Allotment Heaven: 01/09/2010

Watched a good film on Thursday, Appaloosa. It appears at first to be the typical cowboy gunslinger story, but there’s some subtle characterisation and good humour to bring out the sensitive side of the main character, Ed Harris.

Renee Zellweger is the femme fatale, but it’s the supporting actor (Viggo Mortensen) who interested me, more importantly his chin wig. Quite striking and complementary. Of course he has a few advantages, being a good looking chap with a winning way. No doubt the six shooters help add to the charm as well so long as you’re on the same side. Whereas I’m just flapping around for something interesting to hide the chin.

Oh, and I’m not in best fettle at present head-wise, with the odd (the emphasis being on ‘odd’) bump where it shouldn’t be. Got attacked mercilessly by mosquitoes during an evening visit to the allotment before watching the film. Got some stuff to spray on my head that makes me smell a bit sweet and came to me via Becky’s Avon round and a rumour that it keeps flies off horses. Not sure I see the direct connection (maybe something else I should worry about appearance-wise… I’ve been told I eat apples like a horse) but since I couldn’t find it in the shed I had to suffer unaided.

Anyway, the shaving kit’s been stowed away for a few days while I’m out of sight of acquaintances particularly family who would take the Mickey, on holiday with Linda in Hunstanton (ahhhhh, bliss!) for the next week. I’ll trim it to style when I get back if the whiskers survive to see it doesn’t look too grotesque. Just hope we don’t get strong autumn sunshine and I look like a black and white minstrel when I’ve had a shave! Wonder if I’ll need a Stetson to set the whole thing off?

Linda’s holiday packing preparations started several days (weeks?) ago and I’m tapping away in the dining room surrounded by sundry boxes and bags. I know I don’t help… my preparation involves a maximum fifteen minutes of gathering things together and stuffing them away. But this time we’re away for a whole week; we’ve not been away for this long at one stretch for years. So how on earth will we take a big enough supply of kitchen towels? Normally the local supermarket is emptied… I suppose we can empty Tesco shelves as well when we get there.

Son John has succumbed and got himself an Apple whyphone. I’ve been winding him up for weeks about me needing to open the package when it arrives (mark 2 move out happened last year but he still gets things delivered to our house) to have a good fiddle with it since he’s sure to need technical help. He came rushing in Wednesday evening and grabbed the package by the front door. Should have let him rush off… he’s picked up a bag of grass seed! So he had thirty minutes of messing around with it in our living room before he whizzed off to connect up to his laptop and get it going.

Back Thursday evening for the technical assistance since still not connected and needed to use my laptop. Cue noises of frustration from the dining room while we watched the film. Kept his strength up by emptying the fridge and sampling my favourite McVities dark chocolate digestives. Got it going in the end when I suggested he needed to call and register the ‘phone (page one of the user guide).

Not good news on the sports competition front. Lost the squash competition for the year on Tuesday to David. Thought I was riding high, having won August with a string of five consecutive wins, only to crash out this month. Got caught by the fact, us going on holiday, that there were less games to play this month and therefore less margin for error on my part. Thought about popping back on Sunday (well, it’s only just over an hour trip) to play another match and try to recover. Could I swing it… ‘I’m just popping down to the shop for a newspaper dear. Won’t be long, be back in about four hours’. No, I don’t think so somehow.

Pitch and putt, where I was invincible only a couple of weeks ago, has gone to David recently. And I’ve been way off the margin in pool and darts. It’s all in the mind of course. Got to think I’m going to win and then I will.

Bit of a worry hospital-wise recently as well, when I got an adverse test on my bladder. Looks like the treatment I’ve been undergoing for the last two and a half years hasn’t worked, or not worked well enough. Good news is the recent occurrence is no worse than last time, but the suggestion is I should have surgery to remove the problem which would have me out of action for up to six weeks. Going to see the consultant in Cambridge to ask questions before making a decision.

Being on holiday, there’ll be a bit of a delay to the next posting. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather! Lots of video and pictures below.

Here’s Connor talking about his encounter with a Great Dayling (Dane), with Sammy keeping an eye out for any stray and savage dogs

Well, we did it! With just ten weeks to organise the first Show in fifteen years, the end result was a great success with over 250 exhibits and hundreds of visitors. Here’s a picture taken as the Show opened to the public (click to enlarge). And after all the hard work the Show day went off remarkably well with few problems. Laying out the tables the evening before, we found a bit more room was needed for exhibits, so had to do a bit of shuffling around.

When exhibitors were registering on the morning of the Show in came Giuseppe, one of our Italian allotment holders, with a box of vegetables to exhibit… having missed the deadline for registering a few days before. The Italian allotments are the envy of all other growers because of how effortlessly they organise their plots to efficiently produce fantastic vegetables throughout the year. He’d obviously misunderstood how to exhibit and we just couldn’t turn him away. So I had to do a bit of hurried finger tapping to produce exhibit cards for his stuff.

There was a bit of a bun fight in the Victoria sponge class, one of the most fiercely contested parts of the whole Show… particularly since both daughters had entries of some mark. Cue much stomping around accompanied by the odd verbal indication of disapproval when Beth saw she’d got a comment ‘lopsided’ against her effort. Nevertheless her cake was delicious. So was Becky’s, who managed to win second place with her version (which was about mark 3… she’d been practising all week!). Rumours that one of the judges did their back in lifting a slice are completely unfounded (see judge’s comment in photo below).

Several entries from the grandchildren in the chocolate crispies and decorated plant pot classes. Connor won second place for his plant pot, Izzy third place. And Barry was second in the home brewed dry white wine class.

And what about my own efforts? I’d originally planned to enter about 15 exhibits, but that got whittled down as the Show date approached. Even at 06:30 on the morning of the Show, examining my specimens in the cold light of dawn I was having doubts. Did that small mark on the garlic mean it wasn’t worth entering? Were the apples not colourful enough? In the end I entered five classes and got an award in all of them! My results were…