Peckersmith

Work started late on the Tuesday afternoon, sometime after two o' clock. It was a blazing hot day, stirring up wasp central at the foot of the allotment; wearing us out quickly. As ever though we started in earnest, trying hard to ignore the massively annoying tree surgeons jousting in the trees with chainsaws. I gave them the Churchill as you can see.

Again we set to clearing away more cans and bottles. The last resident was a lazy git! Sometimes I can see where he was coming from. The huge plot....sitting there soporific with heat or resigned in the colder seasons, drinking. How miserable. I even had verbals with his ghost yesterday.

Worse than nettles or brambles the thickness of a baby's arm is an empty can of Kronenberg or the ping of a dilated cider bottle under the sun. Changes are coming, Mr Ghost.

On a much more positive note we found a new friend : PECKERSMITH! aka Gigasmethwick, aka Gigasmeth, aka Gilgamesh etc. According to Sue, everyone calls him Felix. Friendly to a fault, photogenic and hilarious! He is one of three felines I have seen prowling the allotments.

After a few breaks, we waded into the jungle of brambles and nettles. We're lucky in that we have copious blackberries, redcurrants and an apple tree. But on the whole it is still a jungle out there. Cutting our way through the denser parts flocking the left side of the allotment, Kate collected enough blackberries to make a fair few pots of Jake's fabled jam. Snake Jam no less! Speaking of snakes my pythons were stung to high hell by the nettles. Hoping that I'm building an immunity.

We wrapped things up some time between six or seven. Jake brought some of the old Cold & Gold - I couldn't have been more appreciative even if it echoed the bad habits of the aforementioned ghoul. Unlike Mr Poltergeist we didn't throw our cans into the grass.

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Yesterday I did some more nettle pulling and blackberry pruning, sweating my cobs off all the while. Today we're strimming and dropping Glyphosate...Watch this space for more Parsley and Oregano adventures!

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