Authors Electric

I was recently persuaded, by my daughter, to get myself a ticket, jump on a train, and leave next morning to visit her in Cornwall, which, to my own amazement, I did (travel-wise, I am usually not that spontaneous,  but the weather was lovely). That evening, she complained about her nasturtium invasion which happened when she was away in Edinburgh for a month, with a play in the Fringe. She'd planted herbs and a few vegetables earlier in the year, plus a few  nasturtiums, and expected to see them all thriving. Instead, she'd come home to this... That's her workshop in the background, to which there should be a path. She now has to navigate through the nasturtium jungle. Somewhere, down deep, are other plants struggling, and probably failing, to survive. We all know someone should get out there and hack, but she can't bear to, and neither could we, because, in October sunlight, the colours are stunning - the reds, golds and oranges splashed among those flat, waterlily...

(The following effusion is by Nicholas Fowler, eighteenth century poet, scientist, philosopher, wit and owner of Coswold, a splendid and renowned estate, who was miraculously reincarnated in June 2013 for the sole purpose of writing it.) The summons having woken me, I hied, Caring no whit for time or even tide, Toward the north, where Solway runs its course Through Scotia's windy plains where lies its source, Where Devil's Porridge boils, where fields are bleak And Burns the ploughman makes his rough verse speak. My spirits droop as further still I tread,  When suddenly, like Lazarus from his bed, They rise, as Gretna's   purlieus do me face. For here a miracle I see, a blessed place, A sanctuary, alive with tree and flower, With many a bubbling stream and bosky bower,  Colourful, lush, abundant, leafy, ferny,  Another Hidcote, Sissinghurst, Giverny.  Nature and man together made this scene. What beauty now? What barb'rousness has been? ...