Keeping the Shadows at Bay

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The brick pile has lain undisturbed for many years.

I gleaned the bricks in it from the bottom of the garden from where an old Victorian wall had tumbled down long before I bought the house. The idea then was to heap the bricks together, to dig out the stumps of three leylandii and to eventually rebuild the wall.

It never happened.

The stumps are still there despite years of digging and even positioning the bonfire over the top of them.

So the brick pile has languished: moss covered, spiked with brambles and long grass.

This week as soon as the ice disappeared from the heap I’ve been busy cleaning up the old bricks.

It’s good therapy and is keeping the creeping, pressing shadowy fingers of depression, fear and worry at bay a little. I guess the wonderful sunny days are helping too.

Anyway I’ve set myself a project: another small wall has tumbled down and needs to be rebuilt. However, whoever last repaired it used a mortar that is stronger than the bricks themselves. It has been very difficult to chip the bricks from their positions and to keep them whole. That’s when realised that I could reuse the bricks in the old brick pile instead. The thinking is that I can clean up the old bricks, take down the damaged wall, rebuild the wall and then used the cleared ground to grow vegetables.

Sounds good.

Sounds easy

I wish it was.

I’m afraid it’s hard tedious work.

And I’m probably the only person in the world to be thrilled by old bricks.

Am I?

Silence.

Thought so.

Well, I just love the tracery of lichen on their sides, and the mottling effect of chemicals that have left blue, white and red colours along their sides. Some very old bricks even have salt crystals that glisten in the sunlight like tiny diamonds.

I’m also excited by the thought that I will be able to place them back into a wall one day soon with the more interesting patterns facing my garden.

Then there is the wildlife.

There are spiders in the brick pile: large black furry creatures that step daintily across the bricks that I expose. Their favourite habits seem to be walking over my gloves or dangling from my goggles waving their furry legs in front of my eyes, as I chip away at the old mortar on the bricks.

Then there are the snails. Hundreds of them. No wonder nothing ever grew the last time I tried to grow lettuce next to the brick pile.

Snuggled next to the snails are the frogs. They are huddled together, underneath some old plastic bags that I’d accidentally left under the heap: it seems that plastic is the furnishing of choice for hibernating frogs.

I’ve moved the frogs, handfuls of them of all sizes to the safety of the wood pile near the pond. I always thought frogs were supposed to eat snails but here they were living in happy symbiosis with my enemies merely using them as draught excluders, door stoppers and doormats. A couple were even using them as pillows!

There’s also a very friendly robin keeping me company who is delighted that I’m tearing bricks from the frozen earth and exposing all sorts of creeping delectables.

I’ve a hundred more bricks to clean up from the pile. It’s going to take ages. Which is brilliant.