Allotment Heaven: Yes, you will go to the Ball…

… or in my case, the Show. Decided what I was going to enter in the St Ives Flower & Produce Show, having inspected my potential exhibits. A total of twelve. But in the cold light of dawn and with a more critical eye it was cut down to six… three garlic bulbs, tomatoes on the vine, oddest shaped vegetable (a French bean looking like a boa constrictor part way through a meal), three desert apples, exotic fruit (three of my figs), and my coup de grace… Italian peasant bread entered in the loaf category.

I’ve been having a vision, part nightmare, part dream, that I come out as Show winner and bag the silver trophy. But that would be highly embarrassing since I’m one of the committee organising the event, and more particularly recording and adding up the judges scores. Having reduced my entries there’s thankfully now not much chance of being chased out the hall and down the road by angry fellow competitors.

We’ve got our last committee meeting tonight to agonise over whether elephant garlic can be included in the largest garlic section (apparently it’s actually a form of leek) and what class, if any, lemon curd should go under. Such are the imponderables of life.

Every time I walk through the front door I expect a huge pile of envelopes to be behind it. Fan mail? Final demands? No… entry forms for the Show. Fast approaching 200 exhibits registered as the final days approach before the Show on Saturday. Will it be a success or a disaster… read the next post!

At the allotment things are really taking shape, courtesy of wife Linda. After fast approaching five years of having my allotment she’s at last taking an interest… so much so there’s complaints we don’t get up there early enough (I actually woke her early yesterday so we could an earlier start… and then we went back up for more digging later in the day!) She’s really getting stuck in to digging over the back plot.

John’s going to break the pool balls sooner or later… here’s how hard he hits the balls on the break…