WHAT'S GREY, FLUFFY AND A WEE BUGGER?
Fifteen years. From a narrow shrub, not even a metre high, to a huge bush that was a good bit taller than me, and several times wider.
Five years. From cutting to destruction. Bloody squirrel!
In 1999 I planted a bay tree in the front garden of our old house down south. In front of the dining room window, at the top of the wee rockery, beside next door's fence. It grew. And grew. And grew. Without much help from me it has to be said. It became a supplier of a culinary ingredient, and another one of the bits of greenery that demanded attention from my shears during the summer. By 2014 it was massive and the trimming becoming more severe with each year simply to stop it blocking the light into the room behind.
Then we were moving, to a flat. Downsizing, to a new city, a new country. My old city, my old country, place of my birth. Reluctant to lose my ready supply of bay leaves, I took five cuttings, and potted them, months ahead of the move. When the time came to pack up I chose the two fittest looking specimens and shifted them up to Scotland. Each found it's way into its own huge red pot on the balcony, and both started to grow.
For five years they provided all the bay leaves I could need, they grew taller and denser and looked healthy and hopeful. That winter we noticed a grey squirrel visiting the balcony frequently. Not quite what we'd expected on the fifth floor, but it's probably nothing to a squirrel. It was something to Zoe, our cat, who was visibly annoyed at the presence on the other side of the glass. Their stand offs provided a few decent photos.
Our visitor seemed to favour the right hand side of the balcony, and would sometimes be seen emerging from the foliage there, a mess of geraniums, tired herbs and the bay tree. But it wouldn't be doing any harm there, would it? Would it?
I hadn't needed a bay leave for a while. When I went for one I usually went to the plant on the left, which had grown that bit bigger than the other. On this day I went to the right, and found the leaf brittle. On inspection I found that the whole plant, although visually little different, was now a deceased bay tree. A little more digging, both literally and metaphorically, made it come away easily from the dead roots, and the soil was no longer as it had once been. It now shared its space with hundreds of wee pellets of old newspaper. And a few peanut shells. It had been squirreled.
I still have one of my bay trees, and will look out for it a bit more. In time maybe it will give me another cutting so we can have two again. And I will be on the lookout for flashes of furry grey bushiness.
Squirrels.
Cute, eh?
Little bastards!
