One of the the main frustrations of being an expert in anything is that that people are always desperate to pick your brains in regards to your subject of expertise. Although you cant begrudge any advise, particularly if it something that is obviously wrong and needs fixing, it is something that in the ideal world you would want to be paid for. This sort of consultation was going to be what you aspired to, and when you eventually acquired a pedestal of almost guru status as you were approaching your dotage, you could earn aliving just pronouncing wise dictats and let everybody else do the hard work. This is particularly important for us ex-landscapers, who, with all the occupational problems of grafters of the soil, cant keep going for 12 hours a day like we used to. So I know how to make natural landscapes and I am no longer fit enough (nor do I have the inclination) to wrestle with tonnes of stone or wheel barrow loads of soil hither and thither.
Even when I used to have a team of blokes to supposedly help me out, when it came to building a rockery or a waterfall or even a stream, no one would take on the responsibility of placing the stones. It had to be old muggins here.
"We dont know if we are getting it right until we've finished.And if its all wrong its too late to do anything about it..... We cant see what it will look like like you can.....Your the master craftsman.....A real artist...." and other such drivel was what I had to put up with and then have to get stuck in wiht the resultant bad back and erupting piles.
This Easter I took some time off visiting my inlaws down in Pembrokeshire. The weather was kind and as usual we spent a good deal of time down on the beach at Manobier. Its a beautiful beach popular with surfers and families alike. Quite typical of many of the small cove like beaches in Wales, there is a small stream or river rattling down through pebbles onto the sand and into the sea. This stream is a delight to kids that are leaping around with pebbles and boulders tying to dam the flow of water and making amazing effects with the inexhaustible supply of stones and pebbles. Here were landscapers and engineers in the making and here was the perfect opportunity for anybody who didn't know how to build a stream or rockery, to learn. So all you pathetic inexperienced water gardeners who cant bring themselves to lift the first stone for your natural creation, get yourselves down to a beach like Manobier or Aberporth (that's another good one), and get your hand and eye in. It will make all the difference and give you the confidence to get cracking. If anyone gets this far in reading this blog, send in any other suggested beaches with similar facilities and we can possibly make a directory of "places near you to practice building streams and waterfalls.
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