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Saturday 21 May 2011

Luck and life...


Isn't it funny how we can be taken in and held by others in life?


Isn't it amazing, how if we put out those tender tendrils of love and care, sometimes they come back to us, manifest and fourfold...

I spent quality time with an elderly couple this week.   Inspirational, they are to me, the pair of them.

I was on the Leek Hunt again.

Yes, it's that time of year, when I get my Leeka Mundi out and travel the country roads in search of leeklets, baby leeks, I call them - I don't mind that others laugh when I say that - And, in September, all this hunting may mean I can join in our rural community's bit of jollity - The Annual Leek Show!

It's a bit of fun.

Some people take it very, very seriously...

I'm not kidding you.

People have been known to poison a rival's leeks, or to turf them from their beds as they grow at night.

In some parts of the country, men (for they're usually men who grow leeks with such fervour) used to sleep with their leeks, torches ready, to prevent any malfaisance. 

Revenge... a dish best served cold - Not like leeks, best in soups!

Anyhoo, mine get shoved out in large pots at the front of the house to 'let them hing as they grow', (make the 'ow' sound, as in now, and you have our accent!), as my old Mum used to say - Albeit they get watered and fed like kings.

So, I tootled off in my old jalopy to visit Elspeth and Joseph.   (Not their real names...)

Elspeth and Joseph are my Leek Dealers.  

Legends they are, hereabouts.   Sweet and decent folk, hard-working, wonderful.   Funny.   They laugh their way through life, and there's nothing you could tell them about plants, or this area, that they don't already know.

There is a magic about them.

So, I sat in their parlour with its old range of a fire, cordially invited in for strong coffee, while the wind whipped about the nineteenth century house that they've lived in for half a century or more, while Joe filled my car-boot with baby leeks, and afterwards they spun such stories that wove around me, cloaking me in love and light.

Life.

...And I am exactly the age their son would have lived to be, had he not fallen from his motorcycle at the tender age of seventeen.

6 comments:

libby said...

That was lovely Fhina....people sharing and caring and living still.

Bluestocking Mum said...

Yes, that was lovely.

They sound like my neighbours. I'm very lucky to have them living next door.
x

Paula RC said...

What a wonderful picture you have draw... thank you. Hope your leeks do well.

My garden could do with a drop of rain

Sueann said...

I was sitting next to the fire with you...sipping my coffee!!
Wonderful
Hugs
SueAnn

Anonymous said...

I didn't know the world of leek growers was so exciting and filled with misdeeds and intrigue!

Mak anak tiga said...

this is beautiful~~

Something I wrote earlier...

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