BANOOL words sitting in three Dimensional abomination out of a perfectly smooth surface of the manicured hedge. BANOOL I never did find what it meant, but every inch of that hedge was clipped so the word just hung in space in the same way you can get into a word on your PC and ‘add 3D effect’ except this was real life and Pre computer, Pre PC games, maybe Pong was just about to arrive.

There’s a hill you see , a long drive from the main street and a very long bike ride or walk – at least 20 minutes of huffing and puffing by the time you get to the top. And about 1/3 rd along is this hedge. Among the pickets and the iron palings is a wall of green, a world within itself. In it’s close up glory just a bunch of small twigs and ripe green iridescent leaves, but from the street, from a distance, a united front. There’s not much to smell up on that hill apart maybe from the waft of a loose new cowpat or two in the adjoining fields. It’s right on the edge of town, the borderline, almost as if that hedge is a border line too. They’re probably great friendly proud people, but the imposing hedge suggests that privacy is a treasured thing.

It really is a bit out of the normal way though – without a car that hill is a challenge that does not need to be met, maybe if you are going to the back end of the lake it’s do-able, but otherwise well avoided. I guess whoever curates the thing is out there regular, with the grade one clippers, the big ones that operate like a bellows and maybe some smaller sheers for the fine moustache work around the letters BANOOL. How tired would hands get after sculpting that lot. Maybe they have an electric hedge trimmer. I used one of those once on a place I lived but the sheer mass of the hedge sent a puff of blue smoke out of the unit half way – it had that electrical burnt out smell. As it was I had to get in a lopper in the end it got so out of control…….