures showing up white, like stars.

(It's worth clicking on!)

Above it, insects have been busy eating the wood, boring holes, flaking it away - and there's somebody's grub up the top, on the left!

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And another something with antennae, also showing up white . . . and, in the water, cheerful, colourful and floating - rubbish.

7th February 2009

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Winter.

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It's all gone quiet. Less visibly busy. The insects are gone.

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But, still there in the sludge . . . cheerful and recognisable and intact - the same, durable, reliable, what-on-earth-is-it-doing-inside-a-tree? rubbish!

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For the Post Before This - Blackthorn in the Gloom

BLACKTHORN IN THE GLOOM

It's not always blue skies in Dorset.

There are mists and rains and all sorts of exciting things which take crispness out of the view.

And it's good. Without days like these, I'd feel guilty, as if I spent the whole of my life on holiday.

Here's a gorse bush. A jolly little thing springing from the gloom on a you-have-to-peer-if- you are to-see-anything-distinctly kind of day.

And here is the internationally famous (well, it is now, isn't it?) Elder Whirl. Rain has turned its usually yellow lichen to green.

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Useful Information Given Me By My Parents When I was Growing Up:-

If you break the needle when playing a 78 rpm record - you can use a Blackthorn spike.

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(They wouldn't have liked me to go into the world unprepared.)

Other Useful Information:-

. The lower branches of Holly Trees have prickles but the ones too high to be eaten by mammals don't.

(I wish it were the other way round.)

Blackthorn usually flowers before Hawthorn.

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Personal Information:-

I've never tried a Blackthorn Thorn on a 78 rpm record.

I don't eat Holly Leaves.

Information About Branches:-

There are buds of some kind swelling on the Hawthorn (May) but nothing is swelling yet on Blackthorn. So, that's back to front for a start.

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Blackthorn has horrific looking spikes low down and none high up.

Here is the Blackthorn branch I'll be following.

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(Except (7th February 2009) I'm no longer convinced this particular branch is Blackthorn - we'll see!)

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And as a postscript . . . skies in Dorset aren't always blue - but when they are - they are!

See again how the large thorns peter out, the higher the tree grows?

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N.B. I've been scratched by brambles and gouged by briars but, despite their forbidding looks - I've never been harmed by a Blackthorn. They simply don't seem to reach out and grab you in the same way.

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For the Post Before This - Elderberry and Hawthorn

For the Post After This - Such Things Are Left Where Our Eyes Can't Reach