Burial

Following the purchase of a new dressing gown noticed at reference 1, the old dressing gown was buried in the No.2 compost heap. Perhaps a foot below the loose surface, but not actually on the clay underneath.

The heap is made with prunings from trees and bushes, fallen leaves (in the Autumn) and various garden waste which is not convenient for the much smaller No.1 compost heap, the brick one. All this seems to rot down to grey crumbly soil, mixed in with woody waste which is still on the way. All very dry and livestock free, although I dare say a microscope would turn up eggs, seeds and other smaller livestock. I dare say also that the water arriving from above is sucked out by the roots of the surrounding trees.

There was also quite a lot of paper left over from some previously buried, previously treasured books. I dare say quite a lot of it could have been recovered by an expert and re-read, but as it was, it was just crumbled up. More sturdy were the plastic films which seem to cover the covers of modern paperbacks. Several of these were removed and transferred to the household waste, that is to say the black, dustbin, for onward transfer to a proper landfill site.

The cover in the middle suggests that at least some of the treasures in question were novels written by Ian McEwan, acquisition of which may well have been prompted by the lecture noticed at reference 3. So just five years to make the passage from a first class lecture to the bottom of my compost heap.

The mattock - last mentioned at reference 2 and to be seen above right - was just the thing for breaking into the heap, while the spade above left was best for getting the loose dirt out, despite the blister promoting plastic handle. The shovel might have held the dirt better, but would have been too big and too light to be driven down into it, what with all the wood still there.

PS 1: over the past few days I have been sampling a three year old, blended Scotch whisky, a Waitrose own brand, a litre of which was bought in-store here at Epsom. Perhaps with a description of 'rich and warming', I should have known better, but in anything more than the most modest doses, as well as being a bit rough on the palette, it seems to be a reliable inducer of morning headaches, something which I do not get from Bells or Jameson's. Nor from Calvados for that matter. So the present thought is that the remainder, perhaps a pint of the stuff, will be poured onto the grave of this dressing gown, by way of a libation, after the fashion of the ancient Greeks and Romans. And no doubt others. It will be interesting to see if it promotes interesting activity there.

PS 2: later on: BH thought that turning it all over to a libation was a bit wasteful, so we compromised. Half a pint put aside for Christmas puddings and such like in an empty water bottle - with real glass seeming a better bet than plastic - the rather larger balance libated, as advertised above.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/brahms-and-dressing-gowns.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/swinging-mattock.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/04/thoughts-of-and-prompted-by-mcewan.html. Slightly alarmed by how little of this I had remembered. I suppose that is part of the point of writing it all down.