Here’s a little tale about enthusiasm. Misguided enthusiasm in the service of a cause which didn’t really need any particular focus or dedication . . . but I want to say the enthusiasm is laudable in itself.

Remember my posts about how chilly it’s been of a night here in Braidwood? And also how we’ve been planting all manner of flora in the garden? Well, surprise surprise, cold nights and tender plants don’t really go together too well – and today I noticed that some of the daisies we’d planted at the base of the big old pine tree outside the living room had blackened, burnt leaves. Frostbite!

We’ve accepted we’ll make mistakes with the garden – as total newbies choosing to start out as winter descends, there was always a risk of old Jack Frost taking a nibble at our tender new charges. But I don’t see this as a reason to lie down and take it; on the contrary, it’s another opportunity to learn something – so it doesn’t happen again next year.

A quick google revealed that sticking these flowers under a big old tree wasn’t a great idea: cold air will settle there at night and the day’s sunlight won’t reach the ground to warm it. On the plus side, frost damage to the leaves won’t necessarily kill the plant – but the roots at least need protecting. And the recommendation for this? A cloche.

Yes, yes, a kind of hat popular with flappers in the roaring ‘20s, along with low-waisted dresses, long strings of pearls, cigarettes in elongated holders, and the Charleston. Think The Great Gatsby. But you can see why a cover for a plant designed to keep the warmth in will be called a cloche, as the sides need to come right down to the ground on all sides. Like a hat, yeah?

So I cast about to see if we had any of the things you’d use as a cloche for daisies. Bunnings being closed (it’s a long weekend), none of the purpose-built items were available; we didn’t have any large plastic bottles to adapt; the plant pots we have stashed up are all too small to be inverted over the plants; and we lacked other similar receptacles to adapt. So it was improvisation time!

Plato said necessity is the mother of invention, and much is made about how in times of exigency, like, say, a war, humans have come up with all sorts of innovations. OK, so many of these things are new, exciting ways of exterminating our fellow human beings, but there have also been great discoveries in the world of medicine because of surgeons’ need to fix the horrible wounds and burns we inflict on each other.

We’re in dire need of innovations in the world right now – just look at how manufacturers turned their resources over to producing ventilators at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And where we really need creative and groundbreaking thinking is to get to grips with climate change and its effects. That’s an exigent circumstance in my book.

Anyway, the task facing me – creating a few cloches for some small daisy bushes – wasn’t quite in this league. And the thinking didn’t need to be all that innovative. There was ample material at hand – that pile of broken-down carboard boxes I mentioned a while ago, plus  few rolls of one of mankind’s greatest inventions: duct tape. Or is it Duck tape?

A simple design was required – we had our template in the aforementioned upended flowerpots. So a two-part structure, rendered in corrugated cardboard, comprising a lid and a . . . brim. Like a hat – or a KFC bucket.

So, earbuds in, edifying podcast on, and I set to creating a cloche for each plant. The duct tape gave out after two, but we have ample packing tape after all the house moves we’ve carried out this year, so no problemo.

OK, I’m the first to admit, this is overkill. There are less time-consuming solutions to be had, but the pleasure to be had from improvising in this way can’t be understated. And lacking the chops to improvise on the guitar with a bunch of jazz cats, this kind of toy-time crafting will just have to do.

Later, over a cup of tea that felt well-earned, I checked the weather forecast. There is no frost predicted for tonight – or any of the next seven nights. But hey, let me tell you, should the meteorologists be mistaken (and they have been known to get it wrong, eh Michael Fish?), our daisies will be snug in over-engineered custom cloches all of their own.

It’s not time wasted – that would be a negative view of the time and effort spent; instead, I prefer to think of it as quality time: time spent focusing, creating, problem-solving, and developing new skills. It’ll all come in useful again someday – as will the cloches. And let’s not forget that edifying podcast, instilling knowledge via subconscious osmosis while the brain was otherwise engaged. All in all, an afternoon well-spent.