Goosegrass

I’m already looking forward to next Spring so that I can stick goosegrass onto unsuspecting friends’ shoulders when we are taking a walk together. It gives me a great and almost uncontrollable thrill. I can’t quite explain it. Earlier this year I was walking with my father in Oxfordshire and I kept plucking it from the hedgerow and sticking it on his back when he wasn’t looking. I found it truly hilarious, seeing the green sticky sticks hanging off his shoulders and couldn’t stop giggling. He was getting crosser and crosser and couldn’t understand why I found it so funny. In the end he went off to play golf with his friends with various fronds hanging down his spine. It was a fantastic role reversal.

When I was seven he taught me to swim in the sea at Borth in Wales. He kept on going under the water and coming up under me like a shark, making me scream. He couldn’t understand how terrified and disconcerted he made me. I could hardly breathe. I was thinking about it today as I was in the pool, doing aqua exercises with the old ladies of West Sussex. Now I can create the same sensation with goosegrass! Only 8 months to go!