Who’s keeping score?

While hoeing in the garden the other day, I reflected that most countrymen are gardening enthusiasts. In village life this common interest breaks down barriers, though they are almost non-existent in unspoilt villages, anyway. That late-May frost or the prolonged July drought provides topics for conversation and opportunities for expressions of sympathy between those who hardly know one another’s names.

Straightening my back from the task in hand, I was promptly distracted from these ruminations by the sight of several pigeon dropping into laid barley only a couple of fields away and good resolutions to kill off the remaining surface weeds went by the board. The weeds would still