Virgil, as 'any skoolboy knoe' sang of arms and the man - Aeneas that is. I, in contrast, shall sing of Aubrey and his road, which runs at the back of my place, and which I'm becoming preoccupied with. Aubrey Singer was someone - unfortunately completely unconnected with me or mine - who did some good work at the BBC, but I've never been that sort of singer.
Aubrey Road is undergoing something of a make-over, having just been resurfaced in what is not yet chic black tarmac with interesting speckles (but time and weathering may give it charm and elegance, along with some guerrilla gardening). I am yet ignorant of the identity of the eponymous Aubrey but will rummage for it. I'm willing to bet he never envisaged his road looking like this - scalped, with a yellow ogre of lurking menace on the brow of the hill. However I was very happy to host 'Rineys at the bottom of my garden' for a week as they're much slower than the specially engineered speed bump oblivious BMWs of late.
In theory the makeover is more or less over, apart from some boring technical gully work at the Church Hill end, and we have a relatively spacious play area calling out for some horticultural 'pimping' (which reminds me of the totally inappropriate response of Dorothy Parker to the challenge of writing a sentence including the word horticulture). I hope to be on my knees again before long, sowing more seed into the verges, maybe hoping they can only get wetter [enough].
