And some fell on stony ground...

Sorry not to have kept you up-to-date. Truth is, things have been pretty tiring round here since Patrick arrived. For a start, he's insisting that we continue to grow things all through the winter! This time last year, when things got a bit hot, we all mutually decided we'd had enough, covered the allotment with black plastic sheeting, and enjoyed weekly chats about our drug side-effects. But this year, we are planting, planting, planting. Unfortunately, I discovered that the wonderful mag, Grow Your Own, was offering a cornucopia of cheap seeds which the committee agreed I should send off for. I think then there was a decision made, without my knowledge, that I should also plant the seeds and keep them watered...for this is what I've been left doing. As we're in the middle of a hot patch (and I'm having hot flushes on account of my HRT dose being cut!) , this has been backbreaking and time consuming work. On the home front things have been equally taxing. I wake up most mornings to find the remains of some animal or other on the living room floor, and then comes the difficult decision-making process of working out how to sweep up these remains, and, even worse, which bin to put them in. Sometimes it's just all too much, so I make a cup of coffee and go back to bed. I'm in trouble with H again as I discovered that QVC was having a Christmas in July day, during which I made a whole series of quite delightful purchases. To make matters worse, I then went on to buy some wonderful half-price jackets in their fashion outlet sale. H's argument, of course, will be that I don't really need these jackets what with the abundance of black plastic sheeting I now have going to waste. This is a man who regularly goes to Dubai and returns giftless, moaning that there's too much gold in the duty-free shop...What's a gal to do?

'Tis a Strange Wind...'

Strange goings on continue here. Last week I alerted the Council's environmental rag to my existence as ultimate upholder of all that is green and pure. The very next day my bin and associated box were not emptied. Left on the street for all to see! I'm trying to see this as just innocent coincidence, but it's hard not to be paranoid. What was wrong with my bin? Was it too heavy for the men to balance on two fingers? Perhaps the box contained an un-recyclable item. I know these are both dire offences. Am I the next British citizen to be 'outed' on the six o'clock news? It really got the wind up my tail I can tell you. This wasn't helped by the real wind that was blowing all last week around these parts. So strong it clear knocked my hat off during Royal Ascot. And I was only watching it on the tele. (It's important to do these things in style...Not QVC style, you understand, just style.). The allotment is going well. Our leader didn't turn up once again this week, so we got some work done and no-one suffered dire injury. We're cropping our broad beans, salad items and bunches of herbs. Our strawberries are so sweet and delicious they can be eaten without the need either for cream or sugar. I've cleared the area that was once under our horse manure for winter crops, and am looking forward to darling Patrick returning from his short holiday...

The final countdown

Failure. Total failure. I spent all weekend chanting 'I must be ready for Monday, I must be ready for Monday'. Sure enough I woke up at the crack of dawn, but for the life of me couldn't remember what I had to do. After some scuffling, I managed to get H up to fuel me with some coffee, but I still couldn't remember. Then there was a terrible grinding sound outside the window. The bin collectors! I screamed at H.'What are they collecting? Is it the bin or the container?' 'Both!' 'Well get our bin out...move it! 'Which bin?' It doesn't matter which bin...move a bin out towards the road!' 'Which bin?' 'Oh for Christ's sake!' 'I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE BIN!' '****!!!' 'It's too late, they've gone...' 'What do you mean they've gone?' 'They're down the road now..' 'Well follow them! Tell them to come back!' Chase them with the bin...' ' ' (The well known silent treatment). The bin wasn't emptied. Now I face a Christmas and New Year of shame. Piles of rubbish. Killer bacteria. Rat infestation. What makes it worse is that I know my bin cleaner is coming today. What is he going to say when he finds the bin still full? Oh the disgrace! Dear Readers I can only recommend another blog where this sort of thing never happens. A blog where all is grace and charm. It's at: http://www.mytinyplot.co.uk/
Sorry to have wasted so much of your time...

Almost down in the dumps

Wednesdays are always an anticlimax here, but it's worse today because I've caught a cold. This is what happens when you mix with the hoi-palloi! So why are Wednesdays such a let-down? Because the highlight of the week, bin-emptying, happens on a Tuesday in these parts. I've been surprised to hear that in other part of the country this has not developed into the passion shown it in Cambridge. The activities begin the night before when you can hear every resident carefully aligning a large bin and the correctly coloured associated plastic container on the pavement. (Failure to do this can result in non-emptying!). We used to do this on Tuesday morning, but now we've been told we must have both bins ready for inspection at 7.00 am....even if they are not emptied until three in the afternoon. At around 5.30 pm on Tuesday you can hear everyone in the street, having returned from a hard day's work, collecting their bins, rolling them back to wherever they belong, and blessing the day when all these new regulations came into place. These collection activities can be most exciting if it has been a windy day. I once found my plastic container two streets away, and most of its contents (very light, empty plastic bottles), scattered haphazardly in neighbours' front gardens. This week's bin activities were more exciting than ever, as I noticed last week that my green bin was smelling something awful. I went out to clean it, and was just about to do so, when my neighbour warned me off. Several short people like myself, she said, had tried to clean their own bins, fallen in head first, being rescued only on their way to the dump! As luck would have it, I found an ad for a bin-cleaning service attached to the bin yesterday, so now I have signed up for a monthly, professional clean. I must say the errr...newcomers to the area round here are really finding those niche markets...