The Man of Property

A few pages on, Larkin is in that garden. Writing to Robert Conquest (recipient of some of his more unbuttoned letters), he grumbles about the May bank holiday weekend:
'I've spent it slaving away in my sodding garden, mowing and scratching up weeds, or what I take to be weeds. Anything that looks bright and positive I take to be a weed. Of course, I know dandelions and groundsel, but I'm not so good on Lesser Willow Herb and Old Man's Knee and Old Man's Old Man and suchlike. Then I sat on a cushion in the sun and drank two Guinness and finished an Agatha Christie. The Man of Property.'