Forest Hill in the spring time

Well it’s the first day of spring today but it didn’t really feel like it weatherwise. We spent a couple of hours in the garden as the neighbours have put up a new fence so we cleared the bed on the side so we can actually see what plants are called for this year. We need a few shrubs so we’ll be researching them over the next few weeks.

There’s seeds galore on the kitchen windowsill including two types of tomatoes and sweet peas, cut and come again lettuce, chillies and various herbs. It’s all about being prepared as the growing season is going to come around sooner than you think!

There was a load of clearing up going on down the bottom end of the garden too, lots of ivy to be cut back and we found a nice pile of very dry clippings from months ago. So to end a good couple of hours in the garden we christened our fairly newly acquired incinerator, cheers Marc! It’s been a while since we’ve had a fire and we’ve forgotten how nice it is to sit around a burning bright dustbin feeling the warmth. Hands up who loves a garden incinerator!

Never knowingly scabbed

The dustbin incinerator I bought the other week has been brilliant as I’ve burnt off a load of woody stuff that has been piling up at the bottom of the garden. The only trouble is, that making fires is now getting a bit addictive. The other Saturday I was just going to burn off a small pile of waste but as the fire got on it’s way I was scouring the garden for sticks, prunings and whatever else that would burn. A couple of bits of 4 x 2 I was going for use for a gardening project got chucked in alongside wet leaves and freshly cut wood, sending thick plumes of yellow/white smoke out of the funnel at the top of the bin into the SE23 night sky. Jah Wobble mentions the same thing in his biography “memoirs of a geezer”, breaking up furniture at a friend’s squat he lived at to fuel a fire to keep him warm. What’s all that about then, a primeval thing perhaps?