Roads to Joy

So the corollary to the aphorism about the rolling stone must be that the sedentary one does gather moss. Our gardens, front and back, have accumulated a rich, thick, mossy carpet. Apparently this ground covering is an ideal environment for an ecosystem of invertebrates, and as such should be a brilliant place to retrieve, with the grands, all sorts of tiny creatures to examine under my big dissecting microscope.

But first, before I even contemplate getting the scope sorted, my long-anticipated chore today if the rain does hold off as predicted, will be to mow the back garden, all 200 square meters of it. The few straggles of grass that have survived the mossy onslaught are growing too tall, and must be smoothed off. I think I can manage to slice the tops off without disturbing, too much, the mossy habitat below. My strategy seems to have worked well enough in the two patches of front garden, anyway.

We’ve been cautioned to keep the moss with delight, even though, as our neighbour next door says, the velcro texture of the fairways between us and the temperate rainforest does play havoc with rolling golf balls. That remark surprised me — I hadn’t appreciated that moss can somehow reach out and slow down a rolling stone, as it were. Turning the maxim on its head.

So we rolling stones are all slowing down in the accumulating moss of life. But that decrease in speed may afford us the opportunity to look, to listen, to consider things at greater length than we’d have been able to during the busy-ness of our younger days. That’s rather fun, even fulfilling.

So I shall sit here in my little eyrie, looking over the Galloway hills, and put my head down to lay out my 1000 words of fiction this morning, and then I shall move on with the desk chores, before a break for lunch. When the sun shines this afternoon, if indeed it does, and the garden dries up sufficiently, I shall trundle our new battery-operated mower up to the rear ‘lawns’ to tidy them. A kind of quiet hum emanates from the mower, not too noisy at all.

By the end of the afternoon, we may be ready for a hearty sing with the SongWave community choir, after the weekly big shop. Not the most strenuous of days, but a good one for thinking.

And gathering moss, of course.