The Grass

The first thing I noticed, even before we had unloaded the car, was that the grass was knee-high. It was raining a light drizzle, known in these parts as orbayu, that is responsible for the disheartening fecundity of the grass, the nettles, the dandelions and the plantains.

I left Carmen in bed in the morning and took my painting things out for a walk thinking that I might sit down on the hillside and do a drawing, but it was sunny and warm. A haze was rising off the meadows and I knew there was an opportunity to get the strimmer out and the field a trim before I left for the Camino.

It is not an pleasant task. Aside from the noise and the vibration that makes the shoulder muscles ache, the strimmer turns everything to tiny flecks covering your legs and arms with a greenish paste knitted together with slug goo.

Carmen came down and and started plucking out the weeds in the flowerbeds. 'That's the last time I have mercy on the daisies,' she complained. 'I thought they looked pretty but they end up everywhere.'

I looked at the thick wadges of cut grass that littered the field and covered the gladioli in the small bed between the apple trees we planted last year. Carmen will nag me for leaving it later, but Severo says you should leve cut grass for a couple of days because it is ten times easier to rake dry. Anyway I was feeling tired and wanted to go in and start making lunch, knowing that she would be busy in the garden until the last moment oblivious to the passing time.

Severo, our neighbour, makes me think of Andrew Marvell as he strides up the hill with his scythe over his shoulder. I've watched him at work and it seems he can mow a field with the blade in half the time it takes me to with the strimmer and come up clean. He is of the type Perez Galdós calls 'our country athletes' in El Caballero Encantado. He's sixty but thinks nothing of jumping over a wall or running along the path in his wellies just for the fun of it.

Since Carmen had people in the rental house who were sunbathing in the patio and enjoying a weekend of rustic peace and quiet, I was more than usually sensitive to the fact that I was ruining all that with the infernal machine. After we had eaten I said to Carmen that I was thinking of asking Severo to show me how to use the scythe instead.

'Claro,' she said. 'Fijate the size of the blade. Thiss, thass. You can cut a lot more with one swipe.'

Carmen loves all the country traditions like planting things according to the phases of the moon, wall-building and spreading manure that has to be just the right consistency. But she also has a typical Spanish woman's way of telling me that I am probably not up to it.

'The guadaña is dangerous,' she says, with a look that implies I will almost certainly end up cutting off my foot. 'It's not as easy as all that, so you'll have to take classes. You'd better give it several goes with Severo before you go and get yourself a scythe.'

I'd like to say I've learnt not to take this personally but I feel myself turning prickly, just as I do when she comes into the kitchen, adjusts the gas on the cooker while I'm cooking, tuts at the way I'm peeling the potatoes and tells me I haven't got things in the right order. I can only explain this as a cultural difference: men here are supposed to be a bit useless; women are supposed to boss them around so they don't go off the rails. Pepe says the right way to deal with this is to give them a kiss and tell them you love them: I have a lot to learn.

If I learn how to use the scythe, which in my non-Spanish way of thinking cannot be overly complicated, I will have something meditative and calm to do in the garden. Unlike the strimmer that rattles its way into your bones, the scythe will give me a sense of connection with the task. I'll also be able to her Carmen as she tells me what to cut and how. And it wil be easier to stop and give her a kiss and tell her I love her!