Gardeners and Reapers

Here they are, turning our backgarden into something other than a nettle patch. They have removed the old contorted hazel, and pruned the rowan and the apple tree considerably. It does look better, there's more light and space but the trees look kind of naked having lost so many of their lower branches. It just makes me want to crochet jumpers for them.

They have planted the hazel in the place of a tree that was dead, just for now, until we can decide its fate. The head guy says he will know better where to put it once the ground is properly cleared.

I don't like killing things. Death is everywhere, all the time. It doesn't need the help we give it.

My neighbour's mother died last night. When I went round next door my neighbour was staring at the current soon-to-be-replaced lack of fence between our gardens.

'It looks so lovely without,' she said. 'Nature doesn't put fences up. Only we do that.'

We will be scattering Mark's ashes soon. Elvis Diary is looking after the urn, but says we may have to take his ashes down in wee baggies and tip them onto the tide. I am not sure why that is, surely we could just tip the urn up over the water. I have offered to help scoop his dust into bags if need be, but it seems a bit strange. Stranger still is the imprecation not to tell his best friend, who will be in hospital. The reason is that he's having various tests and giving his liver a chance to dry out; the last thing he needs is to leave the ward and flee to the nearest pub. After all, Mark wanted to make him well, not give him reason to do himself harm. He is now so terrified of having bowel cancer or some equally horrible parallel to his friend's demise, that explanations of depression, grief, shock, and even potential alcoholism make him shrug. When all is said and done, it wouldn't be a surprise if his liver was in trouble. It's a long time and a bad habit.

Oh, death, death and sadness! Be off with you! What a meal you're making of the year! Do you really wonder why I begrudge you a tree?

And on a more cheerful note

We are trying to eat more veg. I gave up pork ages ago, a habit made more sustainable by visions of Mr Cameron's possible past, but it's hard to give up all meat, so we are trying to eat more veg, buy less meat and when we buy, try to buy cruelty free.

I would like to give up all meat. I haven't been right with it for a long time. In the search for more satisfying vegetarian meals, we watched an entire series of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall extemporising on the glory of greens and I have achieved four vegetarian meals, only one of which was a dud. It was the first, a vapid cauliflower and chickpea curry, apparently from a 'friend' of Hugh's. The others were rather tasty; one indian vegetable curry, one mushroom soup with dumplings, and one aubergine lasagne. Now I am about to embarge on a terrifying experiment. I am about to make some kind of elizabethan vegetable pie with grapes and eggs. I may be gone some time...