Mind the pumpkin

On Monday afternoon I learnt to wield a sledgehammer, whacked the glass-encased concrete on the left hand side of the old greenhouse footing where it was already cracked, and about a third of that side came away in pieces I could lift. I took them to the dump this morning.

This afternoon, having bought myself some goggles and thick gloves, I discovered that whacking the concrete cracks it but I can't control where. First I removed half the front which liberated the bit that was hiding the lily roots on the left. Then I removed the rest of the front. It is now coming apart in pieces that I can roll but that are a bit too heavy for me to carry. The crack on the right hand side is so far down I can't lift that piece at all, though I can move it a little with the crowbar.

I realise that I should have first used an angle grinder (which I do not own) to score the whole base into smaller carryable pieces. I hope that that will still be possible once it is all in bits and that I can borrow one. Or borrow someone who likes using one.

This evening I relaxed all my muscles for two hours at the cinema across the road watching Kneecap, a fictionalised story about a real Irish-language hip-hop band playing themselves in the north of Ireland. If you're up for listening to hip-hop (great for me, having been immaculately brought up by Firstborn), go - for the humour, the seriousness, the politics, the brutality, the music, the multiple irreverences and the cascading consequences of British imperialism.