to exchange an incredulous glance with me.
‘What?’ Rhodri said, puzzled.
I gathered my wits together. ‘It’s just that by a strange coincidence we watched a short DVD with clips of the series last night and saw him for the first time. Don’t forget, Rhodri, that the TV reception is impossible here unless you’ve got a satellite dish.’
‘You’re right, I had forgotten,’ he agreed. ‘And you haven’t got satellite?’
‘No, but we don’t watch much TV anyway.’
‘Just endless Buffy DVDs,’ pointed out Nia. ‘You’re addicted.’
‘Well, Carrie’s addicted to Sex and the City, and you don’t seem to mind watching either of them when we have one of our girls’ nights in.’
‘No, but I haven’t got a DVD player,’ Nia said. ‘I haven’t got time to sit about glued to the box – and neither have you,’ she added pointedly to Rhodri. ‘We’re both divorced and broke, and had better get on with making a living.’
‘What were you saying about this Gabriel Weston, Rhodri? We seem to have side-tracked,’ I said innocently, ‘and we don’t know much about him.’
‘Well, he’s appeared on various things over the last few years, but now he presents this really popular show called Restoration Gardener. He chooses a house that once had a special garden and surveys it, researches family documents and stuff, then draws plans to recreate what was there. Then his team spends a few weeks restoring part of it, at the programme’s expense. They often go back and see how the earlier ones are getting on too. It’s really interesting.’
‘And they might do Plas Gwyn?’ I asked, impressed despite my personal disinclination to have Adam delving anywhere in my Eden.
‘I don’t know – I sent in photos and details and told them there were lots of family documents, and I’ve just heard it’s being seriously considered. Though of course that’s only the first step, because even if it gets on the shortlist it still has to win the TV vote-off. But it would be wonderful if it did – and even more wonderful to have garden features again at Plas Gwyn other than a lot of grass and trees!’
‘There’s certainly nothing much there now,’ I agreed. ‘Apart from the turf maze, and even that’s getting hazy around the edges, because hardly anyone ever goes and walks around it these days, and Aled drives straight over it on the mower.’
‘I walk around it,’ Nia said, ‘especially at certain times of the year.’
‘Yes, and I still think it’s unfair that you came back and were allowed to be one of the Thirteen for the May Day maze-walking, but they will only let me watch from a distance,’ I said, distracted by the injustice of being excluded from participating in the local mysteries.
‘The Thirteen have to be from certain local families, especially the leader, the Cadi,’ Nia said firmly. ‘Even Rhodri could only watch, even if he wasn’t a man.’
‘I think I forgot to mention the maze in the details I sent,’ Rhodri said, knitting his brows like a Neanderthal sheep. ‘Not that it is a maze at all really, just a sort of winding pathway.’
‘It’s a unicursal maze,’ said Nia, who seems very knowledgeable about these things lately, ‘and it’s probably been there as long as the house, so you should look after it.’
‘Right,’ he said vaguely. ‘And you’d be surprised how the rest of the garden’s changed over the centuries. There used to be a big terrace, and there was a pond with a fountain, only Mother filled that in when I was small so I wouldn’t drown.’
Rhodri’s mother was mega protective, which is why he was taught at home until he finally went off to Eton or Rugby or whichever posh public school his name was down for and thenceforth only ever appeared in the school holidays.
‘It would give the place a bit of publicity if they chose Plas Gwyn for a TV makeover,’ Nia said. ‘Contacting them was a good idea, Rhodri!’
‘You needn’t sound so surprised!’ he objected. ‘But I don’t suppose they will choose us – we’re a bit out of the way.’
I said nothing, torn between realising how good for Rhodri it would be if Plas Gwyn was chosen, and being appalled at the thought of Rosie’s incarnated maybe-father practically on the doorstep.
‘They might, but even if they do I expect this Gabe Weston only spends a couple of days actually on site filming,’ she said, pointedly looking at me. ‘His minions probably do the hard work.’
‘Which would include me,’ Rhodri agreed. ‘I’ll have to do a lot of the donkey work myself. Aled’s not up to much – he should have retired years ago, but he just loves driving that mower around.’
‘And clipping things,’ Nia put in drily. ‘I’ve never seen a pleached walk quite so pleached, the stilt hedge looks half naked, and what that bit of topiary by the front gate is I’m not going to even try to guess, but it looks obscene.’
‘I asked,’ he said gloomily. ‘It’s suppose to be a rocket.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said. ‘I think you should put a little sign in front of it, telling visitors.’
‘If there are any visitors. I don’t really think we stand much chance of winning the garden restoration because I’m sure the other properties are a lot more deserving.’ Rhodri smiled his rather heartbreaking smile at me. ‘But I’m glad you’re happy and your illustrations and cartoons are so popular, Fran. Nia’s been telling me all about it and how well Rosie is doing with her veterinary science course.’
‘She was always mad about animals,’ Nia said. ‘It was a logical choice. And what about your Zoe, Rhodri, wasn’t she doing some modelling?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, though only in a part-time sort of way – and she’s getting married soon.’
‘She’s a very pretty girl,’ I said kindly, though she’s tall and skinny with big bug eyes in a triangular face and reminds me of nothing so much as a praying mantis, but with Rhodri’s sweet nature.
‘I’m glad I don’t have any children to complicate things,’ Nia said complacently. ‘My sister, Sian, is enough to cope with. She’s convinced I’m swindling her out of her birthright just because I’m buying the cottage from Mam and Dad! But I’m paying a fair price and they wanted it in instalments to live on in their retirement, so it’s suiting us all round – except Sian.’
‘She’s not married?’ asked Rhodri.
‘No, though she’s been through men like a dose of salts,’ Nia said. ‘Works for a newspaper down in Cardiff.’
While we had been talking we seemed to have demolished a plate of pastries between us, though I suddenly had a deep yearning for one of Carrie’s luscious gingerbread dragons, with scales in scalloped red icing … I think this is what comes of deciding to diet: all I can think about now is food.
‘I think we should all go up to Plas Gwyn and see what fresh ideas we can come up with on site,’ suggested Nia. ‘Maybe see what’s stored in
