In August 1989 I was in Padova where I was impressed by a Renaissance herb garden which, if I remember rightly, also attracted the attention of the wandering Goethe. As an arty-farty individual I was taken with the idea of the garden with its regular beds laid out in a circular patterns of paths and walls and spent a couple of hours there enjoying the scents and the patterns of shadow from the surrounding trees.
Now I am in a small village in the mountains of Asturias laying stone paths in a garden that will become something like the herb garden that still casts its aromas over the years from the corners of my memory. Carmen has a more practical view of the venture and wants to see things getting done, although her practicality is thwarted by a level of perfectionism that capsizes progress: finding the right stone for the right spot is essential and I feel we are going to plant little before the long labour of stone-laying is done.
