But with no-one at home I suddenly felt a little apprehensive so turned my cart around and pretended to do something vitally important at the front of our house, trying to see whether the hoodie would turn up again and check out other houses. Of course, this was highly irregular behaviour, which instantly made the Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, who is a pensioner, lives opposite our house and has CCTV installed, suspicious. I noticed his vertical blinds twitch. I gave him a wave and pretended to scrape the weedy cracks in our crazy paving. After 15 minutes it was clear hoodie was either gorging himself on posh ice-cream in the thoroughly ransacked neighbour's house -- or simply belonged there. I'd go to the allotment. I turned around to pick up the handcart in the driveway. It was dripping. Then I heard a miaow from the front door. Mr Tubby. I hadn't seen him in days, which was unusual, and I'd already asked myself whether he'd finally been run over by one of the joyriders in our street. Now I wished he had been. He had pissed all over the handcart, marking it as his territory. That's why it was dripping. I smelt my woolly allotment jumper, ancient, holey but warm and huggy, like a tent. Yes, he'd hit that too. Thank you, Mr Tubby.
I texted OH, outraged. "Dry rations for him this week, I take it?" he texted back, probably having wetted himself as he read my text. I like to keep him entertained with my little domestic mishaps while he is away.
I thought what the heck, told Mr Tubby where he could take himself, and went off to the allotment.
The site was busy. I unloaded my cart and did a quick survey. Yep, all the brassicas had survived the night -- excellent.
One of the Old Boys, let's call him John, was also on his plot. He is one of the originals -- he likes to preface his sentences with "in all my 46 years here...". The Old Boys, all retired and in their 60s and 70s, are generally quite deaf so conversations across plots 30 to 40 yards apart are conducted via lively shouting in the local dialect. It's better than telly.
Murray (he of the pigeon scarer made up of strung-up dead pigeons), shouting across from his plot quite far away: "Waah wuh wahwah weeeh oo ah!"
John, shouting back: "What?!"
Murray: "Wah wuh wahwah weeeh oo AH!!!
John: "Yeah! Temperature dropped by 10 degrees! That's crazy weather! Worst spring we've had! Getting worse every year!"
Murray, shouting across: "Eh wuh wuh ooh?"
John, shouts back: "What?"
Murray, shouting slightly louder, but his voice is a bit reedy: "Eh wuh wuh ooh?"
John, muttering: "What's he muttering on about now?" Shouts: "I can't hear you!!" Then he starts coughing and gives up to walk across to Murray. They converse. I hear John shout "It should be one man, one allotment!" even though Murray is now standing right next to him. They're obviously conversing about allotment committee politics. I shan't get involved. Everyone knows OH is on the committee but that doesn't mean I know anything. I do, but I like to pretend otherwise.
John stalks back and sees me digging away. "Where's the Guv'nor?" he shouts at me, "Letting you do all this heavy work all on your own!"
"Visiting family this weekend," I say, "and this saves me hundreds of pounds in gym fees."
For the next hour, John stands next to the lattice and regales me with stories, of a cold wet summer spent in Cornwall once: "£50 extra for duvets, and I was freezin'. Then the wife collapses in the Eden Project. Couldn't stand the heat. Told the wife never again are we going to bloody Cornwall." Then he moves on to the topic of his adult son getting shafted by his employers who now want to take back the small pay rise they awarded him last year, effectively imposing a pay cut. "He should join a union," I say cautiously. "Yes!" John shouts, much to my relief, "I told him that! I said you're your own man now but if you don't get a union behind you in these times, you are on your own. They have all the firepower and you have nothin'." His son is my age and he sounds like one of my generation's forelock-tuggers, who only know the boom and have never really experienced a bust. His Dad's generation is not so easily fooled. I make a note to myself to bring John a little present next time, just for trying to stop his son from being such a bosslicker.
Thankfully, John moves on to a topic that makes him happier: freezers. His went bust during the ill-fated Cornwall adventure. "It switched itself to defrost, and three stones of raspberries dissolved into one huge pool at the bottom of the freezer. Then the damn thing switched itself back on -- all by itself -- while we were away -- and them raspberries fruz solid. I claimed that on the insurance and told them I coulda stuck a broomstick in it if I'da been there and made myself one massive raspberry ice lolly!" -- "Did you claim for a new freezer as well?" I asked. "Nah, it was workin', wasn't it?"
He had even less luck with washing machines. One famous British brand came in for particular ire. "Had to get a new one because the old one was on the blink. Day it was delivered, I notice it's bashed in on one side. Oi, mate, I say to the guy who delivered it, did you not see this? I ain't taking it like that -- take it away and get me one that ain't knocked. The guys take it away and come back a few days later. Washing piling up in the meantime. Brought the same bloody machine! I say to them, did you not see that the side is bashed in? What are you doing to them poor things? Give 'em a good kicking? Take it away again! So they comes back and this time, the washing powder drawer don't fit. No problem, mate, the guy says, if we just file this bit away... And I say that look like a proper botch job to me -- can you not bring one that fits? So they took that one away again. The next one was leaking from the front all the time. That bloody drawer again. Guy comes out says it's your water pressure, it's too strong. I say to him, mate, I've had at least 20 washing machines in this house and my water pressure is just fine! Then he says well if you've had 20 then maybe your water pressure isn't fine, it's too high. So they changed the water pressure. Not happy with that."
By this point I had found all the nasturtium seedlings and transferred them into a seedling tray. John didn't want to talk about faulty washing machines any more. It made him upset, he said. He'd much rather talk about faulty cars instead.
Eventually he got into his faulty car ("Clutch went! Never had a clutch go on me in my life! Silly money they wanted me to pay for a new one! Daughter-in-law found one on the internet and had that sent to me so they built that in. Was still dear but nowhere as dear as it woulda been. All them newfangled cars need a 'puter. They stick a cable into their laptop and by then you just know the first 300 quid disappear from your wallet, like that.") and headed back home to his family. I surveyed my work. Got a lot done.
Took a coffee break and sent another text to OH, just to remind him how much he missed me. Then tackled:
* the squash bed -- extended it by a third by digging into grassed-over and compacted soil. Heavy, heavy work.
* planted out the Uchiki Kuri squashes plus my courgettes
* planted out the tiny kale seedlings -- red and green I call them
* dug over the rest of the former sweetcorn bed but didn't manage to weed it yet -- the sweetcorn seedlings on the patio are nearly ready to go in but that's a job OH will want to do himself when he comes back
* tidied the shed a little and gave it some curtains. What a girly thing to do, "tidying" and hanging up "curtains" -- but I was actually quite mercenary about this: I needed to pee after 5 hours, the allotment doesn't have a portakabin and I needed some privacy.
* packed the handcart with old styrofoam and stuffed all the rubbish in a bag.
* used the weed-suppressing membrane for the central path and staked it down
* broke up an old lupin clump and planted the bits in the lattice bed
Egg Man went past again in the early evening, shouting happily. "Two eggs!!" He held them up triumphantly and I complimented him, a little enviously. "Do they taste different?" I asked. "Oh God, yes," he said. "So much richer than the supermarket stuff. Seven eggs in six days!"
"Wow!" I said, by way of congratulation.
"Exciting times!" he shouted jubilantly, and walked on.
Went home, had more of that yummy spinach-feta-yufka tart and watched German crime series until I nearly fell asleep.
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