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July 16, 2003
Castle
They say an Englishman’s home is his castle. But what if that castle faces the A2, and has an intimate view of neighbours to both the front and back? If you can hear your neighbour’s every step, word and dirty dish and item of clothing, and, for the case of some, the prospect of sleep is marred somewhat by the knowledge that bedbugs will be feasting on you for the next eight hours?
I’ve wanted to write on people’s concept of Home for some time, but for now am more interested (oddly) in Gardens. In Dublin, our landlord informed us he planned to patio over the front and rear gardens for convenience; of all the flathunting I’ve done this year, flats either have no garden, a teeny one or a teeny patio. A friend once proudly showed me his rear patio, grateful that all he had to do to it was look at it occasionally. On the other hand, summertime means barbecues – too much a fire hazard to hold indoors, and oddly not that appealing on top of a number of bare square tiles.
I can see five gardens from my own, well, theoretically. One can no longer be seen due to triffids, though when they fall, there’s rubble and pissed-off chained-up dogs to be seen/heard. There is no fence between myself and the wilderness of grass and triffids to the left. The neighbour opposite has spent half a century imposing a recognisable garden on her alloted space, while the neighbour to the right has settled for some beds, grass, and a very big pile of rubbish and triffids towards the back.
I’ve spent the last three years trying to wrestle a garden out of the rubbish dump behind my back door. This year alone – so far – I’ve collected over thirty bags of various rubbish, and had two bonfires of varying success. I moved to this godforsaken area because I wanted a garden of my own, but forgot to specify one free of triffids and weeds with tree-rings, not to mention decades of accumulated rubbish.
Over the last three years, however, I’ve learned surprising amounts about the previous occupants of this flat – and, if my neighbour to the right is to be believed, of past upstairs neighbours too who had aversions to taking out the rubbish like normal people. Sometimes I wonder if I should keep the accumulated rubbish, map it and study it more closely; none of the excavations I ever worked on was this rich in artefacts. Also I’ve learned how unbiodegradable a surprising number of items are, including wood, dead plants and cloth. Also ventilators, bathtubs, whisky bottles, baking trays, t-shirts and plastic-covered wire. Hamburger buns decompose beautifully. Catshit doesn’t; it simply fossilises.
Although most of the triffids’ tree-rings, bizarrely, date to when I moved in, judging by a number of my neighbours, it’s too likely that the garden would have been sufficiently overgrown to be somewhere convenient to dispose of random unwanted objects and furniture. One or more would have been a dogowner, judging by the large number of bones I keep uncovering. Another did make an effort at some point; the ventilator and stupid quantities of broken glass point to a greenhouse or shed with large windows, also the buried plant pots, random tools and plant tags suggest that someone must have cared enough to spend money at garden centres or maybe just supermarkets.
Teenagers too, probably – or adults with junk food habits – if the very many sweet wrappers are any kind of evidence. Few are recognisable, beyond Mars, Milky Way and Smarties lids (an ‘i’, an ‘r’ and an ‘e’ so far). One may have sacked their milkman, judging by the buried milk crate, however the buried milk bottles might suggest they were sacked by the milkman instead. More recently, however, someone has been responsible for hamburger buns, and tin cans which aren’t sufficiently rusted to be convincing. Another neighbour smokes Marlboro Lights.
Most of the scrap metal, however, is beyond me – the springs are recognisable (a biodegraded mattress or chair?), the funiture parts too, although how anyone could get through so many nails of different sizes and varying types of wire is completely beyond me. Also the need for so much packing foam, where so very very many rocks, stones and pieces of mountain could have come from, or what the various pieces of colourful broken plastic could have been. Some woman had a violent dislike of hairpins – or lost them while fighting through the foliage, as most of them are snuggling up together in the same spot. Either she or another woman had a preference for blue hair rollers. Unless the reason there are so many in the garden is because actually she couldn’t stand them. Someone else bought some colourful clothespegs, probably from Deptford, however they weren’t resilient enough to last, nor colourful enough to be retrieved once they’d fallen.
There’s evidence of a number of past bonfires – soil burnt solid, much charcoal, and a carpet which, though charred, is still horrible, and near-impossible to excavate completely. I’ve recently learned what melted glass looks like, though given the secret buried paving stones, there are much easier ways to burn stuff than past occupants seem to have realised.
I used to keep a ‘Chamber of Horrors’ of the prize finds of the day, week or month; my then flatmate would routinely throw them away within days. My memory having deteriorated to its current state, I can only remember what I’ve found in the last few weeks, if that. I’m currently trying to dig up a mound at the back – 21’ l x 3’ h x 3’ d (bathtub included) which is fast turning out to be little soil and much junk. Each shovel-load can result in five or more minutes gathering the things I don’t want contaminating my tropical garden-to-be. In the days when I used to work in Social Services, I used to mutter about ‘garden abuse’. I’ve cursed the past occupants lots, but can at least return inside with fresh information on them on a regular basis.
On the one hand, my websearches and visits to garden centres have had a sobering effect in terms of the cost of plants overall, not to mention the sheer number required to fill the 1161 square feet of bare soil (finally!) outside – and that’s after three years of depleting the local garden centres of weedkiller. Yes, a lawn would be, if grudgingly, fine, but only if you can spare the expense of a lawnmower. To own or rent a number of concrete and/or plasterboard walls is expensive enough, but with a piece of nature to call your own, the prices seem to start at expensive and simply spiral upwards from there.
On the other hand, the local council are so shit at collecting rubbish, dumping stuff in the garden is a bloody good idea.