Another raised bed, more pumpkins in

Dragged OH out to the plot tonight after work for another spot of "making our plot look good". OH plants the pumpkins Musque de Provence, then does some light weeding while I'm battling with soft nails and knotty wood trying to hammer together another raised bed. As soon as the chairman of the allotment committee wanders past, OH is gone for a chat -- there's a committee meeting very soon and one important item will be whether or not we will have our own internal allotment show or competition: The Fattest Bean, The Longest Courgette, The Rudest-Looking Carrot.

OH and the chairman end up standing at the entrance to our plot, watching me make a total tit of myself trying to get another 10-plank raised bed dug in and lined up properly. Eventually the chairman takes himself away to mow his lawn, not without dropping a pointed remark about our grass growth. OH tells me the chairman had been on his naughty-letters round around the allotment site.

"Naughty letters?" I ask.

"The ones that tell plotholders off for not keeping their plot free of weeds."

"Oh," I say, "and we got away with ours?" There are three chest-high thistles with leaves looking as if they're studded with barb wire, about to flower right next to our water butt. And the back of our plot is completely overgrown with nettles, ground elder and, again, thistles. It looks a right mess.

"Are we going to get a letter then?" I ask, anxiously.

"Nah," OH replies, "I told him we're taking the genny and the strimmer down at the weekend and that we're getting on top of it."

"Thank God he saw us down the plot tonight then," I say, with some relief. If he hadn't, we'd have suffered the utter embarrassment of having the chairman tell off another committee member for not getting his s*** together.

Speaking of which: OH connected up the generator and ran it with some electrical equipment a few days ago and while the thing is incredibly loud, it is also working as it should. Thistles, you are so busted.