My Bosky Acres

And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd down," Shakespeare from The Tempest,

I got up for a pee at 6.15am and the sun was shining and the sky looked amazing - mares' tails clouds, and I considered getting up but somehow got back into bed and when I looked at my clock again it was 8.20 and raining. There's a moral to that story. It hasn't stopped raining since so I've just donned my mac and done a quick dash round the garden in search of a blip. Three days of rain and what was already pretty lush has now transformed into mighty boskiness. When we first moved here, my townie uncle came to stay and in his thank you letter referrred to the bosky garden. I hoped it was a compliment and vaguely remembered Shakespeare using it, had to reach for the dictionary - I think it was.

Anyway, the foxgloves are now competing with the yellow flags, yellow buttercups and white ox-eye daisies and the hedgerows are a mass of colours - except where the Round-Up merchants have been busy. I really just don't get this. Around some houses and into the villages some people, and I suspect Cork County Council, have applied Round- Up. Hence there are swathes of shrivelled parched brown amidst the lush greens. Apart from being ruinous to the soil can anyone really think that's an improvement?