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“Careful or he’ll be after you.” Erm, well, not really. I wasn’t after anybody. True, there was somebody I liked, though they’d never know it because I kept that to myself.

Yes, these are my gardening ruminations. The delayed reaction to events long gone, forced to the forefront of my mind by the monotony of preparing garden waste for a trip to the tip.

Gardening is supposed to be a therapeutic hobby, in which we empty ourselves until we are completely relaxed. Sounds nice, but I just find my mind wandering back into the distant past to reinterrogate all that once occurred.

Mostly, I’m found taking myself to task for some idiotic action or conversation, endlessly shaking my head at myself. But this gigantic pile of branches has me taking aim at others, suddenly amused by all that was once said about me at pivotal junctures of my life.

Indeed, amidst that pile of leaves, there are simply too many ironies now to contemplate. For all that was projected onto me, I was the most boringest person amongst them, far removed from their notion of me as a predator seeking conquests.

Outside college, my social life was a church youth group and playing in a philharmonic orchestra I was completely unsuited for. Where did those ideas come from then? I can only think of two places. First, prejudice. Second, a mate, who had a very different take on relationships to me.

The first is easy enough to observe in the community I now find myself a very vague part of. To this day, parents will still warn their children to steer clear of the gora kids, lest they set them on a path to destruction. Though the irony here is exemplified by that second explanation.

I was so naïve back then, thinking my mate a sort of Muslim version of me, with strict parents, a religious upbringing and shared ethics with respect to wholesome relationships. But it turned out that I couldn’t really have been much more mistaken.

That might have occurred to me when he once introduced me to his new girlfriend. He seemed to need to show me he’d won a white girl, but I was just perturbed that she was so much younger than him and should probably have been at school.

But it didn’t properly occur to me until the day we parted company. Naïve once more, I thought the college leaving party would be a sort of social gathering, where we all stood around eating crisps and talking about plans for the future. Of course, it was nothing like that.

Suddenly, I saw my companions in a whole new light, and it wasn’t a positive one. Never in my life would I have countenanced picking up a girl in a club for a one night stand. That wasn’t in our culture at all. Talk about culture shock: that was all mine.

That was the night I discovered that my mate, who had long embedded himself in the underage clubbing scene, was very far from the sound advisor I had imagined him to be. Who knows what he had said on my behalf, and to whom, when I was not around?

Separating my pruning into different piles, wood from green, large from small, I can’t help smiling to myself now. Predator? Seriously? With an upbringing like mine?

My mother had only recently been ordained priest, after long working as a respected hospital chaplain. And my father? I’d be dropped off in the morning by him, climbing out of his dark blue BMW E32 around the corner so no one would see me, enroute to his office at the foremost law firm in town.

But naturally, all of this could be a complete misreading of events. Perhaps I was harassed because I was a nerd, my unmasculine face inviting derision, my skeletal frame only capable of producing mockery. Perhaps it had nothing to do with my mate.

Perhaps I was just an easy target because I seemed so weak and pathetic, my voice so odd, my form so immature, my manner so passive. For indeed, I was harassed not only by those who encountered me daily, but also by complete strangers on the street.

Perhaps they all just saw something in me they could easily latch onto. Once at a bus stop, being pelted with eggs, causing me to walk the four miles home thereafter. And daily at college, forever being denigrated and castigated for…. what?

A few times now, I’ve had an opportunity to speak to those involved back then, but none of them remembered any of these events. Indeed, they couldn’t even remember me, or place me as ever having wandered amongst them. And why would they? I was just a leaf blown by the wind, soon to disappear.

And with this thought, my job is done. I’ve collected all the loose garden waste into two builders’ bags, ready to dispatch to the tip. Over there, a pile of branches to be cut into logs next time I take my chainsaw out. And a pile of hazel limbs to be stripped bare, to be used as stakes next year.

Here a job I could only complete with the aid of the grumbling indignation within, which all these years on still provides the fuel of momentum. Let’s get these bags in the car.