The Best Days End with Bonfires

I was lucky enough to have the  help of my youngest son, Oscar, at the weekend,  as well as his lovely and hard-working girlfriend, Hazel. Well, it was Mothering Sunday after all, and a beautiful sunny one at that. Self isolation meant that I could only spend a short time with my own mum in her garden from a distance, so I was free to get a grip of that overgrown allotment.

The joy of a petrol lawnmower  

I thanked Tony Jones, my next door neighbour who sadly died last year, countless times today for the inheritance of his marvellous machine.  Oscar whizzed around the grassy paths and the whole place was instantly tidied.  The cuttings went on the beds to compost down and suppress weeds.

So much for no dig  

Hazel started off digging out some stubborn dock plants, and in the end managed to dig over a whole bed ready for sowing. Oscar then loosened the soil some more with the rotavator (he does love his noisy smelly power tools!)

I did battle with the brambles which edge every side of my plot. There was a time I used to try to dig out all the roots, but it was a massive effort and I never got them all out, so now I just get the buggers with secateurs as short as possible early on, and accept that I'll have to do it again next year.

Connie accompanied us all day.  She's turned into a fab allotment dog.  She used to mooch around, clearly bored, but now she accepts life on the plot, enjoys drinking from whatever has collected rain water, laying in shady spots, and joining us round the fire at the end of the day.

The ubiquitous Spring visitor  

Often a toad but this year a lovely leaping frog!  Replaced him in a damp shady spot to do his amphibious doings after he'd posed for some photos.

Then follows the burning of the brambles and any old wood knocking about the plot.   Where does all the wood come from?? Every year we burn it all and each year the bonfire seems to be bigger.

The best bit is when we pop open a can of cider as the daylight fades, and enjoy the heat and sit on makeshift seats in companiable satisfied exhaustion.