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The Not So Obvious

Posted on 22/06/2010 by admin

When I was twenty one I stayed at a lovely house in the Cotswold’s that had been built in the time of Shakespeare. The bedroom floor was at such an angle going to bed was like rock climbing. One of the relatives of the owner needed a hedge clipped and I said I would do it and went to look in the garden shed for the shears. I couldn’t find any. It turned out they were propped up on the floor immediately on the inside of the door. To which a very funny gentleman said to me that I ‘missed the obvious’.

When I was twenty-six I took a two year course in farming believing no more practical people lived in Earth than farmers. Being asked to list ten points about buying a new field I did not list access first. It seems I had not yet learned enough about the obvious.

I think it is probable that one could go through the whole of life ignoring the obvious for the more rarefied – in my field I put knowing the chemical composition of the soil first – but in the end that hedge could not have been cut so well without those shears. The obvious is very, very important and should never be overlooked.

But for some of us seeing it, is a skill we have to learn.

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Children’s author, novelist, editor and poet.

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