Ass of Spades

Yesterday evening we were so completely crumbled by the unloading, assempling, disassembling of the Shuttles not to mention the manhandling of the things into the worksop that we were not up to any cooking more complicated than hot dogs, but since the evening was sweet and the light wonderful we decided to cook outside in the meadow, on the firebox.

We had a plan to place to box on the grass this time, to test the impact of the thing on a living carpet and I set out to diligently cut a little rectangle in the turf (well, in the coarse grass, rather) where to place the box. Eric designated that this should be done with the foldable spade he got two days ago together with the Shuttles and that I did.

Now. I am not a soldier, not an outdoor expert, I am a gardener, so I guess I am biased here. Gardeners are after all an eminently sensible bunch of people on the whole. We know about digging the ground and came up with the best solutions for it. I realize that packing a full size spade for a camping excursion may not be practical. But. I don't know what the inventor of this thing was thinking when he (I am certain it was a he) invented the thing. There are some sophisticated mechanics involved in this, so I suppose that some kind of thinking was indeed sloshing arount in the bildge of his brains. But this thinking had nothing to do with digging. Only an opinion, mind. Well, Lets say that I manage to scratch away a couple of cm of top soil and peel back the grass, all the time grumbling to myself about the wonderful array of razor sharp spades in my porch, the three different digging forks and the heavy hoe I recently endowed with a new handle. It was a frustrating feeling that I never felt when cooking on the firebox just out of my well furnished kitchen. Teaches you the difference between ingenious, efficient simplicity, and ridicoulous gadgets.

I am not saying that the foldable spade is utterly useless. I am just saying that the common garden trowel, a modest, ubiquitous item with no bigger ambition than serving its purpose, a thing designed not for hard muscled survival experts but for any housewife with a windowbox, will give you the same service with less hassle.

The hot dogs were very nice. Spring onions finely cut and mixed with a little creme fraiche are the best thing for hot dogs, together with sweet mustard.

I have a foldable spade for sale. Really good occasion.