Chris’s allotment blog

Thursday 30^th July
Twelve noon, I found the Site Office and Cheryl the manager, who was digging up some of her spuds at the time. It’s a long walk, she said, up to the plot, so off we set, passing her chicken coop on the way (how cool is that, chickens on an allotment!) The fencing was being improved by Cheryl’s partner, to try to curtail the escape activities of Houdini, the break-out specialist hen. The electric fence kept out the foxes but Houdini had developed a technique of leaping from the top of the hen house over the wire to freedom, so far avoiding falling into the hands (or mouth) of Mr Fox.

We moved on up the hill towards plot 110, or strictly, half of plot 110, as only half plots are given out these days, such is the demand. We passed neat plots of well tended veg, runner beans, tomatoes, brassicas, onions, beetroot, sunflowers, sweet peas. We turned right at the apple tree and up the grassy track just as it started to rain. Cheryl moved a pumpkin the size of a football that had grown onto the path back into it’s plot. (It had a huge brother pumpkin, the size of a space hopper)  We were in wild country now, the grass was waist-high, the brambles face height and vicious but here it was, the top half of plot 110! It was love at first sight! Obviously a challenge but it had so much going for it – a shed, some currant bushes (amidst the grass), blackberries by the bucket load…and half a plot looked quite big to me.

“I think I’ll take it” I said.

.