Fire!

This story is about:

But begins with this

It had to come, the conclusion to the damson carnage: the bonfire. But not content with a damson bonfire, we also set about an ivy encrusted shed storing things we’d long since forgotten—mercifully so. The roof had long since collapsed letting in ten or more years or rain and snow and whatever else had chosen to enter.

Pieces of shed in an elegant sprawl

After lamenting various ruined possessions that we’d forgotten we had, we took them to the tip and began demolishing the shed with the help of two very good friends. It was hugely cathartic, sledgehammers and jemmies, my wife, suitably masked, wielding the chainsaw.

More lolling fragments of shed

And then it was done. The bonfire looked big, too big for one gigantic blaze, so we spent the afternoon feeding a much smaller, more controlled fire on the concrete slab where the shed had stood. Yes, we let the immediate neighbours know first, and they were, mercifully, as sweet as pie about it—though there was one complaint from an unknown house some distance away. Luckily, she accosted my wife who looked suitably menacing with her chainsaw and helmet, and she wandered away having vented but not very happy. As they say in latin, Lentus, or is it Resisto?

Somewhere in there were ten baking potatoes - Tescos' finest - wrapped in foil. We never found them

But what an eye-opener when it is done! Bearing in mind the majestic, living things we’d cut down, the size of the bonfire . . . and this, this small, pathetic pile of ash!

Remind me, I never want to be cremated.

On a happier note, we plan some rambling roses on the fence, various potted perennials on what will be a clean and white slab, and a wrought iron bench that we’ll probably never use.

Nigel Beware

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I’ve always had a soft spot for the name ‘Nigel’ ever since devouring Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sir Nigel’ and ‘The White Company’ as a child. (For those with time on the hands worth reading.) You can therefore imagine my shock and distress to find out that last year, no ‘Nigel’ was born and named as such in the UK. Nigel is going the way of the Dodo and the Great Auk.

Now, some great soul is doing something about it. The landlord of ‘The Fleece’ in the small village of Bretforton is organising a convention of Nigels. Nigellas, too, will be welcome. The question is whether it will be in the vein of a Viking funeral or a celebratory kindling of a great new fire giving birth to a phoenix called Nigel.

The Fleece

Which one looks the more ghostly?

Looking less haunted, though note the ice cream

If I was called Nigel, you can bet your bottom dollar I’d be there. But I’m not. I’m called Michael. So it’s a damn lucky thing I was there last weekend and enjoyed a pint of Wye Valley Ale and a large pork chop from the similarly endangered breed of ‘Old Spot’.

For anyone else, not blessed or cursed with the name of Nigel, Bretforton is well worth visiting, the Fleece even more so.

The earliest mention of Bretforton is recorded in 709 A D so it’s old enough to be haunted by a variety of ghosts. There’s Lola Taplin, a former landlady, who haunts the Fleece and throws glasses and food about. To my profound disappointment nothing happened as I tucked into my ‘Old Spot.’

Then there’s the C17th cattle driver, the non porcine Spot Loggins, who drowned and now haunts Spot Loggins Well in Bretforton House Farm.

It is said that anyone who runs around the Well three times blindfolded will lose everything they’re carrying. Try that in some parts of Liverpool and the result will be guaranteed.

St Leonards Church

I love lists like these. Who for example was Aluered? 

The village seen from the church graveyard, the dead centre of the village (sorry)

The Church, too, has its ghosts in the form of a phantom funeral procession. And tread its surrounding fields with respect. They are haunted by a woman holding her own decapitated head. She was murdered in 1707 and has never got over it.

So, just to end and to all those Nigels out there, enjoy the village, and enjoy your free pint of beer.

I love the roof ornamentation here.

 But beware—if you do all eventually  die out, Bretforton offers itself as ready-made postmortal home you may never escape from.

Purple Rain

Once I was famed for the beauty of my hands, but I suspect my days as a hand model are no more. The hands that launched a thousand ships are more those of a forty a day Capstan full strength man. That’s what stoning 30 kilos of damsons does to them. The mind is equally scarred.

And afterwards ? Dealing with the trees themselves. It seemed churlish, the harvest being so generous and bountiful. We had friends picking them, gave even more away, and still they came down from the trees. You squelched, as though treading grapes, as you walked through the garden, the grass struggling to poke up through a carpet of damsons and squelch.

Still, however bountiful, we had to reclaim our garden from what is now a small army of rampaging  damson trees

Sunday was the day before the damson Armageddon. It seems so peaceful sitting on the small patch of dishevelled garden we could still call our own.  Little did the trees know that the chainsaw, mask and gloves we’d ordered had come the following day.

So serene, I almost felt sorry

The following day we struck, and I imagined the damson trees killing themselves laughing as they saw me approach, skidding over squashed fruit and squinting through a B movie horror mask.

Laughter was replaced by guerrilla warfare as kamikaze damsons bombarded us from on high, the ariel warfare accompanied by swarms of erratic end of season wasps. I think Prince may have had this in mind with his song, Purple Rain.

But now,  happily round one is done.

To remind you, this particular horror had all but blocked our way into the garden, swallowing up an ornamental tree and threatening a bird table

The ornamental tree is somewhere under there. The bird table its next victim.

Our diminishing access into the garden.

A bonfire emerges

Access and ornamental tree to the right

 Round two, well there are one or two trees on borrowed time, this tall maiden for example with its branches so high up it’s almost impossible to harvest. 

And next week the bonfire, wrapping potatoes and rosy cheeked children in foil and throwing them into the flames, all the time drinking strong cider. (or perhaps damson wine)