My wife’s garden is as much a work of art as a painting by a master spirit or a poet’s inspired sonnet or a perfectly composed piece of music. How lovely it is to step from the often fractious terrain of coping with ordinary chores and life’s sudden sink-holes and the too often obtuse behaviour of unhelpful fellow-citizens into this haven of green peace and flowers in the wind. It is but a step indeed and life is transformed. How many possess such a benefit for a lifelong time. If you are a believer in God make a holy sign. If you do not believe then bow in gratitude for the pleasure and peace great Nature has been pleased to bestow.
One of the glories of the garden is the hummingbirds. They visit at all times but especially when the sky is filling with the last gold light of day – an incandescent blessing, incomparable intricacies of flight, a shimmering amid the green leaves. They are the most marvellous of birds.
Their hearts, the size of a pea, are the largest of any bird in proportion to their mass – they pound frantically at 1,200 beats a minute – which means, I am intrigued to learn, that