box flowers

If my digital camera hadn't self-destructed you would now be looking at a photo of Box (Buxus sempervirens)in flower.

Near the centre of Bath there is a house where the garden has been left alone for a very long time, perhaps around forty years, so it is now a dense forest and the cypresses are tall trees. It was when walking past this garden that I suddenly noticed the box flowers, which were above my head on an arching bough. It must have grown up with infinite slowness from what was once clipped edging.

So I took a sprig. Later I was caught in the act of picking a sprig of rosemary from beside the entrance to another garden. The shopping expedition comprised these two sprigs, some stones from a heap on the hillside, an R80 spot bulb, three apples, two bottles of water, a stick of broccoli, bag of dried prunes, litre of goat's milk, packet of mixed herbs and a lottery ticket. It was raining. We had chips: fresh chips, in the special sense of fresh that can only be applied to crisp chips; the oil so hot and thin that you can't tell how greasy they are, except from the warmth inside.