Hot weather and another barbecue

Last night we had yet another barbecue in the garden. The fourth of this year if I am correct, which is pretty good going before the end of May. I enjoyed sitting in the (mercifully) slightly cooling air as we munched our veg and non-veg sausages. It was so warm that there was no need to go inside and we sat chatting in the garden for ages. There’s something lovely about a barbecue. It’s a family tradition that started with my parents, who had various barbecues in the 1970s including a marvellous little terracotta one. My Aunt Hilary gave us a lovely red and black barbecue as a wedding present in 1985, which was a really novel idea among all the more sensible (although very much appreciated) presents, and it was well used in the wee garden of our “four-in-a-block” in Burnside (described more poshly by the estate agent as a “quarter-villa”)
Our first barbecue has long since rusted away but the tradition has continued. We have a large barbecue with wheels at one end, which is kept handily in the shed (not my shed of loveliness, the more utilitarian shed at the side of the house). We also use a wee portable barbecue that we can take to the beach or on holiday. Memorably, we have used public barbecues on holiday, in Australia, and once beside Kettle Lake in western Canada, with all the boys. So it all brings back great memories which more than make up for the often rather charred quality of the food!
After dinner, Ally and Davie turned their attention to the stump of our fallen plum tree, which James proposed to leave for the time being because it had broken off at ground level. However the boys were concerned that as it rots it could cause a dangerous hole to form under the grass, so out came the axe and a spade and they set to it with great enthusiasm. They really are strong, fit young men, and after much digging and wood splitting the remaining part of the tree trunk was removed in several pieces. Of course the roots are still under there but they will be absorbed back into the soil in time. Ally and Davie then filled in the hole with soil and packed it down. You can hardly tell that there was ever a tree there at all, which left me feeling slightly wistful. Où sont les plum trees d’antan?