Max and his wife Anne have moved from north Wales to Gloucestershire. Max had hoped to spend some time strolling the banks of Cotswold rivers but finds he is otherwise engaged in a life and death struggle with ground elder and ivy in the garden. Before moving, Max had thought that it would be wonderful to have a river flowing through their garden: this isn’t the case, but, as some sort of compensation, a stream develops in their cellar after heavy rain.
