dawn chorus to be left to get on with it alone

Lisa has stopped working shifts, which means more sleep and a more regular lifestyle for both of us. Hurrah! Why, then, did I wake at 4am as usual today, unable to return to sleep? Boo!

the dignity of labour

Having tantalised you yesterday with a promise to tell you about the bigger story later, I've decided that if I do, it will be on my other blog, The Valley of Lost Things, because I plan to keep this one for posts about how I feel.

Yesterday's visit to the allotment was more like what I'd imagined Friday's would be. I went relatively late in the day, and spent a couple of hours ferrying junk to the skip. Joe Swizzlestick, the person who had the plot before us (name changed slightly to protect the innocent), was a hoarder, someone who kept things just in case they ever came in handy. As a result, we have huge quantities of rotting pieces of wood, odd bits of metal and vast quantities of glass. We're particularly keen to get rid of the glass while it's still in the form of finite sheets rather than infinite shards.

So yesterday, taking advantage of the recently emptied skip while it still has some space left, I removed the remains of a rusty metal contraption constructed to hold compost, most of the glass and assorted wood. It was hard work, but it's satisfying and ultimately more productive than going to a gym.

Sometimes the most difficult part is getting up off my backside and going down to the allotment, but once I do, I always feel much, much better. I just don't understand why I forget how good I feel afterwards.

the burning question

I'd imagined that this first post in my new blog would be a gentle description of how good it felt last night, at the end of the working week, to walk down the street with Lisa, my partner, turn a couple of corners, and look out over the open valley at the entrance to the allotments.

I anticipated unlocking the gate and breathing in what feels like country air even though we live close to a city centre. We'd probably potter rather than do much real work, but late on a Friday afternoon at the end of October when there isn't much daylight left, that's OK. The weekend lies ahead for big progress.

Instead, sounds of banging and thumping awaited us. The city council, in its wisdom, has this week erected, without warning or consultation, a gate on the footpath in such a way that our allotment, and ours alone, is excluded from the secure area. Our plot is surrounded by abandoned and overgrown plots, so we feel isolated and abandoned.

We went to investigate, and found four lads breaking down the door of another empty plot. As soon as they saw us they ran away, but we could still hear them nearby. Smoke was rising from the far side of the plot, so we went round and pushed our way through the undergrowth to find a fire burning unattended by the remains of a large wooden hut. There was a big gas cylinder on the ground a few feet away.

Everything was damp from gentle rain, so there probably wasn't a great risk of the fire spreading, but we decided none the less that it would be better to put it out. We made a couple of trips back to our plot to fetch water and the fire was soon out, the embers fully soaked to prevent re-ignition.

I've already wittered on at length about the events of our unexpected adventure last night, so I'll leave the wider story for another day.