Monday 9 May 2011

Allotment life Pt the first...

...this may be a random, every now and then thing, who knows.


Tonight, at dusk, I took my first batch of dwarf french bean plants over to the allotment. There are some quite nice people over there, but as I am basically a sociopath I very rarely talk to them. Especially Tim, who has the plot to the right of ours. I joked (a bit) about being a sociopath myself, but Tim is most definitely one of those people with the social grace of Michael Winner on speed - "calm down darling" indeed!


Last year Tim asked me how I was getting on with my job search, I said I had just started gardening and he said, looking disparagingly at my plot of barely tended ground, "What makes you think you can be a gardener?" Unfortunately at the time my 4 year old son was running towards the main road that we have to cross to get back home, so I couldn't reply as I had wanted - i e, a nice slice to his neck with my trusty hand hoe. I muttered something like, "Sorry, my son is about to be splatted by the 500 bus to Aylesbury, so can't stay..." and ran to catch aforementioned child before that very thing could happen to him.


Suffice to say, I attempt to avoid the loon at all costs. I bumped into his wife the other day and found that she is almost as lacking as Tim in the social skills - she has an Ann Widdicombe type approach, very direct and twice as ugly. She laughed when saying, "Remember how you lost all your potatoes in that late frost last year?" (The hand hoe, where's the fucking hand hoe?) I smiled through gritted teeth and carried on regardless.


...handy hoe killer...
She also said, "Fleece is the answer, fleece and mulch." "Yes," I replied, "and perhaps the BBC weatherman getting his weather report right." "Don't see you over here much these days," she carried on. "Wonder who does all the work then, d'ya think it might be the potato fairies?" I replied, acerbically. (NB: these are the actual words, I kid you not.) She did not even acknowledge the fact that I used the words fairies and potato together in one sentence. I know it's not exactly Grouch Marx, but per-lease, it was mildly amusing. "Yes," she carried on, "fleece and mulch." "Sounds like an old english hey-nonny band, you know, Morris Men and all that?" She blanked me, success! 


Hey-NONNY!
Anyway, tonight Tim was just leaving as I arrived with me dwarf french beans plants. I haven't seen him for months, well not up close as if I see him when I round the corner from our place and he's on the plot I turn round and go home - trust me, it's worth the hassle as I will kill him if I mix too much with him. He ALWAYS has to say something, ALWAYS! and this was the brief conversation:


Tim Bit late to be planting, what you got there then?


(he never says hello, just blunders straight into what ever his strange instinct brings up)


Me Never heard of the old phrase?


Tim What?


Me When 'tis half moon seen, Plant your dwarf french bean. Don't let me hold you up I can see you're off home, BYE!


'tis a true delight by the light of the silvery moon
Happy mulching...