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Wild Edric

Wild Edric was a Saxon Lord from Shropshire. ‘Twas he that led the Saxon resistance when the Naughty Normans were doing their spot of conquering. Wild Edric, it is said, married a fairy princess (like you do) but one day he made the error of reproaching her (idiot Wild Edric) and she packed up her Fairy Princess set of matching luggage and vanished...POOF! Just like that. And now Wild Edric’s heartbroken ghost can be seen riding across the Shropshire hills searching for her. Good luck with that, Wild Edric.

Wild Edric also happens to be the name of the rose hedge that borders the front of our cottage. Or ‘Bastard Wild Edric’ as I have come to know it over the previous almost three years we’ve lived here and I’ve had to deal with pruning it and weeding underneath it. Oh, it looks innocent enough. Smells gorgeous, too...

...but it is loaded, and I mean properly loaded, like a pizza loaded with all the toppings possible in the Land of Pizza Toppings, with the most vicious bloody bastard thorns I have EVER encountered IN MY LIFE! Oh, the brochures don’t show you the dangers, though, do they? But look...

...and that’s just the relative soft (ahahahahahaha...ha!) ones on the new growth at the top of Bloody Bastard Wild Edric. You ought to see the ones at the bottom, where all the weeding action goes on.

I was under the rose hedge for a couple of hours yesterday, kneeling on gravel with my soft lady knees protected only by a rolled up sheet, hacking out lumps of that couch grass stuff that refuses to let go of the earth, stupid dandelions with their stupid ‘Look at me - I’m going to scatter a million seeds across your driveway from my stupid fluffy head and you can’t stop me, but enjoy the weeding next year!’ - mare’s tail...sodding mare’s tail which has come back to haunt me from the Allotment Days Part Two. But I did it! I cleared the ground of weeds and have suppressed the weed growing potential further by adding a thick layer of bark chippings. I am hoping I shan’t have to ferret around under Wild Edric again for the remainder of the growing season, after which I shall set about Wild Edric with the secateurs and raze it to the ground with some brutal pruning, which is what I think the 
Fairy Princess should have done. It’d be a darn sight more satisfying than vanishing, all ethereal-like, into the Shropshire hills. 

Really, Wild Edric is the only thing that makes me angry when I’m gardening. Honest.


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