Sunday 24 February
It’s unseasonably mild for February, as me and Frankie, armed with an Eden Project orange flower-design bag of hastily-assembled screws/screwdrivers, embark on what should be the quick early morning task of affixing guttering to the side of the shed- thereby rendering Plot 71 compliant with subsection 3.1.1 (rainwater; capture thereof) of the new rulebook, due to be adopted at the AGM scheduled for lunchtime in the Scout Hut. But we have hastily assembled into our flowery orange Eden Project bag the wrong screws (or the wrong screwdrivers, or the wrong combination of both) and also we (OK, I) have neglected to take into account the Laws of Gravity, meaning that the bucketful of water I tip onto the roof by way of a test of our finished handiwork travels slowly but determinedly in the exact wrong direction along the gutter, sploshing out of the end where we have absolutely not fitted a downpipe. Still, our incompetence in the basics of plumbing has meant there is absolutely no chance of making it to the Scout Hut for the AGM- so we consider the day an unqualified success.
Sunday 3 March
I call in to check on the new guttering. Miraculously and despite my now-proven incompetence with the screwdriver/the laws of physics the drainpipe and its companion the downpipe remain attached to the shed. Even more miraculously, they have succeeded in collecting a full weeks’ worth of Stockport’s finest rainwater, and depositing it into the square white plastic PoundShop container box that will serve as a waterbutt, until I can get my hands on an actual waterbutt. I empty it out with a bucket and splosh it liberally about the fruitbushes, feeling quite manly and altogether pleased with myself.
And that it not the only success for Man Sunday this particular Sunday- hell, no. We also have daffodils- three of them right there in the centre of the plot, perkily waving their periscope-like heads around in the wintry breeze, and taking in the view. Some of the other bulbs that were planted back in October are sprouting green shoots, and the occasionaly tiny orange petal, as well. They may be crocuses, tulips or even (an outside bet, but I suppose it it the time of year for them, and if not now, when?)- snowdrops. The fact is I know about as much about flowers as I do about plumbing, or about the laws of gravity.
Just as I am admiring the snowdrops/tulips/crocuses/whatever, a storm-rumble in the trees beyond the freight train line foretells an opening of the heavens. Seconds later the first of an insistent volley of hailstones is peppering the plot as if fired by invisible snipers. Retreating to the shed, I enjoy a grandstand view of a featherweight territorial skirmish between a robin and a (I am going to say, although I know as much about birds as I do about plumbing, or flowers), a coaltit. The robin emerges victorious, but gets to enjoy the spoils (an uncontested perch on the newly-replenished bird-table) for precisely five seconds, before being usurped by a great big clunky pigeon who has been watching from the uppermost branches of a nearby tree the entire time. The hail has abated, so I take this as my cue to leave, and scutter for home through the icy, deserted pathways.
Sunday 10 March
The conditions (freezing wind, torrential rain, occasional guerrilla-sniper-fire bouts of hailstones) have put paid to Frankie’s team’s fixture iin the Stockport Under Fifteens League (Division Three), the referee abandoning play on a quagmiresque North Reddish recreational ground surface after ten farcical (well, even more farcical than normal) minutes and leaving twenty-two players, six subsitutes, four dad--coaches and a scattered touchline-full of dad-spectators at rather a loose end for the afternoon. After a good half an hour of moping around the house listening abstractedly to Premiership Radio commentary (Liverpool versus Burnley, 4-2), this touchline dad manages to rouse himself enough to make the short walk down to his allotment.
I’m intending on nothing more ambitious than feeding the birds- maybe also some light weeding, and quite definitely no digging. But the pile of compost in the corner opposite the shed, which has been building steadily for fourteen months and whose grassy top-knolls have now now started to be blown around the site by the wintry winds, brings out the Irish in me, and remembering something Monty Don once said- ‘if you are a gardener, and it is the winter, and you are still going to the gym; then you are clearly not turning your compost enough’, I find myself taking hold not only of the big fork, but also, heaven help us all, of the big spade.
Three hours of exhausting exertion later, the compost- and it’s good, loamy, twiggy stuff by the way, once you get into the thick of it- has been wheelbarrowed across every bed on the plot, and it is all I can do to drag myself away in the gathering gloom of teatime to get back home for the second half of Arsenal versus Manchester United, beamed onto our TV screen by some illicit- possibly even illegal?- internet-hack which Frankie has discovered during his own post-abandonment afternoon spent in the further reaches of Google. I don’t ask any questions- I’m too knackered, for one thing- and settle down next to him on the couch to take in the game’s concluding stages. Arsenal win 2-0, the decisive second coming courtesy of a penalty awarded after home forward Lacazette, advancing springfootedly through the inside-right channel, is sent tumbling by visiting midefielder Fred. I reckon it’s harsh, but Frankie thinks it’s nailed-on. That’s OK. It’s a game of opinions, after all.
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