It’s raining today, so Mrs Anubis Evans has just hung out a line of washing and Mr Sarcophagus Jones has started laying some bricks.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Well, it does around here.

Men have a strange fascination with bricklaying in this part of the world.  As soon as they get home from work they change into their work clothes (checked shirts and jeans) and out they go, shovelling away with the cement.  Sometimes they make paths, sometimes it’s a wall.  Sometimes they desert their true calling of laying bricks and do some painting.  Mr Sarcophagus Jones clearly learned his painting techniques from a master of the Dark Arts.  I saw him painting the side of his house up a ladder once, and he managed to get the drips to run upwards!  Today he is struggling to cover a breeze block wall in plastic cladding. 

Mog the Brick, the greatest wall builder in the Valleys, tends to work only at night and only in the winter.  He switches his outdoor security light to On/Permanent and away he goes.  Sometimes the wall is so high you can’t see Mog at all.  It’s marvellous to watch, and his walls are works of art.  Forget Damien Hirst or Tracey What’s-her-name (see, I’ve forgotten it already).  Mog’s work is the stuff to invest in for the future.  Unlike the neighbours, Mog only works in natural materials, such as stone.  He even incorporates patterns into the wall, like giant puzzles waiting to be solved.  It’s a pleasure to behold.  His last wall was so big he fell off it when it was finished – apparently he forgot the dangers of standing back to admire his handiwork when it was so high off the ground!

But I digress.  My garden likes the rain.  It uses the rain as an excuse to run amok.  Brambles suddenly appear from nowhere, covered in slow ripening blackberries.  Creeping buttercups march forward several yards.  But there’s nothing like the smell of a newly washed garden – washed with rainwater, I mean, not the foul smelling carbolic mixture so beloved of Mrs Anubis Evans and her ilk.  If you sit out in the garden when it’s raining you see a totally different world, and of course water is a great conductor of psychic phenomena, so be prepared for a few surprises!  Rain can  cleanse the garden in more ways than one, and in particular it clears away the rubbish that usually builds up around the natural portals, meaning there is a lot more activity in those areas immediately after a good downpour. 

Seeking the Green by Tylluan Penry, published soon by Capall Bann. For more info - watch this space!