Allotment Saturday

Our first joint allotment day in quite some time. I pile all the non-rotted branches and twigs from the garden on a tarpaulin and roll them up in a great big bundle for burning. So we pootle out with the seed potatoes, a three-pronged hoe, the giant bundle plus some lunch (hoummous, oatcakes, a 90p Lidl goats' cheese tartlet, a huge bottle of diet orangeade, kinder chocolate) in the handcart.

At this point in the year, I feel quite dejected: there is so much to do, the weeds are taking over, I'm nowhere near where I feel I need to be and I'm starting to regard OH's enthusiasm with which he tackles the corner plot next door with envy: that plot, which is even, pretty much worked already, and also more exposed and visible to passing allotmenteers, is getting all of his attention whereas our bumpy, hard-clodded, grassy, dandelion-, ground elder and bindweed-infested mess of a plot is left to me to dig over and weed and farm.

I have another go at the compost heap and take another five or so wheelbarrowfuls of soil away and spread it across my raised beds but I no longer sieve it now and instead fish out the plastic and glass by hand.

When I have done enough of that, I feel I need to do something destructive so I set fire to the brazier and quickly burn all the twiggy bits I brought. Feel a little better after that.

OH has set his potatoes and worked out where the pinot noir vines are going to go next week. To keep things even, he has measured the length of his new plot and sprayed the distance down with paint in feet.

On our way back that evening, we bump into Tomato Seedling Man, who has almost completed his plot move and regales us with tales of his fishing adventures. Apparently, carp can become so heavy that if you catch one and lay it out wrongly even if only to weigh it, its own weight will break its ribcage. He shows us a picture of a 20-kilo carp on his mobile. He is going fishing tomorrow but only to watch the competition, not to fish himself.

Cheered by this, we wander home to a dinner of leftover kale and potato and leek stew with chicken and OH is being neighbourly again, dispensing armfuls of fresh rhubarb from door to door.