A Sculpture Park

So there we were, better half and I,enjoying a well-earned coffee break in the morning sunshine.  He has been busy painting window frames and I have been working in the garden, trying to get ahead of the autumn work before Wigtown Festival begins and the Writers Roadshow programme starts.

I can't blame it on the caffeine as we've been good bunnies lately and been drinking the de-caffeineated stuff, but I got a surge of energy from somewhere and decided I should start putting the more delicate summer statuary away in the winter hidey- hole.You know when you've started something and half way through, really regret it - oh boy did I  today. In years gone by, the sculpture fairy came and magicked the lovely pieces into the store house, but today, the sculpture fairy has resumed his painting project, so I decided to tackle the job myself.

I never realised we had so many pieces, big and small, about the place. Augusta , a formidable lady with big bosoms, six foot if she's an inch, fiercely guards the back door and the large collection of pots either side of it. Lady Lydia, a smiley girl with her basket of flowers, peeps out from behind the ferns at the top of the pond. She is quite tall at four foot, but seems dwarfed by the mill-stone behind her. Then there is Priscilla, the stone pig, who has sat at the front door of every house we have lived in and Horace the Hippo, basking among the lavenders.....you get my drift, I don't need to go on. All I can say is, never again. I ache in places I didn't know I had and I am firm in my belief that my arms have stretched at least six inches from lugging Lady Lydia around the pond.

And just to throw another reflection into the mix, why do we give them names? They are big chunks of stone when all is said and done. But you ask anyone with even the smallest statue in their garden and you can  be sure they will have given it a name. For me, I can sit on a lovely summers day and weave a whole life story around the stately Augusta, or pretty Lady Lydia and then they're part of my family. Throw in Priscilla, Hector and the two hares lurking in the shrubbery and many others lying hither and yon and you will see what a diverse family we are. Diverse maybe, but there are some terrific conversations to be heard around our piece of Scotland and the best thing is - I win the arguments with them every time.