Garden Views

Early this morning this plane and the droplets on the temporarily potted plants caught my eye.

The plants were moved because of clearing the border by the fence, then removing a rose that was rampant and diseased and then removing the ivy. Once the fence had gone, and the ivy was more or less conquered, I had the good(?!) idea of digging out the stump of the tree we had felled months ago. I don't want to use poison, my attempts to drill into it to make holes to rot it were pathetic and I was tired of all the little trees sprouting around the place. So, about two weeks ago I decided to dig it up. I had seen a tree which had been excavated a while ago, and the image of it there, with the roots all exposed, ready to be taken away, was very tantalising. Each night for the last two weeks, plus numbers of hours the last two weekends, have been taken up digging the tree. There are good and bad points to this activity.

Good-exercise, interest-the structure of the roots fascinates me, finding treasure-or not treasure-my finds are varied-a lot of rubble and broken glass, bones, small tiles, bottle segments, a piece of marble, a threepenny bit, a sense of satisfaction as another root is exposed and chopped through. I am also in the garden at sunset every evening which has been lovely.

Bad-it may be exercise, but it is also back breaking kind of work which causes a lot of heavy breathing and grunting type noises-how pleasant! Clay-thick yellow London clay-it is solid at a depth of about two feet-horrible stuff! The top soil was good where I have improved it over the years. Frustration-at just not being quite strong enough to do it all-my brother came up last weekend and I have him to thank for much of the chopping! He has lent me his axe and grinder.

Some of my finds. I have been finding the little mosaic tiles all over the garden for years and collect them in one box. There are three colours. The stone is pleasingly round and red, and the threepenny bit was a good find-better then rubble-or cat poo!

I manfully stuck my (Antony's) axe into the stump last night for a photo, and when I looked at it on the computer, saw the shaft of light hitting it.

I have used a spade, fork, trowel, saw, small japanese saw, secateurs, loppers and two axes in my efforts against the stump. I broke my posh metal trowel last night, so resorted to the £2 plastic one. I have used gloves and goggles as protection-but they just make me hotter!

It is hard to tell how deep the hole is in photos but believe me it is deep! I have never dug a hole before-well little ones for plants-but not one to cause a monster mound of earth that is out there at the moment. My Dad and brother are coming up to do the fence on Saturday so that is the cut off point!

No digging has gone on at night yet-that would just be weird and creepy!