Time to revisit the Regal Compost Bin

Regular readers will realise that I'm a closet Royalist (yeah, right) and may recall that I celebrated her maj's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 by constructing a commemorative compost bin. Today saw me taking out my latest batch of the brown stuff. It's as good a batch as I've ever made and I'm putting it down to the royal association of this particular bin. Maybe it's my imagination but what comes out of my other two bins just isn't the same. It doesn't have such a regal aroma or break down into such an imperial crumb. Rule Britannia - ruler of the bins. 

The above mentioned bin, looking good after three years of dutiful service. But will it last as long as her maj has reigned over us? I think not.

Compost fit for a queen - and my veg plot. I think I'll be growing some King Edward's in this lot next year.

Her maj always uses a silver spade when she digs. Me? I use my great grandfather's shovel. Dating from the 1930s, Henry Charles Bowyer used it when he was working as a roadman for Bedwas and Machen Urban District Council in South Wales - in fact, the discerning eye can just make out a very worn BMUDC on the handle. I like using this shovel as it links me directly, through my father and grandfather, to a man I can clearly remember. He died when I was about 5 and when I think about him I recall a fob watch in his waistcoat, a funny accent (he came from Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire), a white moustache that smelt of pipe tobacco, chickens, digging and picking things from his garden and, my very last mental image of him, him laid out for his burial in my nan's front room. The room was heady with the scent of Lily of the Valley and I've associated it with death ever since. Never, ever buy me a bunch - I won't be impressed.