Wild Garlic Goose Chase

This is what wild garlic looks like in May in all its garlicky perfumed glory.

These are the leaves and flowers we picked the last time we came for a walk at Killerton House with my brother a few weeks ago.

 Robin wants wild garlic. I'm not sure why. It doesn't matter. The idea is lodged in his head like a bee sucking nectar and nothing will shake it away. When I suggest a walk at Killerton  he says,

 That's where the wild garlic is. Can we get some?

I say there may not be any left now as the wild garlic season is nearly over. But we can look.

 And we do. Up and down and around re-tracing our footsteps along the shaded red clay paths lined with foxgloves, pink campion and buttercups, eyes glued to the edges..... searching........missing the late flowering rhododendron trees towering above us. 

Is this it? he says a thousand times.

No, I say a thousand times.

In the end we agree we've had a lovely walk anyway - much longer than usual. Back home we take scissors into the garden and cut the last few straggly leaves of wild garlic in a pot by the compost bin, and sprigs of rosemary, marjoram, mint and lemon balm from the pots by the back door. The sight and smell of the herbs seem to soothe his wild garlic bee buzzing and relieves my scratchy irritation.

Later I chop them up and stir them into a lemony tahini dressing to drizzle over the Bon Gout  vegetable samosa triangles I bought in the market this morning, which we have for supper.

But I don't think today is the last time we'll go on a wild garlic goose chase...