"Playing with Water" by Kate Llewellyn. [review - radio script]

Abstract

Kate Llewellyn has produced, with seeming effortlessness, a string of books which on the surface are diaries, catalogues of days and seasons passing. Starting in 1987 with "The Waterlily", she has documented a life of domesticity and friendships. There of drama but that is not what makes these books readable, almost addictive. In "Burning" (1997) she explains: ‘It’s like life. While we wait for the big events, we live. Living makes life, not great events. But meals are being made all the time, gardens are being planted and fires lit. Somebody bakes a cake …’ "Playing with Water: A Story of A Garden" is the latest of these books. This one focuses on the creation of a garden full of trees and flowers, a garden that seems overgrown and wild to many of her neighbours. With the supreme confidence of a seasoned writer, Llewellyn allows herself to philosophise about life and jam-making, vandalism and families, weeds and old age.