Misty eyed about the smell of new mown grass and brack in the afternoon

ON a break from hoeing the onion bed, he found the air heavy with the scent of … With no wind to disturb him, he sat in the warmth with eyes closed and breathed in the smell of… He was luxuriating in an atmosphere pungent with … rosemary. That was it – rosemary. With its pine-needle style leaves and blue flowers – rosemary.

Azure skies. Still summer air. Blessed heat and the lazy buzz of pollenating insects. Play an accordion, someone. Hand that man a glass of red. Let him gnaw on a baguette. This had to be the South of France. Or maybe siesta time in Rioja. Or perhaps an olive grove idyll on an Apennine slope in Italy.

Hold on a minute! His eyes opened and a frown creased his freshly sun-pinked forehead. He was in Ireland. The air in Ireland is supposed to be heavy with the scent of silage – not rosemary. By rights, rather than fantasising about wine poured straight from the maker’s vat, he should have been cradling a mug of brown tea at the kitchen table as he took shelter from a soft drizzle. Tucking into a second slice of brack. Cursing the trail of mud left by his wellies across the floor. Instead there was no mud, just dust. Heat and dust, to use the well-coined phrase.

Was he the only one to have noticed the rise and rise of rosemary? Not so long ago, rosemary was a reluctant Mediterranean import into the gardens of Ireland. As best he could recall, plants were likely to tolerate sullenly being plundered of their leaves to flavour lamb roasts. Then, after a few years of such abuse, they would abruptly die, without giving prior notice.

Now rosemary seemed to him to be staging a takeover bid. It had become a feature of practically every garden in the neighbourhood, whether in with the herbs or adding a touch of spring blue to flower beds. One enterprising householder up the road had created a rosemary hedge. A whole hedge!

And Medders Manor boasted its own bushy specimen of the plant. It stood proudly defiant beside the patio where he was being treated to an afternoon of sub-tropical splendour laced with rosemary’s special odour. Into this shimmering scene bounced young Persephone, all freckles and factor 30.

‘Hey, Da,’ she greeted him affably. ‘Isn’t the weather marvellous?’ She clearly expected no reply to this question as she hopped on to a sun-lounger and disappeared into her alternative world of head-phones and smart phones while soaking up the rays.

‘Hey, Da.’ Now it was the turn of our Eldrick. ‘Why are you wearing your wellies? Time to break out and put on the shorts, surely?’

Again it seemed that no answer was required as his son pottered off into the haze. To his departing back, the father muttered: ‘I always wear my wellington boots while gardening, if you really want to know. Always have. Always will. And shorts are for holidays, by the way.’

It was only when Hermione arrived home that he began to pose questions himself and to resort to his own smart phone. ‘Do you know, darling, who it is that I really cannot abide?’ ‘No, Medders. Who is it that you really cannot abide? No one close at hand, I hope.’

‘I loathe weather forecasters who feel they have to act as cheerleaders for sunshine. Telling the nation to rush to the beaches and whipping up excitement at the prospect of cloudless skies. Treating us like children. It’s really not part of their job description.’

Why, he asked, should professional meteorologists give the impression that dry is somehow good while wet is bad? At that rate, the Kalahari Desert is one of the most desirable places on earth. In fact, it has a lethal environment in which most people would not survive for 24 hours.

Ireland, he reasoned, is congenial precisely because it normally rains all year round – or used to. He whipped out his phone and pointed to his latest app, a weather site which predicted that rainfall for the next fortnight would add up to 0.1 millimetres.

‘ That’s not enough to wet a beetle’s backside. This fine spell is not lovely. This is a drought and it’s wrecking my vegetables.’

Medders stomped off back to his onions. Hermione plucked a sprig of rosemary to add to that night’s pasta sauce.