Bonfires

I went down the allotment after six tonight to light a couple of bonfires, one on each allotment. I lit the one in Blue's dustbin on the SA allotment, and it burned everything cleanly really quickly, and was really hot. As I was doing so, Franco came and lit a fire at the top of his allotment, and went home, leaving it blazing away like mad.

When mine had died down a bit, I went to the Cat allotment, and set fire to the pile of grape boxes down there, hoping to burn off some of the weeds. A police helicopter arrived and hovered overhead. Everyone said, oh, no they're looking for someone, but I reckon they were filming all the bonfires, because everyone else seemed to have the idea as me, and had come down on a fine evening to burn their rubbish.

My fire got a bit out of hand, because the tractor had mown the grass, and it was spreading through the grass. I went back to the SA shed to get a spade to put it out with. Someone had left the gate open, and a group of kids on bikes poured in and started milling about. They said the helicopter was watching the fires. One also told me that his mum had said that there was a pervert about, driving a green car, wearing nothing below the waist. I couldn't help laughing, which I don't think was the reaction he was hoping for.

I left the miserable Italian to get rid of them, and went back to the Cat allotment, where my fire had died down a bit. Joe was adding more weeds to his fire, and a man from the houses had come out and built a fire which was going well. The police helicopter was still circling overhead.

Firewood and harvest festivals

Italian John gave me some wood to light my fires with - about fifty empty grape boxes. He'd brought them down on a wheelbarrow and offered me a few as I passed. He ended up tipping them all on the end of my allotment. He said he had another "lorry"-load (i.e. barrow). He said, if I burnt them there they would kill the grass. It's a thought. I meant to go back down tonight to build a couple of fires, mainly to kill that vicious weed I'm digging up. It's not Japanese Knotweed, but it ought to be classed as invasive.

I cut the runner beans down today. It's always sad when you do that - it marks the end of summer. No more beans till next year.

Something Understood on Radio Four this morning was all about Harvest Festivals. I used to love the Harvest Festival when I was a kid. The front of the church was piled high with vegetables, mainly marrows. My mum only ever donated tins of beans, which I was rather ashamed of - I wished I could bring huge marrows into school. After the service, we used to go round all the pensioners' houses with baskets of veg (imagine them letting little girls do that now!).

I don't agree with Mark Tully that we should recognise the hand of God in all this (or whatever he said); but Nature is powerful, and land pretty soon reverts to Nature if left untended. We should be grateful for what we can eke from our plots in the face of constant onslaughts by slugs, caterpillars, and vicious weeds: it is a precarious way of ensuring I have enough to eat, dependent on the goodwill of the council and on a constant battle with disease and wildlife. I'm grateful. I can sing the hymns in the spirit of them without having to believe in God.

Bonfires and pay dirt

Still keeping up with my regulation digging of two rows per day. Am finding some horrible weed, like a monstrous version of couch grass, but the roots are brown and like string, and the knots of grass that spring from the nodes coarser than couch. I'm getting closer to the middle, which was cultivated last year, and there the soil is blacker and marginally softer. You could say I'm hitting pay dirt. In the rest, both grey and yellow clay lie less than six inches below the surface ("Too heavy," said a passing Italian), so I am digging in all manner of organic matter, including the grass clippings from the path which my neighbours, the Adver couple, had conveniently mowed yesterday.

I've been putting the roots of this vicious weed on the pile ready to be burnt, and yesterday evening I went down and lit two bonfires. You have to go down after six to do that, and a couple of others were doing the same. Jack had brought wood and paraffin to get his going, and was burning his potato haulms. I told him paraffin was cheating, and lit both mine with just paper. The one on the Cat allotment burned like wildfire - it was mainly dried grass - and I had to stand well back as the flames leapt into the air. It was over in minutes. The other, on the SA allotment, was an attempt to burn a collection of old brussels sprouts stalks and diseased tomato haulms in an old dustbin that Blue had joyously knocked holes in when he found it. The fire took ages and a whole issue of the Adver, complete with photos of Billie Piper, to get going, and then it petered out after a short while. "Too wet," said a passing Italian.