The Hill (part 1)

On first sight, at the end of January, it did not seem to be a dominant feature. The entire half plot was in such a state that this hillock in the corner at the edge of the allotment gravel path seemed insignificant. It seemed like an old heap that had been conceived as a compost heap. There were pieces of old crock and some broken tiles dotted over it, like a spotted dick pudding. There were tufts of grass and some old weed that had frozen off during the winter. The suggestion was that it was an old heap. It had not been added to for some time. Passers by said that it looked interesting. But then so did many parts of the plot in its, then, present state. Like the curates egg. Its age was added to by the effect of the corroded and rotten corrugated iron edging which was firmly embedded at the rear. An initial dig at it exposed what we had feared. The spaghetti threads of ground elder. This was a large heap of ground elder root that had been left by its creator in the belief that it would compost down into a beneficial nutrient. There were too many other items that needed attention to get started. This lump of aging root and soil would need to wait its turn. And so it was covered in a black pvc pond liner rescued from a revamped pond in the hope it would not develop anything more than the eye sore it had the potential to be.