Plot Holes

I'm rubbish

2007-06-23T21:20:00.000+01:00

Dragged Best Friend up to plot today ("Come for a day in Cambridge! We'll do lovely outdoors things. The Backs? Well, the back of somewhere.") I'm rubbish. My garlic and onions have bolted, slugs are devouring the runner beans, accidentally planted dwarf beans around my bean pole pyramid, so will now have to replace them, and my lawn is four foot tall.

On the upside, fed Best Friend raspberries, strawberries, raw peas, raw broad beans, redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries. Then went to see my friends' plot, which is what mine should have looked like, and discovered a public cherry tree that we foraged from (looked like monkeys). So I may be rubbish, but BF thinks I'm great.

Not exactly produce...

2007-06-06T16:15:00.000+01:00

...as one would have to have proof that one had produced the produce and used it for a meal. Whereas what happened is that I went up to the allotment on Sunday for a couple of hours and ate strawberries until I felt sick.

Am now attempting to replicate my achievement with strawberry flavoured mushroom shaped pick and mix, which I think may contain cocaine as there's no other explanation for my inability to stop scarfing them. I'm a pig.

At last! But not exactly well laid out.

2007-05-29T22:37:00.000+01:00

Many many photos (okay, four) of exactly the same thing. In the foreground, earth moving, for the planting of potatoes and of asparagus. In the background, shent. In the middle, leeks. Oh, and a wheelbarrow that doesn't belong to me.

Note the attractive arrangement of black plastic with stupid holes cut in it, and in the lower right hand corner of the picture, the Big French Tool.

A close up on some leeks here, with my daft red coat hanging off a bush.

My particular favourite here, focusing in on a pile of discarded perennial roots. If you want to use this in Couch Grass Quarterly, please apply for rights.

Lack of achievement

2007-05-29T22:05:00.000+01:00

I have achieved nothing, except to cover the table in the spare room with tomato plants (can no longer remember if I remembered to label them) and chilli plants that I should have potted on four weeks ago, hence not leaving them the time to grow to full maturity and thus entirely negating the purpose of planting them. It's been one of those months. Should I achieve anything, anything at all, even vaguely related to the allotment, I'll post it here immediately. I might even upload a photo if bloody Blogger will bloody let me.

And no, it won't. Gah.

Glub. Glub. Glub.

2007-05-28T20:53:00.000+01:00

It has been raining for ninety three million years and I've forgotten where my allotment is. I managed to plant some runner beans in the sucking mud last week and will have to swim up after work this week and see if the plot is still there. Only I can't, because I've taken on some freelance work that I've left till the very last minute and will have to do after work on Tuesday and Wednesday, then on Thursday I have to travel to the joy that is Luton in order to get up at ouch o'clock on Friday to clean out lemur cages, which, would you believe it, was my Christmas present from the Eejit. Then on Saturday I'm working the beer tent at Strawberry Fair which is the worst day of my year and I never, ever, can remember why I say yes every year. So I'm praying for rain. Which makes no sense at all.

Apologies for the brief hiatus...

2007-04-29T22:07:00.000+01:00

...and here is proof that I haven't been completely hopeless and spent the whole of the last year reading hecklerspray and counting down to Eurovision (only around 20%).

Or at least there would be proof but Blogger won't let me upload any photos. So you'll have to take my word for it. Imagine, if you will, the end result of all that lovely manure: All rotted down and full of worms. So I've spent the last month digging trenches and putting manure in them to plant spuds. Gentle reader: Never, ever, shovel manure wearing sandals.

Let that be the lesson for today.

Pixies and plans

2006-04-04T11:11:00.000+01:00

God, has it been that long? In my defence I've actually been at the plot! No sign of eejits next door, though Mysterious Markers have appeared that leave me no possible conclusion other than a secret army of pixies have been recruited to plant things at 5am when nobody's looking. Or someone turned up one evening in the week and bunged some shallots in so that they could spend the weekend in the pub. But that's far less likely.

I have: Dug and raked and planted 3 types of leeks and 2 types of spring onions, all of which have failed to sprung.

Killed my sweet peas.

Had help! K from across the road, veteran of many a shared gin-soaked evening, gave up his afternoon in the Grapes to spend his hangover digging with me. He dug lots, I dug less. I was very pleased and grateful.

Discovered that K (a) is a big fat girl who couldn't get out of bed the next day because, I quote, his "spine is broken"; (b) is still at the denial stage of root removal as I was last year - i.e. if it isn't a foot long it isn't really there; (c) that it's catching. I really couldn't be arsed to properly go over the entire bed-and-a-half that K had dug, so dug a couple of trenches, shoved some new potatoes in, and made vague promises to myself about sifting the soil as I earth up. Yeah, right.

Dug another bed, also rather half arsedly, and slung some hardy peas in there. Doubt they'll even germinate, but it gave me a sense of achievement, and I have got another 4 varieties at home.

Dug out path on what eventually will be my brassica seedbed. Gave up. Dug out a few bramble roots. Gave up. Began compost heap and turf stack. You know what's coming. Refuse to feel bad about all the giving up, as at least I was there and did a bit. Two hours each day for four days is better in a way than eight hours over two, because at least I can move in the morning. Wonder if K will be up for more digging at the weekend? Will put him on bramble duty, hee hee.

Shent is really threatening the Mary Poppins thing in all the high winds. (Ceratonia - remember her umbrella? Afraid I'm going to go into the shed for shelter and land in a London street full of chirpy chimney sweeps). Can't do bugger all about it though.

Drew up complicated rotation plan for crops on allotment that would allow me to harvest year-round and try out all the seeds I have including the odd experimental ones. Went to plot. Realised plot half the size of the plot in my head that I've planned for. Oop. Alliums (i.e. onions, garlic, leeks) taking up far more than the 1/4 plot I've allowed for them because they were more or less all I could plant through the winter. Hmmm...

Pile of Shite

2006-03-21T22:28:00.000Z

Yes, I know I've been lax about updating but for the love of God what can anyone say about digging? You dig, you stop for a fag. You dig. You notice that it's been snowing for ten minutes and you're the only person on site. You say to yourself, ah to hell with it, another half an hour won't hurt.

Actually it was worth it last Saturday as the manure man cometh. He is a tiny chimpanzee in a checked shirt and a marked fen accent, and he approached me because I was the only one on site. (Digression - this reminds me of They Think It's All Over's description of Wayne Rooney: "It's as if someone shaved a monkey and kicked it through a sports shop".

Anyhoo, as of this Sunday just gone I am the proud possessor of a great big steaming pile of horse shite. As I was shovelling it onto a tarpaulin my landlord turned up along with one of the eejits and god love him the lovely Irish eejit gave me a hand. The landlord was also attempting to volunteer, despite gout, a bad back and a lack of forks, because apparently he used to win prizes for the neatness of his mounds back in the day. The things you find out about people.

Covered manure with tarpaulin. Also replaced tarpaulin on shent as it was having a whole Mary Poppins thing going on. Went home, stripped off in front of washing machine and dived into bath. Still hurt two days later. Weather forecast predicts nice mild rainy weather. We're doomed! We're all doomed.

2006-03-06T11:50:00.000Z

Saturday. Dug another food trench, planted broad beans in bog rolls and sweet peas. Then thought 'I'll attack the really difficult bit with the solid clumps of weed root, that'll be fun'. Five hours later I'd cleared six foot by two.

Sunday. Couldn't get out of bed. D'oh.

Still, only 20 days till the clocks go back, and I can do this every day. Yay!

Food trenches

2006-02-27T22:27:00.000Z

This post is actually a week late because last week my thumbs hurt too much from digging to type. Eight hours over two days. Even the memory hurts.

This last weekend I buggered off to Sheffield for the weekend and grinned happily as the weather raged at us because it meant that even if I'd been home I couldn't have gone up to the plot. It's strange how your priorities change. No news on eejits next door as I haven't been to the pub yet (that particular pub - don't be daft).

Have repotted tomatoes, which are looking very healthy, and given one to my dad, who is looking very scared, as is the tomato. Sweet peas have appeared and seem to be growing an inch a day, which I don't think is right. Going to have to get them out fairly sharpish. Dug food trench for broad beans so I could put them next to that (no sign of broad beans at all. Bugger).

Nb: Food trench: Dig bed. Get rid of weeds. Rake bed flat. Dig trench. Think 'that was a waste of time'. Stick kitchen waste that has been lurking in flat for six weeks at bottom of trench. Gag from smell. Cover over with compost. Consider burying kitchen caddy rather than putting it back in rucksack to take home. Consider burying self rather than putting rucksack on bike and cycling home. Cover compost with soil. Go home. Head to bed. Do u-turn, take shower. Go to bed.

Potato Day and Chimpanzee Gardening

2006-02-12T13:38:00.000Z

Potato Day.

Suffolk doesn't agree with me. From the moment I got up on Saturday morning with an outrageous hangover (see previous posts about new job round the corner from House of Danger) the odds of getting to Stonham Aspal were lengthening. None of the eejits from next door could be reached, my eejit wouldn't get out of bed and then had to work, but the monumental guilt that accompanies my hangovers drove me to the bus stop, then the train station. Imagined in my innocence that one could probably get a bus to Stonham Barns, given that it houses the East Anglian Showgrounds. Indeed one can. On Thursdays.

Two taxi rides and a cold hour-long wait on the platform at Stowmarket station later, I am the proud possessor of sixty seed potatoes. Taxi driver loved that. Ten different varieties. Got home just as it got dark. Woke up this morning, bucketing down. So I have potatoes, but nothing dug on the allotment. Am going to spend rest of afternoon caring for my potatoes, making little homes for them in egg boxes, and praying that eejits and nice man off A4A will take some of them or I'm going to be planting the bloody things in public parks. Not guerilla gardening so much as chimpanzee gardening. Ah well.

Parsnips still a no-show. Accidentally thinned all but two giant cauliflower beanstalks by trying to carefully snip off weakest seedlings first thing in the morning. Oop.

Parsnips and the Russian Front

2006-02-07T19:47:00.000Z

I have dug half of the bed in which my broad beans will eventually rest, should I ever get round to actually planting them in the toilet rolls currently making my bathroom look like the set from Blue Peter. When I say dug, I mean that I managed to hoik out some of the massed ranks of perennials, but like the bloody Russian front there's more of them than of me and it's winter. (Cue visions of fending off the red hordes with a pair of my mother's secateurs). Could not face returning on Sunday to do the rest of it. Covered stuff with black plastic and decided that what the eye can't see the mind will shortly be distracted from with visions of dancing juniper berries.

On the up side, my grandfather's three-legged table (it had four legs until I came into possession of it) is now languishing under the leggiest seedlings since the little-known Miss Six-Foot Swedish Seedling competition. The tomatoes aren't too bad, but the cauliflowers appear to have taken the story of Jack and the Cauliflower Stalk a little too much to heart (What? Prince Charles talks to his plants. So I have no life?). The basil, which I thought was hard to germinate, appears to be planning to take over the world, while the parsnips are sitting with their little seedy arms folded saying "I told you we wouldn't germinate, you and your daft newspaper pots".

I should get out more.

Just started new temping job which starts at some ungodly hour of the morning but, hurrah, finishes at five and apparently at four on Fridays. Which is almost like being given an extra day. The cunning plan is to leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a tightly coiled spring, bound onto my bicycle, pedal furiously to the plot and enjoy the lengthening evenings (oh, all right, afternoons).

But. (There's always a but). The new job is precisely 27 seconds walk from door to door from the home of a friend of mine, who also gets up early and finishes early and who has a penchant for the odd after-work gin and tonic. I've been good, I've tried to protect myself, I haven't answered his texts for ages and I haven't told him where I'm working, but you know what's going to happen. I will leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a lethargic chimpanzee, bound onto my bicycle, fall off my bicycle, swear at my bicycle, realise said bicycle has two flat tyres (each of which has an inner tube of a different era so you need two separate pumps, neither of which I carry to work), one handlebar, and three gears of which only the top is deciding to function. Remember said bicycle also makes a noise like a wounded Spitfire. Think 'sod this, I'm covered in oil and wearing a brand new suit, where could I possibly wash my hands?'. This is not a plan, you understand, just a case of 'know thine enemy', which in my case is inevitably me.

And the damned parsnips, of course. Driving me to gin. Mutter mutter growl growl twitch.

Ye Gods this hurts...

2006-01-31T18:56:00.000Z

How not to approach preparing your allotment for spring planting:

1. Make sure that five energetic blokes are digging and clearing the plot next to you. This will make you feel jealous, motivated and deeply guilty at the same time. Make sure if possible that you also have someone working on the plot on the other side with a big French tool and that all other plots on the site as far as the eye can see were double dug in Autumn.

2. Don't undertake any physical activity for anything up to fifteen years. Don't even run for the bus. Get someone to hold cups of tea to your mouth if possible.

3. Instead of doing an hour at a time, like the five energetic blokes on the plot next to you who are running a sort of shift system, try to stay up at the plot for as long as there's anyone else there.

4. If you can, use a big French tool that you are relatively unfamiliar with, weighs a considerable amount, and causes you to use muscles in your arms, hands, shoulders and back that are almost entirely undeveloped in human beings that don't belong to the Eastern European Shotput and Hammer Federation.

5. Occasionally transfer to a fork, spade, and grass hook to ensure no muscle group misses its punishment.

6. Get up on Sunday and do it again.

7. Then go to work in a kitchen.

End result: (a) Very little actually cleared because it's too damned cold to stick your bare hands in the soil to get the perennial roots; (b) it looks even worse because the buggers on the other plot (including an archaeologist, natch, and an Australian who grew up on a farm, double natch) have done so much more than you; (c) your hands hurt when you try to grip a pen.

8. Get drunk. It's the only way forward. You know it. I know it. Gin solves everything.

Beer Garden

2006-01-17T00:02:00.000Z

So the boys from the pub have taken the plot next to mine - the Champion of the Thames PH finally has a beer garden, albeit 20 minutes bike ride from the actual pub. This is going to be fun. Roughly two of them have gardening knowledge and experience. There seem to be up to ten people involved, and a Jack Russell. I won't seem so stupid! And I might finally get the damn shed fixed.

Managed to break neighbour's fork handle hoiking out bramble stumps (cleared about 1 sq metre. There's just 35 sq metres to go. Wheee!) and had to leave very contrite note, written, of course, in bloody fountain pen as that was all I had and so will be blue blob by the time he reads it. Bought plastic handled piece of crap for a fiver from Lottie store. However, caught lucky break as neighbour was passing the Live and Let Live PH on Sunday night as I was leaving after finishing work (and heading to the Champ to drink gin, yes, obviously). Found out his name! Very excited but I'm not going to share it with you as he is still My Neighbour With The Big French Tool to me.

Planted stuff in newspaper pots. Updates as soon as nothing whatsoever happens.

Big French Tool

2006-01-14T21:19:00.000Z

I got my hands on a big French tool! And bloody useful it was as well. It's like a six pronged garden fork, bent at a right angle, with a huge long handle, so you sort of sling it at the ground, then stand it on end and wiggle it, and it just clears the ground for you. So much faster than forking it over. Still will have to do the whole forking forking bit (hee. Did you spot what I did there?) but it doesn't look nearly as bad now. Well, at least the bits of earth that you can see through the mat of perennial roots. Weedfest.

And I found potatoes! Don't know if I mentioned that all my spuds went belly up, but they did. One week there were plants, the next stalks, then just couch grass. It looked like ten tiny grassy graves. Of varying heights, as that was my stupid triangular bed experiment. Sort of like the seven dwarves had various industrial accidents. Anyhoo, I was forking one of them over and found tiny dinky spuds in the earth - only a couple of handfuls, but enough for dinner with a few leeks. And half a cow that I accidentally bought in the Grafton centre when picking up a wheelbarrow. I got one of those canvas jobbies, the EasyWheel Lite or some such arse, on the grounds that a) I'd be able to get it up to the plot and b) it was cheap (£40 from Argos). Lite my backside. Still, it's supposed to be able to take 70kg, which is more than the weight of a dead dwarf, so fair enough really. Won't half feel daft on the bus, mind. (No it won't fit on the bike. I'm not even trying. Don't be silly).

And the pub mob is arriving tomorrow to look at the neighbouring plot. Even the landlord (also my landlord) who has grown nothing but toenails in his life and wouldn't know a growing plant if you stapled it to his head. Oh, dear God, what have I done...

How Sad Am I?

2006-01-11T12:14:00.000Z

Spent Monday night making pots out of old newspapers. http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/. How sad am I? Then realised I only had enough compost left to fill one of them, so they're sitting in the kitchen as a testament to my pitiful social life. Sent off heritage seeds order and accidentally ordered more stuff from Seeds of Italy http://www.seedsofitaly.sagenet.co.uk/default.htm although luckily read through order first as many of their packets can contain up to 10,000 seeds which is a bit over the top even by my "must order thousands of seeds that I will never plant" standards. So east Cambridge is looking good in case of famine as well. Yay!

Also found elderly seed sprouter belonging to mother with instructions in German, so if the worst comes to the worst I can eat the damned things in a very Teutonic and efficent manner.

Christmas is finally over...

2006-01-09T20:18:00.000Z

...and I have absolutely no excuse for not going to the allotment. Or for not writing this blog. Damnation. Went up to collect seed order on Sunday, which was rather embarrassing, as I have enough seeds to feed north Cambridge should I actually manage to get any of them to work. Work, grow, you know what I mean. Astonishingly, found that hurriedly-shoved garlic and onions were actually starting to sprout! Green stuff! I'm growing something!

Pulled a leekling that looked most like a leek and took it home to eat. Very proud moment. Followed by several very gritty moments as I hadn't washed it properly. Glad now that I didn't put manure on that bed. Not that I have any manure, but the principle holds.

Sunday evening after work (I try to kill people with my cooking a couple of times a week- it has actually succeeded once, but that's another story that I probably shouldn't publish) I wandered down to my local. Think I might have mentioned that my neighbour who has a large french tool (really) and the guy across from me who is on the committee both occasionally drink in my local, even though it's not actually local to any of us, as they are actually neighbours. That wasn't one of my better-constructed sentences. That was a shent of a sentence. Anyway, it turns out that a group of the lurking regulars had conferred over Christmas and the idea is being bandied about of getting a pub allotment. So I mentioned that the one next to me (it used to be a double plot) was free and already had fruit trees, bushes, growy stuff etc.

My cunning plan is that the boys (ha!) will take on the plot and I will have a constant supply of conversation, labour and probably beer. Cunning, no? So will press the issue and possibly execute a fait accompli by taking the plot for the outrageous twenty quid involved and presenting them with the title. Though that may not be quite such a good plan as I'm likely to end up with twice as much utterly unmanageable land to grow slugs in. Still, it could be fun?

Came home after work tonight and filled in my heritage seeds order form just in case I have to feed southern Cambridge as well. Hope they like slug stew.

Shent

2005-11-25T16:48:00.000Z

Yes, blog has been moribund, but then, so have I. Too damned cold to do a damned thing and all I've managed for weeks is to dig stuff and shove in some garlic and onions. Spuds have been destroyed by slugs and frost has probably killed off what's left.

On the upside the halfashed is now temporarily roofed with a tarpaulin and some milk bottles filled with stagnant water from the elderly water butts. So now it's half shed, half tent. A shent, if you will.

Christmas comes early

2005-10-05T10:48:00.000+01:00

Yay! Onion sets! Haven't a bed prepared for them, but will have to do so now or they'll go to waste. Also Nemaslug, which has to be used by end of October - wasn't going to bother but I'll have to now or they'll go to waste.

Slightly confused, however, as have two parcels which have been at post office since Saturday and which I assumed were onion sets and Nemaslug. Hmm.

Nemaslug, incidentally, is weird powdery stuff that apparently contains thousands of tiny tiny nematodes that are absorbed by slugs and then kill them. Moo haa haa haa....

2005-09-27T15:14:00.000+01:00

Finally finished amazing weedy seedy shady bed. I can't believe now that I was ever moaning about weeds before. This bloody thing wasn't just weedy, it was a perennial weed convention. The only things missing were the alcohol and the nametags. How does an eight foot root get in a six foot by four foot bed? And that was where I was so carefully nursing my seedlings (bindweed). No wonder the poor little sods didn't grow. Well, the bindweed did.

Realised three quarters of the way through that half what I was pulling out belonged to the apple tree. Not enjoying creaking noises from above.

Have begun another bed, for hunions, which are languishing at the post office because I was too hungover, again, to go and get my bike this morning. Stayed up late drinking beer and looking at cactus photos. Honest to god. This bed is also incredibly weedy which I don't really understand as the others I've dug have been OK. Or maybe I was weedblind? And now I can see them, like the way people say that if you're trying for a kid everyone's pregnant. Not my best analogy.

Pulled a bit of plastic off to rough dig another bed and there is nothing on it but bindweed. How? Not another weed to be seen. And yet the bits I've left uncovered have hardly any bindweed; mostly what I'm fervently praying is the rye grass I sowed. I can't imagine it's been crowded out; judging by these last two beds it's a bloody miracle anthing else gets a look in. Apart from the crouch, of course, with which my paths are riddled. Note good grammar. I am proud of my small successes.

Should go up tonight but it's just beginning to rain. Yay! Crap TV and Horlicks for me.

Another photo! (singular, again, I'm not pushing my luck)

2005-09-23T19:19:00.000+01:00

Yay! A second photo. My plot, before I did anything daft to it, like attempt to grow something. Halfashed at end, note artistic positioning of clouds. Good, innit?

Actually what it is is bloody huge. Will try to remember to take camera up tomorrow to show evidence of attempts to grow stuff and the way the black plastic sheeting accentuates the vast swathes of weeds that I now have growing in what would be the foreground of this picture.

Photo! (singular)

2005-09-23T18:48:00.000+01:00

Finally some photos! This is the before picture of the brambles, complete with halfashed. Impressive, isn't it? I think it's a testament to my hurricane-sized ignorance that this seemed like the perfect plot to me. La-di-da, hello brambles, hello sky, I can't really see you lalala, you're actually a lawn with a pond and some cast-iron furniture, tra-la-la.

Ok, one photo. But it's a start. I never suggested that I was any better at blogging than I am at gardening.

Well, it looks better than it did

2005-09-20T17:33:00.000+01:00

Now have two beds netted. However, should a sparrow with half a brain venture along, he need just lean gently against it to either bring the whole lot down, or bounce close enough to my three cauliflowerlings that remain to scarf the lot.

I say three; of course I haven't gone up tonight yet. Am expecting Slugstock 2005; mud and excess and general celebration from all except the great big fascist Man, which would be me of course. Am going to take Nixon-era steps and consider outright warfare against these long-haired layabouts (add the hair yourselves, use your imagination).

Should perhaps bring you up to date on a couple of bullet points I threw at the blog a week or so ago. Remember weedy seedy shady bed? Where I was carefully nurturing spinach, cress and rocket?

Nuh-uh. Bindweed.

Ahem. Moving swiftly on. Have liberated garden fork from uncultivated next door allotment BUT with permission! Ah hah hah hah! Turns out bloke who rents it drinks in my local; one of the boys on the committee is his neighbour, happened to be out for a drink with him the evening after I'd asked if the plot was rented, and of all the bars they could have walked into, they had to walk into the one with the best and cheapest gin and tonics and hence me. Bargain.

Must go, want to spend money at Homebase because I can.

Of cabbages and things

2005-09-19T13:50:00.000+01:00

How not to prepare brassicas for overwintering:

(i) Make sure you're not in when the Dobies plug plants arrive, so the friendly helpful people in the bookies downstairs take them in for you and keep them for a couple of days until they see you.

(ii) Upon eventual receipt of plug plants, leave them sitting in box for two days because work's really busy and you keep turning up late and thus staying late. Notice on Thursday evening that the box says 'Open Immediately'. Bugger.

(iii) Open box.

(iv) At least 24 hours after (iii), try to close box in order to shove into rucksack. Turn it sideways so it fits. Ish. Take plants up to plot. Realise that, at most, you have enough beds prepared for two-fifths of plug plants. Also notice that they're turning yellow. Muse aloud that yellow is probably not the colour they ought to be. Get strange looks.

(v) Spend the whole of Saturday digging frantically and trying to hoik out perennial roots. Make sure you don't allow enough time for this, as there's nothing like a half-arsed job to ensure that you get to repeat it all ad nauseum on a weekly basis. Shove plug plants in. Take care to plant them in such a way that any future rotations of vegetables will require the advice of a chess grandmaster. Fill shoes full of mud (not necessary, but you do get bonus points).

(vi) Return Sunday, much later than planned, to find plants already nibbled, yellowing, and in some cases broken off at stems. Decide, with no time nor forward planning, to string netting across cauliflowerlings to protect them. Choose piece of netting that's far too small. End up with layer of netting just the right size for birds to rest themselves while leaning through holes and helping themselves. Run out of time so that'll have to do. Trip over netting, fall in mud, narrowly missing leeklings. Curse (this should be taking place at regular intervals). Trip over bike, causing chain to come off and necessitating a light covering of bicycle oil to go with mud. Curse some more. Cycle home like lunatic to get washed and changed for work.

On the upside my spuds have finally come up. Things seem to grow as long as I leave them the hell alone. Odd.

Recovery

2005-09-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

Am in long, slow recovery from week of debauchery. What I need is soothing embrace of couch grass and bindweed to remind me that actually, by comparison, hangovers are my friends. Will get round to posting photos tonight, honest, guv.