26 MARCH 1994, Page 37

Home and Garden

Where our path emerged from Gradbach Wood To upland and March-turbid skies, A lonely gritstone hill-farm stood.

And curlews, hear. Across the moor The east wind brought their bubbling cries — A bonus, too, we halted for — When a scream of motor, migraine-shrill, Rewed up, horrendously, to life: A man, there, strimming on the hill, Was whittling out a square of lawn For a garden fenced with fresh wire off A slope of bilberry and thorn.

He's bought the farm to renovate; Put in L eylandii and daffs; And with earplug headphones on his pate Strimmed at the long and wind-greyed grass — A sketch from Tati, good for laughs, Weren't the chord it struck more like alas.

Simon Curtis