Through stupid eyes

You can never be too careful who you write about. In One Green Bottle there’s a passage which I thought quite inoffensive, where a couple of young boys ‘borrow’ their uncle’s rifle and go out to hunt wild boars. Despite being denounced like this, the boys were gracious enough not to object; the boars were a different matter. They’ve decided to take revenge by destroying our garden.

The top of the garden is basically a wilderness. In the summer you battle your way through foliage, in the winter you negotiate dead branches. I like it that way. Unfortunately so do the boars. To them, it’s an open invitation to trample all over the rest.

It’s a lot of bother, but there seems to be no alternative to putting up some sort of barrier. Mrs. B has been looking at various options, the current favourite being one of those heavy duty worksite fences held in place by 40-lb blocks. We took measurements and did the calculations. ‘Phew!’ said Mrs B. ‘It’s going to set us back a pretty penny.’

‘Ah, but I have a cunning plan,’ I said. ‘We’ll get them to pay for it. Our garden will be great again!’

‘How stupid can you get?’ said Mrs. B.

I know. But the world is such a simple place when seen through stupid eyes.