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I quite like figs. Not that they are likely to replace plums or cherries in my affections but, from time to time, as something a bit different, they're nice. They were the sort of fruit that I would buy, every now and again, in a pack of three or four, when I was in Waitrose.

We have two black fig trees in our garden and one of the smaller trees that gives green figs. They produce thousands and thousands of fruits. Being a bit lazy I'd not raked up the fallen fruit this season and the smell of rotting figs was becoming quite pungent. So yesterday I spent the better part of two hours raking up all the fallen stuff. It's not a pleasant job because the sap from the leaves and what not is a skin irritant and in grovelling around under the fig trees I always bump my head or back against one of the sturdy branches a couple of times. And scraping squashed figs from the soles of your shoes afterwards is quite time consuming and sticky too.

Nonetheless, when I'd finished and wheeled away three barrow loads of fallen fruit it looked nice and tidy. There was a bit of a breeze yesterday afternoon and when I went to re-inspect my handiwork this morning there was quite a lot of fresh fallen fruit. It took about half an hour to rake them up.

You can't really tell from the photo but that capazo thing, the rubber bucket, is about 30cms tall and about 30cms across and it just about holds the fresh fall from the two black fig trees.