Wednesday 27th April 2022, 4.30pm (day 3,898)
It’s always scary being the first one to make the break. But someone had to do it.
Making a break for it
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
Tag Archives: allotment
Eager robin
Friday 2nd April 2021, 3.05pm (day 3,508)
Robins succeed because they’ve commandeered the ecological niche entitled ‘we really don’t give a shit about those human creatures’. We turned over a pile of compost on the allotment and this fearless chap was picking it over before we’d moved five feet back. He got the best pickings — woodlice, centipedes, worms — everything else was just in his wake. Birds! Ignore the humans! Be the robin! You’ll not regret it.
Apple tree, in hibernation
Sunday 10th January 2021, 11.15am (day 3,426)
We might as well all hibernate, mightn’t we. The apple tree needed pruning, though, and deepest winter is the time to do it, according to those who know. The shot reflects the greyness of the day and the other clouds, the ones that currently separate us from each other. I feel like I’m on an extended break from the rest of humanity.
A house of doors
Thursday 12th November 2020, 9.30am (day 3,367)
Well, it’s not a house in the sense that anyone lives here — at least, not yet (wait a couple of years and this might be the only thing round here that many people can afford). Spotted on one of my random walks around the local area that are the only meaningful activity available to us right at the moment.
The pumpkin swells
Thursday 1st October 2020, 3.45pm (day 3,325)
The efforts of all those highly transient squash (or possibly pumpkin) flowers earlier in the year have resulted in precisely one pumpkin (or possibly squash) growing in house or garden. And here it is. Whether it will be big enough to carve faces in come the end of this fresh month — we will just have to wait and see…
The tree consultant
Sunday 9th August 2020, 10.15am (day 3,272)
The plum tree seriously needs pruning, and now is apparently the time…. this information being imparted by Peggy, fellow member of the allotment society and knowledgeable in these matters. Expect some documentation of the subsequent surgery, at least, once we get our pruning saw. Yes, this would be a nicer photo without the water butt, but it is what it is.
Garden fruits
Wednesday 22nd July 2020, 4.35pm (day 3,254)
Late July, a time of year when certain things are fated to happen. I have time off work and do as little as I can, and the garden begins producing fruit. Fate has done its duty with both in 2020, despite everything.
Ex-scarecrow
Monday 6th July 2020, 3.25pm (day 3,238)
The scarecrow itself is long gone. But its boots remain, like a sort of imprint, or memory. I doubt they’ll scare the birds off much. But then again, nor do scarecrows, particularly.
Ripening nicely
Saturday 13th June 2020, 3.50pm (day 3,215)
The redcurrants are getting there. Not that we get more than about two dozen of them annually, these days.
Joe heads for the hedge
Thursday 28th May 2020, 4.15pm (day 3,199)
What are we losing at the moment? There is no sport that is meaningful (meaning, played in front of spectators). I’m assuming that very little music is being performed or created; if it is, it’s not happening round me. Maybe some great novels are being born in all this crap but we won’t be seeing them for a while. There is only this endless banality, and if my blog is itself banal under lockdown, that’s the way of it. But the hedge on the allotment still needed strimming, and that’s Joe’s job.
Being 42 