Building The Wall

Evelyn has always been a problem-solver and never afraid to take on new challenges. We were talking recently about the Covid-vaccination programme, and I was delighted to learn that she had received her second jab already. 

I was keen to ask the usual questions; how was it, did you feel nervous, any side-effects etc….. and she simply said, ‘oh no, I just got it done, that is all- it just had to be done so I just went and did it!’ 

That phrase reminded me of a time my mother became ‘famous’ (in my young eyes at least!) when she appeared in an article in the local newspaper- in my world, nobody had a mother who was in the newspaper. The irony was that my mother was writing as a journalist in the newspaper every week, but this was the first article that I was aware of that was about my mother. This was to me the equivalent of a few thousand hits on YouTube in today’s currency!

The reason for this sudden fame was that Evelyn Hood, mother of two, journalist and (by this time author) was building a wall in our garden.

Our back garden had two levels, the higher level being reached by going up a short slope just a short distance from the back of the house. It was decided that this slope could be converted so that there were two distinct levels, with the higher level being edged with a flower bed and a set of stone steps would cut through this flower bed. And from that concept came the need for two stone walls which would contain the flower bed and provide the edge of the higher garden level. 

So before the days of YouTube, Evelyn had researched the necessaries for construction of the stone wall, and got to work. ‘It just had to be done, so I just went and did it!’

Simon & Evelyn Hood