Perhaps 'haphazard' would serve better than 'accidental': I certainly don't seem to mind where I fling soil, weeds, and the occasional poor little earthworm (I did apologise). I have no plan, no grand design, but plant little shrubs where whim takes me and sow seeds where fancy leads me. Or when given orders.
Sun shining, its tendrils bathing the garden in sublime aureity, I brought out the big guns to plant a quince tree - quince! I thought it belonged only in fridges, The Owl and the Pussycat, and Renaissance recipes! - and herbs. As I strode to the battleground I had a sudden thought which demostrates a clear over-watching of Poirot, a thought after which I had to reason with myself that just because I had left the door to the garden shed open it did not mean someone was going to opportunely murder me with a hoe.
While I worked, I mentally named the birds around me I could see and hear from all sides: robin, blackbird, swallow, greenfinch, helicopter... Helicopter? That's not a British bird. Pah.
I moved on to the next task of weeding. Odious little growths. I declare I hold quite a Lady Macbethian murd'rous loathing towards weeds: "Out, damned weeds; out, I say!" I feel she would have made a formidable horticulturalist. Replace the blood with soil and there you have it. Greenfingers. Although surely brownfingers would be a more appropriate appellation in such circumstances?
Behind the garden gate runs a lane, a public path for walkers, but I've not seen anybody go down there for years. Today, however, I did: a man with a backpack carefully wasing himself over the stile. He must have been making for the river; a beautiful day for it. Warm, tranquil, cows on the rolling hills, the sweet song of birds, the melodious voice of a startled gardener crying "Aargh! Bumblebee! Bumblebee!" One does what one can.
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