In this case the monster was a tangled mat of roots filling our garden pond. Claire declared that the whole thing had to come out. She donned her waders, got into the pond, and we set to work. You may have read my review of The Seven Basic Plots in Readers Club. Overcoming the Monster is the first of the plots that Christopher Booker discusses, perhaps THE basic plot. I didn’t realise that Christopher Booker was the first editor of Private Eye until I read his obituary.
How did we get on? Well there were certainly times that I felt our 63 year-old hearts would give out before the monster did. We had two things in our armoury: teamwork and adaptability.
We kept trying things and then one of us would have another idea. We attacked it with a kitchen knife (well Claire did, the waders were hers and wouldn’t fit me). She hacked small chunks off. It was working, but would take for ever. We tried garden shears. That wasn’t really as successful as the kitchen knife. I tried a very large crowbar, then a smaller one. It wasn’t moving.
Next I had the idea of tying a rope around it and pulling from firm ground. It moved. We tried to get it out of the pond in one go, but it was way too heavy. We were still making progress with the kitchen knife, but it was like trying to eat a royal wedding cake with a teaspoon. I then deployed my full range of saws. I cut through it, but we were fearful of damaging the pond liner. There were also stones and bricks within the web of roots. We tried the rope again, and pulled a large chunk off. Then Claire worked the kitchen knife around the bricks and stones, and we got those free. More sawing followed until we got the monster down to pieces which I could pull, with Claire pushing from below. We won! We defeated the monster.
I have to say that an hour in, I didn’t think we would. But by nibbling at the edges, making full blown assaults, then changing tactic again and again, we did. It was teamwork and adaptability that overcame our monster.