In which I forget Rule zero

[hirez]

Work, right? Filled with things. Many of them falling into the category of 'another fucking opportunity for personal growth', which, um, right. I'd point at my old post about normality and workloads, but whatevs.

[FX: Looks at LJ posts from this time last year. It was all completely fucked, wasn't it?]

Anyway. If you recall, before Christmas we had some weather. This was the Ballardian Wind from Nowhere, rather than the more recent Ballardian Drowned World, and as a cincequonce the hateful Pyracanthus bush at the bottom of the garden took on the sort of stance usually seen in coastal blackthorn bushes. Since it was also massively topheavy with bright orange berries, the only thing for it was to hack the thing back violently and hope that the stumpy remains returned to life when the growing season returned. (They haven't)

Then there was the other sort of weather. Then when there wasn't any particular weather there were things and/or people to go and visit which was lovely but oh crikey hello the middle of March and the garden's still actually a tip filled with downed bushes and builder's waste.

A few weeks ago I bought an incinerator and stored it in the lee of the house to as to avoid the worst of the weather.

I don't know about you lot, but watching someone play a portable harmonium makes me want to start 'singing' Ivor Cutler songs and/or repeating the parts of 'Life in a scotch sitting room' that I can remember. However, given the specific audience, I had to start from first principles and attempt to explain Ivor Cutler.

An entire pyracanthus bush + Buddliea prunings + random garden gubbins can be fed slowly into an incinerator, but it's hot and smoky work and I was mildly disturbed when the alleged galvanized 'coating' on the 'lid' started coming off on my gloves like mercury.

I also said some jolly rude words when I caught the inside of my forearm on the inside of the incinerator and a wedge of skin just shrivelled up and fell off. However, since the job was only half done, I couldn't run indoors to, I don't know, run it under the tap or something. Anyway we don't have plasters that big. Anyway anyway, it's a burn and you're supposed to leave that in the open air.

Later, we beetled off to the Bristolcon Fringe event where there was beer and food and a set of jolly good readings.

There wasn't anything odd about that. Well, not until I ended up deep in a discussion about characters and then realised that I was having no hint of impostor syndrome.

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Do try not to invent Hirez Frazzles, there's a dear.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It's because I'm getting old and no longer move faster than fire.

[maluse.livejournal.com]

You're not running your incinerator properly unless you end up with a puddle of zinc on the ground the first time you use it...

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to be at that BristolCon event right up to the point where I realised I'd been falling asleep at my desk all afternoon and was really coming down with something quite nasty and I should go home and fall over forthwith. I'm most annoyed at myself.

[oryctolagus.livejournal.com]

Good luck with 'explaining Ivor Cutler'. I tried 'explaining Ivor Cutler' to Dave and, to be honest, it's a mercy we didn't wind up in marriage guidance.

To be fair, I probably shouldn't have started with 'My father once had sex with a Polar Bear...'.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I would have hoped for slightly better from the target audience, but they were all classical types, so John Peel was going to be hard to explain anyway.

The sensible thing would have been to provide a demonstration, but that would have required that I was actually Ivor Cutler.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Break them in gently with Viv Stanshall?

[drpete.livejournal.com]

An incinerator? Do you mean one of those things that looks like a dustbin with a chimney on the lid? If you do, I had one once. It was christened the "burny bin" and lasted for about half of one Burning Things party before it gave up the ghost. These days I don't bother, favouring the area-bombing-scorched-earth approach to biomass disposal.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

While I was hacking up bits of shrub to stuff into the thing, I did recall that when I was much younger and lived in a proper house (ie - one with a woodshed, workshop, dairy and dutch barn) I would have just set light to the pile and let it get on with it.

However, the splendid nemesis_to_go of this parish is given to sharing pictures of the fence and garage fires when people in his street have tried that, and they've got more 'garden' than I. That is when he's not demonstrating that the previous owner of his Series II was a useless sod.

In short, I should move house.

[drpete.livejournal.com]

I've had a few occasions of having to use the hose to stop the fence catching fire - but that just adds to the whole bonfire experience. It also worries the neighbours, which is an added bonus...

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I live next door to allotments. Bunch of pyromaniacs, allotment people... (and that's even the ones I don't go rocket flying with)