Monday, 25th October, 2004

So much for plans and dreams for the summer!   What a wash-out!   The few good days - well, taking the kids out camping trips on their bicycles was just a little more exciting (and there's lots of other stories to tell on that one!).

So the allotment was neglected - too few fine days to spend on taming the wilderness; but in the last couple of weeks, I've spent an afternoon scything the untamed back end - and moving boulders, window frames and assorted debris.   Nothing quite like an October afternoon for a bit of healthy exercise!

And in the last couple of days, I got back to digging - turning over the beds from which I'd skimmed the top layers of couch-grass and bramble.

And digging drainage channels - clay soil's a funny beast!   The way I'm digging long beds, with a solid clay sub-soil, means I'm getting waterlogging at the lower end of the beds I'd worked on.

Tuesday, 25th October, 2004

More digging today - into fresh soil; I'm being lazy - just turning the sods over, couch-grass and all.   I have a suspicion that the weed cover may simply be drowned?   I wonder if clay soil may be unforgiving of weeds - a small patch I'd just turned over is still weed-free.   But skimming the sods will not have been a waste of time - I've a huge heap which should decompose into beautiful compost!

It's hard, hard digging - but I love the smell of the newly turned sod.   It was warm enough today to see a couple of bumble bees and wasps; and a honey-bee got stuck in my hair - without stinging this time!

Walking back home, the football fields are covered with all sorts of mushrooms; I wish I knew enough to be able to go out and pick them.   Memories of a Russian lady I once knew in Egypt, married to an Egyptian unversity lecturer; she used to time her annual trips back to Russia to fit with the mushroom harvest --- and her mushroom pickles were something to die for!

As I type, I'm hearing the news that John Peel died this afternoon, of a heart attack, while on holiday with his wife in Peru.   Now that's bad news - he's been a part of my radio listening for years and years - ever since I graduated to a transistor radio to replace the "elderly" valve radio I'd salvaged, through the World Service while I was abroad, until I came back and rediscovered Radio 4.   Bad news indeed.

Friday, 29th October, 2004

More digging today - but the soil was just that bit wetter today; over that invisible line between "hard work", and "---- impossible!"

The photo looks south - it ain't brilliant (!), but you get the idea of SOLID brick-shaped clods, shining in the autumn sun?   There's the two long beds on the left, skimmed in the summer, now dug; and wider beds started now, down the centre, for potatoes and brassicas; the turf heap at the far end - and some idea of the weeds and brambles, yet uncleared around the trees.

Had a bit of very welcome help from the kids, tackling the "larger" weeds - taking a saw to plum-tree suckers which have triffided from the next door plot.   Our contribution to Bonfire Night next week!

Saturday, 30th October, 2004

A good bit more digging today - the soil was just workable.

Spent a good few hours - and had loads of help from Ayman.   Shifting huge great iron window-frames off the plot - right up to the other end of the site; shifting carpets onto fresh bits to cover; clearing the back end of bricks, rocks, and bits of metal rubbish (four good barrow-loads, so far - I suspect there may be the remains of a shed or greenhouse in under there somewhere).   The lad worked so hard, he fell asleep in the barrow at one point, despite the cold!

Ah, but it looks like we're winning now!