Thorny!

I tackled two brambles on the spare chicken plot in the morning. They were huge brutes! Long arching branches radiating from the centre, reaching out like tentacles. On pulling them where they touched the ground I discovered they had run beneath the overgrown grass for over 5 foot before rooting. I wonder what makes them stop running and start rooting? There is a wonderful video of brambles growing here, they can grow 3 inches a day! Well I tackled the brutes and emerged relatively scratch free the victor!
So chuffed at my clearing I then tackled the rose in my front garden - a brute of equal proportions with even nastier thorns and overgrown with honeysuckle. It has delicious yellow flowers but its growth pattern is like the bramble - long stems that reach for the sunlight which happens to be shining from my neighbours side - one stem had grown up his wall, through the back of his drainpipe then up my wall! I emerged the victor again but not without battle scars - one thorn caught me so badly that it reminded me of a photograph of a Okipa ceremony. When I was doing research before getting my tattoo many years ago I found a book called Modern Primitives which explored body modification,  it's origin and purpose in primitive practises such as tattooing, scarification and and piercings. The first page was a full photograph of a young man undergoing The Okipa Ceremony - the skin pulled away from the body by flesh hooks. Ouch! 
No blip of my flesh hook but instead the dried flowers from last summer in front of a fire in the evening! I kept them as they were pretty and I thought they might provide an EB in the winter months!  Nearly time to start sowing the seeds for this summers display!