Jan 25, 2018
Teazles
Out in the vacant lot to gather weeds I found these teazles – their ovoid heads delicately armoured with crowns of thorns. Arthur, from whom I haven’t heard a word in thirty years, who must be ninety if he’s a day, told me they were used to raise the nap on the green felt of billiards tables and, since Roman times, for combing woollen stuff. He also said their seeds were caviar to the goldfinch. And then I lost the knife he’d lent me to cut some – the loss of which was the cause of grief. In honour of gruff Arthur I shake the seeds out in our small green patch and stick the spiky seed heads in a jar.
Jamie McKendrick
