Mayday! Mayday!

the allotment underground have flu. We're shutting down non-essential functions to preserve power to life support. Rest assured we will return in the new year, with a troublesome Lemsip addiction.

In the meantime, why not console yourself with the writing of somemore more talented than us:

• Hymn
• Soilman
• stuff what I have written

The links are on the left - I mean right. I can't be bothered to add them here

Happy New Year to our readers. That's right, both of you.

bleaurgh.

A local allotment for local people

We don’t see much of our neighbours these days, do we? Our community is a net stretched over a wide area. It’s almost surreal - that we know so little about those so close to us.

I like it that I meet local people at the allotment. I happen across them as I walk to the newsagent or the bus stop. One day I'll see them at the school gates.

Remember how that used to happen when we were young? We'd bump into friends and acquaintances as we roamed the streets. It doesn't happen much these days does it? My friends are all a car ride away.

Night shift

The clock in the car reads 21:09 as I coax the engine to life. The streets are quiet now. Only the rhythm of tyre on tarmac breaks the silence.

No sleeping taxi driver bars my way tonight. The cold padlock chills my fingers as I fumble the key. I pass through the gates, my headlights dissecting the gloom. Oops - watch the trench.

Traffic scuttles along the neighbouring road, but here everything is muted. Distant streetlights silhouette a wheelbarrow, a scarecrow. A rustle – what was that? Silence.

I make my way to the plot. Frost sparkles on the cardboard. Moisture streaks the compost bin. My feet squelch as I move around.

Everything is waiting. Poised. The potential is breathtaking.