So many things were happening in my life, and none of them really to my advantage, or my disadvantage. I had my hands full with the baby Emil, who actually was a toddler now, and since he started to walk, he had to be under constant observation. My place was definitely not toddler proof, as the small stream running past my front door could be a hazard to his life if he should fall into it.
Berty, his nanny, was not the liveliest of beings, and he kept on running away from her. She was usually so busy watching a television programme that she hardly noticed that he was away, and sometimes very surprised when I took him back. I spoke to Jan about it, as I was not at all happy with her sense of duty.
But it was so cute when the white haired Emil came wobbling over the grass and stones, his face screwed up in concentration not to fall, as it took some doing for those short bendy legs to stay upright. He knew exactly where the cookie bin was, and would walk straight towards it, with a huge grin, stating shortly and sweetly that he wanted 'mum'. Mum in Danish means food, and everything going into his little tummy was called 'mum'.
I however had a bit more time for my garden and house now, and had started to clear away all the weeds, and specially the kikuju grass. The grass had terrible roots, coiling up deep underground, and  to get it out was not a job for the weak or the timid. But as it took a day to dig out a span of about two meters, and my garden part almost a quarter of a hectare, I was soon beaten, and just had not the strenght to carry on.
So I decided to spray the grass with a weed killer that Jan said only stayed poisonous for forty eight hours, and did not harm the insects. For my part I wished it did kill the undesireable animals, not all, but the bally moles that was reeking havoc everywhere, and the grasshoppers that chewed lustily on my cabbages and other greens.The weed killer, called round-up, did indeed kill off the grass, but the the roots were so tough that I still could not get it out.
Therefor I decided to burn the dead grass, hopeful that the heat would also kill the roots, or at least turn it to ashes.
BIG mistake! As it was not a huge part of the garden that I wanted to burn, I filled the gieter (watering can) with water to douce the flames if it tried to run over into the rest of the place! But my little gieter with water was not up to the inferno that rocked up the moment I put a match to the first clump, as the flames just shot up, about a meter into the sky, and I ran like something demented to try and kill the flames! But emptying the contents of my watering can over the flames was like a raindrop in a dam, and as the irrigation water-outlet was too far, I was running between the kitchen and the fire, my face burning, and my eyes streaming from the smoke.
Luckily for me there was some green grass on the other side of the fence, that weakened the flames, and I managed to put the fire out!
But my beautiful shrubs and other things were all burned badly, and I cursed myself for a stupid woman!
I was actually very lucky, as my fields were dry, and so was the surrounding area, and it could have been very bad if it got out of hand and into the mountains!