More or Less

One of the problems with me buggering off to Ingurland so frequently to revel in my still fresh-feeling Grandmotherhood, is that Simon gets to spend a lot of time on his own. And when he spends a lot of time on his own, he gets to thinking. And when he gets to thinking, it’s not long before he starts Conceiving Projects and Making Plans. Unfortunately (some might say), his Plans rarely include anything along the lines of home improvement -useful things like completing the wiring in the bathroom, or removing the old, legionnaire-inducing water tank from the kitchen. No. Simon’s plans are grand and expansive and are generally Plans About The Land.

With the return of Spring and its burgeoning grass, Simon hops aboard his trusty tractor and sets about attempting to control his little bit of this wild and wanton thing called Nature. The docks and nettles WILL be eradicated. The towering thistles along the stream edge WILL be exterminated. The multitudinous molehills WILL be flattened. The bracken WILL be banished. The tree-strangling ivy WILL be annihilated. And alongside the daily battles that comprise this annual War of the Weeds, Simon finds a little time to work on the creation of his alternative reality. The one in which Blanchetière is a perfect haven of secure and pristine fields surrounded by neatly-lawned parkland walks.

And it seems that the potential 37.5% increase in our llama population resulting from Lenny’s unbridled Lenniness will, of course, necessitate the creation of another field. Because, obviously, these three fields ain’t big enough for the eleven of them. And, obviously, as the babies grow into stroppy males or fertile females, there will need to be some Shifting-Around to keep all the llamas happy and safe and well-fed.

“So…” says Simon, struggling to be heard above the deafening gurgle of my sinking heart, “I’ve been thinking…”

Knowing that Simon’s Thinking invariably results in a) more work, or b) more expenditure, I fight with my conclusionward-leaping, premature-objection-raising brain to keep my mind open while I wait for him to continue. It is a double whammy.

“I think we should fence the rough land…” Simon continues to outline his well-considered plans for the new field arrangement, and is eager to show me where the boundaries and gates will be, and to share with me his exciting mental vision of how it will all work and his less-than-exciting calculations of how many posts/gates/rolls of wire it will require. Meanwhile, the watcher in my head observes how quickly I spring to the defence of the status quo, and wonders why it is that my first reaction to any ideas that aren’t my own is to quibble. With a Capital Q.

It isn’t that I don’t like change. On the contrary, I am so easily and frequently bored that I often seek out change, just for the sake of it. But for some reason my gut reaction to this proposed change is negative. Before my conscious brain can allude to the mythical Jack Robinson, my subconscious has taken control of my vocal chords, and is chucking out the Buts, thick and fast.

But where will we play with the dogs? But won’t it get all mashed up in the soggy bits? But what about the butterflies and dragonflies that feed on the nettles. But what about the snakes and frogs that live in the long grass? But how can we move the llamas between this field and the other ones? But won’t we have to build another field shelter too? But I thought we had agreed to keep some of the land natural. But do we really need another field.

Simon, of course, has lived with me long enough to know me and my quibbliness. He was ready with responses aplenty to knock my objections on their heads, banging them down one by one, like sharp fence posts into wet ground. The logic was indisputable. More llamas equals more eating of grass in the summer, more eating of hay in the winter, more poo all year round, and more space needing to be utilized. But logic, although indisputable once it gets going, can be nipped in the bud.

“We don’t have to have another field,” I suggested. “We could just have fewer llamas. We could sell some.”

What I like about my thinking is that it invariably results in less work and less expenditure. Cheap and Lazy – an epitaph to be proud of.