Big boy pants

22 February (Saturday)

It's funny how we have a revolving get-up routine - one of us being the first to get up for a period of time, and then it switching round. For the last four or five days it's been Richard up before me, and then at some point it will be me up before Richard.  Whoever's up first, tea needs to be made or at least a first cup or two heated up in the microwave.

Looking out the bathroom window, there seems to have been quite a lot of rain overnight. It started around seven last night and seemed to just heavy drizzle through for hours, me even hearing it when I heard three bongs when I woke up mid-sleep. 

Again, the coughing is getting less frequent though I still feel pretty ridden of any energy. Whatever respiratory virus I've had, it's really taken hold of me like no other one has in the past decade or so.

Usually, if I feel ill on a Saturday (as I did a week ago!) I'm generally feeling much improved by the Sunday evening, and by the Monday or the Tuesday I'm sort of back to normal; maybe a little drained though fully up and at it. It certainly hasn't been the case this time. I've even noticed that after coming up to my office and sitting down at my desk, I need to take a good few deep breaths because I'm already feeling slightly puffed out by the time I sit.  I really do hope I can shake this off in the coming days, as it's really quite miserable… HOWEVER, I know many, many hundreds of millions are having it much worse in so many different ways.

After my lunch has gone down, I sort of force myself down to the plot.  I just want to check on the broad beans, to see if there’s any movement in the compost - ground heave as we call it in the trade!  I also haven’t been down since Tuesday (is that right!) and by now I imagine the compost within the modules will be beginning to dry out, and those beans will want a little drink!  At this early stage I certainly don’t want to deny them anything that will not encourage them to grow as well as I want them to.

On go my slightly dirty jeans, as I have an inclination I might pick up the hand fork when I get down there and grab a kneeler and do a little more gentle hand weeding of the large soft fruit bed.

With the sun out and lovely, there’s quite a number of fellow plotters around, and with the increased population due to the paddock plots, some of whom have already moved to larger plots on the ‘main site’ (though we hate to call it that as we are all equal - size doesn’t matter!) there’s quite a lot of hoots and hollers and running of smaller footed humans.  I would say the average age of plotters since the paddock plots were tenanted has fallen from around 60 years to early 50s; we now have quite a few new tenants in their late twenties and thirties, with kids and dogs in tow.  Generally, of course, the dogs are very well behaved.

On my way to my plot I have a word with a neighbouring plotter, chatting about broad beans, seed potatoes, the broken glass pane in her greenhouse she’s replacing… “Oh”, says me.  “Let me check if I have one”, and after a mooch around I find I don’t, or maybe I do though I can’t find it nor think exactly where it is - so, basically, I am of little help.

After a chat, I turn the corner to the plot and look over to the greenhouse.  Is there any ground heave?

Thankfully, yes.  Maybe about eight to ten of the 48 modules of broad beans are showing some sign of life, and all of them are in some need of water too!  As I water them I feel the germinating seeds give a silent shout of joy, as they nestle back into the moistness of the compost - hopefully more will be up tomorrow.

I grab a hand fork and kneeler to begin a little work on the bed.  I’ve already taken the two gooseberries out of the greenhouse; I put them in there as it only dawned on me after I’d taken them from the soil on Tuesday that we’d likely have sub zero temps overnight - I don’t think we did, though better safe than sorry.  These two will have to be taken right back to bare root, and then washed thoroughly, in doing so removing all the soil from the roots and then hopefully being able to tease out all of that embedded grass weed and all their myriad roots.  It’s a job, though it gets done.

As I get to the bed with my hand fork and kneeler.. Look down, mull, ponder, think, know… I decide I have to do what is right - this bed needs more than a good hand weed.  It needs the fruit bushes removing, the soil well forked over, the bed thoroughly weeded, another very good hand weed to get out roots of weeds I miss when forking, then levelling of soil with a rake and the plants being heeled back in… then cardboard to suppress, compost to feed, then woodchip to mulch… though I won’t get even half of that done this afternoon, I’m just too exhausted already. Grumble mumble grumble mumble… grumble mumble grumble mumble…

It’s time for your big boy pants Paul!

Down with the hand fork and kneeler, into the shed for the large fork, spade and rake… out with the fruit bushes, in with the fork, and weed, fork, and weed, fork… onwards and forwards to a weed free bed!  It takes time, as doing a job properly often does.  And yes, by the end of it I‘m bloody exhausted.  However, the job’s been done well and the fruit bushes, in the coming years, will be thankful.  I will have to leave the placement of cardboard, compost and wood chip until another day.

That age-old saying of the Earl of Chesterfield to his son came to mind… “If a job needs doing it needs doing well”!  In truth, he didn’t say it quite so succinctly… 

“If care and application are necessary to the acquiring of those qualifications, without which you can never be considerable, nor make a figure in the world, they are not less necessary with regard to the lesser accomplishments, which are requisite to make you agreeable and pleasing in society. In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention: I therefore carry the necessity of attention down to the lowest things, even to dancing and dress. Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act. Dress is of the same nature; you must dress; therefore attend to it; not in order to rival or to excel a fop in it, but in order to avoid singularity, and consequently ridicule. Take great care always to be dressed like the reasonable people of your own age, in the place where you are; whose dress is never spoken of one way or another, as either too negligent or too much studied.”

I couldn’t agree more…


Weather:  Wet, though at least not raining first thing.  At first it was a little cooler than yesterday, maybe around 11°, and then by early afternoon the sun was out and it felt much warmer.

Breakfast:  Bran sticks and yogurt
Lunch:  Homemade Carrot & Lentil Soup, Hummus, Pitta, Carrot batons and radish
Supper:  Falafel from the freezer, cooked in the leftovers of the Hob Pasta Sauce, over wholewheat couscous.