Wisteria

Any apple sauce to go with the turkey ham?

Sure, I’ll make up a dishful.

No, no, don’t bother, it’s fine as it is.

It doesn’t take a minute. Honestly.

Can I help?

Here, you can peel the apple if you like. It’s really, REALLY simple. Peel the apple, grate it, then add lemon juice…

Lemon? Why you do that?

For flavor – and to stop the color changing. Never add to fish.

Fish. Yes. Never. Why?

Lemon, meat OK. Never with fish. Doesn’t go. Try it yourself you don’t believe.

Wisteria looks nice.

Ugh.

You don’t like wisteria?

Such a thing, it’s so aggressive. It gets under the spouting and lifts the roof. It cracks foundations, it grows down into the walls, strangles trees and destroys houses …

But here you live near the sea, the country is windy, I imagine wisteria, being so HARDY, is all you can train up a pergola here.

I HAD tried camellias, but I was away a lot and they DID like their drink, I HAD tried a bougainvillea, all aphids and thorns, feijoas but Trevor next door fretted about the roots, you’re right, the wind was too strong, they all gave up the ghost. The wisteria IS high maintenance, you have to keep him cut right back, but he is, as you say, HARDY.

And I see you are in the middle of pruning.

The very midst of it. If I am severe every year in autumn, chop, chop, lop, lop, he behaves. I have to be. That’s the secret of a docile wisteria. Same with children and pets. Let him know who’s boss.