Pre-Chicago, pre - rain, pre illness, David and I paid a visit to the allotment yesterday. He picked blackberries whilst I shifted scrap metal, tubing and mildewed wood from the back of the plot. The weather couldn't make up its mind - alternating between grizzled drizzle and full beams of sunlight. The bottom of the plot looks like a royal tip now, heaped bin bags and corrugated tin looking like a floe of junk. What purpose did this rubbish serve to Ian? I'm eager to shed this skin and to let loose the full potential of the space we have been given. However, if there's one thing I've learned in the past month, purely from the allotment and our garden, it's the value of patience, the understanding that it's alright to S.L.O.W down - that it's a necessity even. Kate and Jake know this better than me, as in my haste I would napalm all the blackberry bushes just because they're so meaty and encroaching. In their own way they have a prickly, ramshackle beauty. I just want to cut them back as they're weighing down a burgeoning apple tree. All in good time.
Once the junk had been shifted, and David had left with a tub full of rubus fruticosus, I felt a bit listless. Started raking back some more of the dead grass, bagging up errant cans and pulling up carpet / tarpaulin. That was one of the only good things Ian had done - left a layer down to stop grass and weed growth - albeit in small patches. This will stand us in better stead once it comes to digging over the ground, post glyphosate and what not.
Back on the allotment on Tuesday, when I will hopefully feel better. Fresh air's supposed to be good for you, not make you feel like a bag of meal. (Convalescent) Oregano signing out.
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