Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Fixed

It occurs to me that the pictures in the previous post might give the impression that my backyard is nothing but a narrow passage, about as wide as Nicole Richie.


This is not the case. Here's a larger view of the whole yard, showing that I actually have about four metres or so between the back door and the fence. Such space! I can swing ostentatiously large cats and still run only a mild risk of giving them serious head trauma.


Backyard October 2006


To the right of the picture you can see my garden pond and accompanying sculpture. The pond is an old washing copper, and the sculpture is a collection of copper pipes leftover from several generations of household water heaters, a showerhead from the salvage yard, and some old brass taps and fixtures I got from a plumber.


water sculpture


And if you look closely, you can see a little chromed figure right at the bottom. My grandfather brought her back from the Middle East after he was posted there during World War Two, and we've always jokingly referred to her as The Family Heirloom.


Gunther the Spirit of the Garden


She's been in a cupboard for the last five years, so I thought I'd give her some fresh air for a while. Every garden needs a nymph, as I said to AB as I was showing him around on the weekend.


Me: ...and I've added a little statue to the pond. I guess she's a sort of symbolic Spirit of the Garden.

AB: What's her name?

Me: I hadn't thought of one. What's a good name for a garden nymph?

AB: Gunther.

Me: What?

AB: I think you should call her Gunther.

Me: Er, Gunther is a boy's name.

AB: Maybe she's really a man.

Me: No she isn't.

AB: Maybe she is. Maybe you just can't tell.

Me: So, you want me to call her 'Gunther, the Transsexual Spirit of the Garden'...

AB: Yes!

Me: No.


Of course, now when I walk past I think, "Ah, there's my water feature, and there's little Gunther peeking out from NO NO NO DAMMIT!"


Unfortunately the name has stuck, and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.

1 Comments:

Blogger He sings said...

Why not slightly changge this bad-boy name to a cool girl name like "Gundula"? That sounds kind of nymphie, in an overly-Teutonic way. I suppose if you were really going that route, you could call them Woglinde, Wellgunde or Flosshilde, the original three Rheinmaidens from Rheingold. Thaat might be a little over the top, though.

5:05 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home