Compost & Cornwall

I'm counting down the days to the end of the week. We are off to Cornwall for a holiday. Nothing elaborate like a posh hotel in some exotic place this time, but our mattress from the bed, made up in the back of the van so that we can just pull up for the night wherever we choose, be it a cove or a campsite. There will be the extra comfort of a stove, a good book, and the cameras of course, as we don't want to slum it that much, and the first two nights will be spent unwinding in a pub in Veryan.

This week also had a bank holiday on Monday, which for everyone in the trade meant a day off, but what with the holiday, I had to work through it. Not something I like to do as it usually involves machinery, and that can annoy residents who are trying to enjoy the day of peace. 

 

 

And so it was that my chosen task for the day was to transfer a very large, and very old compost heap into two newly built compost bins. I woke up with a bug of some sort, and so an uncomfortable and sweaty day, but really quite unexpectedly pleasant in so many other ways.

 

Not a soul about, warm sunshine on the outside, and cool shade in the workplace. No sound at all but the chirping and singing of all the birds, the robins of which spent a good deal of their time finding insects that I was uncovering. It was a time to think deeply about stuff going on in my life, and about the two friends who passed away last month.

 

Like plant matter going on the compost heap and eventually being used again, the circle of human life is also just that, a circle. We have a beginning, an end, and hopefully some good times in between. I don't know if it is just a 'gardener thing', but compost heaps bring a certain peace of mind to me when thinking about mortality.

Dicentra spectabilis in our garden