The Preoccupied Husband disappeared to London again (working BOTH Saturday and Sunday - tough on all the family but I have a feeling I'm going to have to get used to it) so I introduced the boys to the joys of the Garden Department at our out-of-town B&Q. Number 1 Son was hugely impressed and tried to persuade me to buy a large greenhouse plus a water-barrel. He has very ambitious (and expensive) plans for this allotment. I managed to get out with only a spade, fork, watering can and two small plastic trowels.
We arrived at the site just before midday with me a little nervous at the prospect of actually getting in as I don't yet have my own key for the padlock. Mum had sent me a text earlier which simply said "Don't do any digging or climb over any gates" - a timely reminder that with Number 3 Son due in less than two months this is not the ideal time to either accept or start working on an allotment, even one as small as ours.
Amazingly, just as I was chucking the B&Q purchases, picnic box, blanket, huge bag of plastic toys to keep Number 2 Son occupied etc etc over the larger-than-I-remembered-very-spiky-gate the Co-Holder turned up with her boyfriend and parents plus three enormous sacks of manure. She let us in which was extremely lucky but didn't stop me slighly slumping into a secret strop about having to share the site and wishing I was there on my own with the boys..... I immediately felt like a total cow when she gave me an excellent children's magazine on growing vegetables for the boys, dug her manure onto her patch in approx 10 minutes, and left after handing me her key and explaining that she would be on holiday for the next month so I might as well keep it until I got mine.
So then the boys and I were left for a truly idyllic couple of hours. It was windy but very sunny and we ate our picnic almost immediately looking over the deserted allotments around us. Afterwards I managed to do a huge amount of digging (sorry mum) while Number 1 Son went off on an obscure treasure hunt and Number 2 Son hovered over me looking for worms in each forkful that I dug up and taking them off to a new home in the compost heap. It was only after about 30 minutes that I realised he was actually breaking them in half as he went on the basis that his brother had told him that they re-grew as two worms.... I half-heartedly told him to stop and then reached a vague compromise that he would only break up "the Bad Ones". Awful but it did leave me in peace to dig. Great excitement when we dug up a small potato which he packed into his bag to take home for tea.
All three of us then measured the whole plot and drew a little map of where the beds, paths, shed etc currently are which felt very organising and purposeful. Took some photos, packed up and left just before a massive rain shower.
When we got back I made popcorn, put on "The Incredibles" for the boys and heaved myself into a lovely hot bath. Lay there thinking what a great stage this is with the boys - how much easier, entertaining and more manageable they are. What the hell am I doing having another?
Later we roasted the one small potato. Number 1 Son said it was DEFINITELY poisonous and refused to even try it. Number 2 gobbled it with relish and pronounced it delicious.
After they had gone to bed I lay on the sofa musing about how much I love the allotment. But I then decided that there was a danger that I was using it as a distraction from the mundanity of daily life and that I definitely can't go back to the plot until I have accomplished the following domestic chores:
1. Tidied up (and properly re-organised) the playroom rather than just shutting the door every night on the hideous chaos within.
2. Completed one of my monthly ironing marathons so that I can actually see the bottom of the basket.
3. Found the screws for the cot so that the component parts currently propped up against the wall of the spare room can be assembled.
4. Made a start on sorting out the photos and putting them into albums (last done approx. December 2003).
5. Taken the massive box of books and bag of clothes which I packed up MONTHS AGO to a charity shop.
6. Read the chapter on labour in one pregnancy book, and preferably also something on The First Month.
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Wow. You clearly are very overstretched in the mundanity of life! Get that PH in a singlet with a spade and a beer! Fascinating. Where are you now though?! Is it raining, wherever you are?
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