The Escallonia From Hell - Or How I Was Defeated by a Shrub

The sun was shining, the birds were twittering, my shoulder was better, all was right in the world. I was waiting for a friend to show up and go for a walk. I thought, yes, a little gentle pruning would fill the vacant minutes twixt now and friend. That escallonia bush who is blocking much of the light on the patio seemed a suitable victim.

It started harmlessly enough with my handy pruning saw and my double handy loppers. Even the distraction of having to clear paths in order to discover the wheelbarrow was little trouble. Nor the hacking my way through the undergrowth to avail myself of the compost heap. In fact the sun was still shining, the birds still twittering, my shoulder was sort of ok, and my friend had conveniently not yet showed to distract me from my task.

But then the bush began to fight back. Large trunk-like pieces were cut and yet refused to extricate themselves from the mass of bush. Branches were tangled overhead in the manner of the hair of four-year-old who was allergic to the hairbrush (mentioning no names). It all began to resemble a game of giant and living Jenga. With every cut and attempted removal the whole edifice toppled just a bit but never enough. Inevitably I began to become a tad apprehensive. The whole lot (and this is a bush on the scale of a tree of considerable proportions) was going to go. I would be left underneath with only a pair of comedy Wellingtons poking out. My family would pass this mass of greenery and wonder why I had left my boots there. Hours later they would only notice my absence by the coincidental absence of clean underwear, food and stupid questions like ‘Is it really a good idea to blow your nose on your sock?’

I had to take matters into my own hands. This bush was not going to get the better of me. I admit, with some level of shame, that shrubs, trees and even a slug, in the past have got the better of me. But no such thing was going to happen on a day such as this where the sun was shining, the birds were twittering, my shoulder only hurt a little bit and a friendly friend was on their way. The specific matter that I took into my own hands was a particularly leafy, stubborn and smug branch. In the manner of the famous folk of the great big enormous turnip, I pulled and I pulled and I pulled. And I pulled. With a surprising squeaky noise and a malicious rumble of twigs the bastard thing came free. The bastard thing being very large tangle of tangley bush. The large tangley thing was very much larger than me.

I can see you wondering if I was left in the comedy Wellington situation. No no, for I am more cunning than that. At the same time as all this pulling I was also shrewdly backing my way down the alleyway that lies between our house and the neighbours. Pretty astute eh?
Or not. For I found that I could now no longer negotiate my way past the aforementioned mass. It sat there eyeing me with a slight grin and blocking the passage, the light, and my way back into the garden where I had left my instruments of torture, without which I was impotent against this escallonia from hell. Also I was now effectively locked out of the house by a plant.

Strangely the sun was still shining, the birds still twittering (some from inside the mass of the hell-shrub), my shoulder was absolutely killing me and my bastard friend still hadn’t showed.
I am now writing this from the neighbours house, who, when they had stopped laughing, let me gain refuge whilst we awaited the emergency services. Specifically mountain rescue. And friend – I blame you, if you had turned up in the first place or at all then none of this sorry story would have happened. No shrubs would have turned into monsters and mountain rescue would not be putting their helicopter down (oh shit on the trampoline, they must have mistaken it for a landing pad) as I write. I hope you plan to make it up to me very seriously. I mean it. You know who you are.