They are domestivorous leaves, see; ravenous for brick dust, cement and splintered 2 be 4.
My brother built an office in the garage of his new house. He had to go out to buy the wood. Now he calls wood 2 be 4. It's 2 by 4, isn't it?
I assumed that 2 by 4 referred to dimensions -- as in 2 inches thick by 4 inches wide. Either that or it could be a measure of hardness: 2b4... harder than a 1a5, but much softer and more pliable than a 7z9.
A simple Google search would teach me all I need to know. But the truth of the matter is that I don't really need to know, so I'm happier to be ignorant. It makes things more entertaining.
Whilst battling the leaves on Friday afternoon, I was too knackered -- following an early bike ride and late contemplation of the DJing duties to follow -- to bend over and put them in garden sacks. Our garden waste bin gets picked up once every fortnight, but our trees shed enough leaves to fill Pinewood studios in the same amount of time.
Instead of stuffing them into bags I decided to burn them.
It's a curiously attractive proposition for someone who loved Cub Scouts.
And making fire is a manly thing to do.
It's as Extreme Sports as I get.
The leaves burnt remarkably well. Too well, it transpired, because the cycle path that runs the course of the old railway track behind my house was shrouded in an impenetrable cloud of leaf smoke within minutes.
I heard a few people coughing melodramatically as they walked / cycled past. Ha! Ha! -- very funny. And a very British way to register complaint.
I carried on raking, piling, stoking and belching more thick smoke into the atmosphere than the history of Native American long distance calls, and became dimly aware of the siren that was looping itself around my house for many minutes before it came to a stop.
Earlier that same day, I had been riding back from Connah's Quay [I pray for a cycle path that goes ANYWHERE else, please!] with my hood over my head in order to keep the sharp-toothed wind off my old man's ears. Chester's police force have a spotter plane that is magically kept airborne on towers of our council tax payments. It drones round the city burning gazillions of gallons of kerosene every day. Chester isn't, exactly, the Baltimore of the Northwest. It's a relatively genteel city and it's hard to see why it would need 24hr air support when there are soldiers in Afghanistan dying because of a lack of it.
The man in the plane must have spotted me with my rucksack on my back and my hood pulled over my head.
I must have looked the epitome of the Police Camera Action de facto photofit of YOUTH MOST LIKELY TO HAVE COMMITTED CRIME.
The police plane buzzed me again and again as I made my way home.
I got to feeling very paranoid and more than a mite angry, too.
I mean, if I had had tracksuit bottoms on I would have understood this defecation on my civil rights.
I stood on my drive, decking the V's at the plane, swearing upwards like a crick-necked Tourette's sufferer,
"Go on, fucking fuck yourself. I hope you crash to bits!"
"Good morning, Adam," said my lovely pensioner of a next-door neighbour, Indu, through the hedge.
Which was very embarrassing.
That was my first encounter with The Forces of the day, let's get back to my second, now. Sorry for the diversion.
So the fire is burning nicely. I have mastered the smoke which now resembles a fine mist rather than a Victorian pea souper.
But I can hear tramping feet on the other side of the hedge and then the crackle of a radio.
"Hello. Who's that?" I said.
"It's the Fire Service. What's burning?"
"Leaves."
"Leaves?"
"Off trees."
"Oh."
"Did someone call you?"
"Yes, they said a shed was on fire."
"A shed is on fire?"
"Is it?"
"I don't know. Mine isn't."
"Keep an eye on that fire."
"I think I'd prefer a baked potato."
I did apologise for having the gall the burn MY OWN LEAVES in MY OWN GARDEN.
The fireman, who I didn't see -- he could have been an impostor, left without upbraiding me.
Which was good because plaits have never suited me.
da! da!
I should have been telling you what is in my show tonight but writing about fire has made me realise how cold I am. I'll go and burn something [the shed?] and I will be back, later.
©Adam Walton
2010
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