Allotments aren't just for growing useful things like fruit and veg, they're places to meet people - like the old man this morning who told Gill all about the good old days when people kept pigs on their allotment - and for....
....being quiet and contemplating the deeper things in life.
One of the miracles of our allotment is that the shed, whose tongue-and-groove walls are now paper thin, is still vertical after the recent gales. Each time we leave we ritually lock it but anyone who wanted to could simply push it over and help themselves to the worthless things which we so punctiliously lock away.
The only thing that's cropping at the moment is kale but the local pigeons, having left it alone for months, have suddenly attacked it, though they generously left us enough leaves for this evening's meal.
We planted out some chard this morning, and we have broad beans, onions and garlic growing, along with a number of fruits beginning to shoot, including raspberries, strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries and the pear tree beside the shed. All the beds are now dug over ready for the other crops, though we had to buy compost as our two bins haven't yet produced anything.
There are more ladybirds around than any other insect. Although we saw a butterfly, a couple of large bumblebees, some wasps, and miscellaneous small flies, the insects aren't out in force yet. The small birds too are in short supply: a robin joined us briefly to enjoy the worms which we dug up, and a blue tit and a warbler were calling in the nearby trees.
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