Soilman

Done it at last… and already I’m nervous. The weather has taken a turn for the worse today. If we get frost again, I think I’ll lose it completely. What kind of crappy year are we having??

I’m going a bit easy on the corn this year. Last season’s crop was so sensational that we gorged ourselves nightly for what felt like months. It was all a bit much – and despite a 12-month lay-off, I’m still not that enthusiastic at the prospect of more.

Now that Spring is most definitely here, I’ve abandoned the gym and have been running outside for a few weeks.

It’s nice, especially first thing in the morning. Love that smell of musty, misty air half an hour after sunrise. Shame you have to get up so bloody early to experience it.

Life, in short, feels fairly good – especially now that I’m harvesting fresh asparagus almost every night.

Just a few worries, though. Perhaps somebody out there fitter than me can help answer them:

• I can now run comfortably for 2.5 miles, but anything above 3m still hurts like hell. Oddly, some days it’s more painful than others. I ran 5.5m once and it felt OK. Other times, it’s crucifying to reach even the 4m mark. Why on earth is this? I watched people running the London Marathon on Saturday and wondered how the hell anyone can ever do it. I mean, I reckon I could run non-stop for 10km if there were a crash cart waiting at the finish line… but 26 miles? Huh?
• I’m not really speeding up. OK, a bit – I’m up to about 5.5mph from 5.2mph… but that’s hardly significant. I thought after three months of running regularly I’d see a bigger improvement. Or am I being too impatient?

Seen the forecast… eh, eh?

Warm, sunny, windless, gorgeous (er, apparently).

I’m smacking my lips. Can’t wait to get stuck in to my allotment and actually do some work this weekend.

Maybe even cut the first asparagus. Now I’m salivating just thinking about it.

Huge thrill this morning. Managed to take my morning shower without the bathroom light on.

“Pray, why?” you may ask. “Is this some new eroto-luminance perversion popular with the allotmenteering classes?”

Not exactly. It’s one of my personal winter foibles. You see, the day I can shower at 7am without artificial light is the day I know the sun is rising significantly earlier.

I’ve tried a few times over the last three weeks. Mostly with cartoon results – stubbed toes, histrionic slips with wild, flailing arms. I almost gave up last Tuesday when I spent 5 mins in pitch blackness trying to work up a lather with the soapdish.

But today, I managed it. Only shaving was a serious challenge: I look like Sweeney Todd’s practice dummy.

Still, the point is made: Spring’s bloody close.

Said my piece about the RHS on the Guardian today… for those who’ve not read the uncensored version already.

I was perhaps a little disappointed that the responses come, by and large, from the gardening industry; those who work in horticulture or earn a living writing about it (or work/volunteer for the RHS itself). They are influential, to be sure, but they’re not punters. Their coin is green-tinged. They must comment delicately on one of the biggest, richest and most influential players in their industry… if they intend to make a career in it.

That’s partly why I volunteered: I’m an outsider. No such worries for me.

It’s got me thinking, though, about my outsider status… which I wear as a badge of pride. Regular readers (you need psychiatric help, but thanks anyway) will know that I miss no opportunity to be vulgar, shocking and boorish. Rejoice in it, even. Kicking down folks’ expectations of the middle-class, educated, 40-something suburban gardener is an unspoken mission statement of this blog.

In case you hadn’t figured that out.

Most of the time, this suits me fine. I’m used to the outsider role. I’ve played it all my life. Like Groucho, I never want to belong to any club that would actually have me. The kicking, screaming inner child couldn’t bear it. And somebody has to throw bottles from the back.

But now and then, like today, I’m forcibly reminded of the main consequence of taking that role: Namely, that you influence nobody that matters… ever. Your views are too vulgar, too weird, or just too ‘unhelpful’ (the dread adjective that invokes, in three syllables, the full lexicon of British patrician hauteur and contempt).

Perhaps the reminder is good for my humility (there is some, honest). At the very least, it helps me with the midlife crisis problem: I suddenly remembered, today, my favourite childhood book: ‘The Outside Cat’ by Jane Thayer (scroll down a little to read it). And that’s been worth a fortune to me.

Had a quick binfire yesterday, and only just in time. It’s pouring again, and for the foreseeable.

I’ve been nervous about fires ever since a moment of inattention almost turned into a catastrophe. I decided to have a fire on the allotment in July… during that drought heatwave of 3 or 4 years ago. On a roastingly hot, windy day.

I’m sure you’re way ahead of me: I turned my back for a few seconds to do something, only to find that the little fire I’d started had been blown into a raging inferno.

And when I say inferno, I mean it: this was a huge, dangerous conflagration that took hold of some brambles and went nuclear. The flames were 4m high, and getting higher. And the noise – crackling, whooshing, hissing, roaring. Terrifying.

My pathetic efforts to douse it were utterly useless. I managed only to singe off half an eyebrow and set my trouser leg on fire.

By the grace of God, an allotment neighbour happened to be watering with a hose and came to my rescue. But it still took us 20 mins to put the fire out. I was pathetically, weepingly grateful. For a few minutes, I’d been the man responsible for burning down everyone’s allotments and several neighbouring houses.

I could see the headlines spinning in my fevered imagination: “Soilman Fucks Up Utterly”.

So I’m now cautious to the point of paranoia. Fires only happen in bins, and I stare at them so hard I barely blink. Where fires are concerned, dear Reader, I recommend Serious Care and Attention.

Here endeth the lesson.

Shock news: Many visitors to this blog come via an “allotment blog” search in Google. Obviously I’d love a slice of the “midget sex” market, too, but for now I’m stuck with allotments.

This is not a sexy Search market. Even in the peak gardening interest period (early Spring), “allotment blog” gets stuck into Google just 100 times a day. And all by Brits (source: Google insights for search).

Some of you have been blogging about allotmenteering a lot longer than me, and you’ll know what a tumbleweed trap ‘allotments’ is. It’s pathetically parochial (nobody outside the UK knows what an allotment is) and until recently it was old blokes in flat caps who’d never even seen a computer, let alone touched one.

But wow, how things change. Check it out: there are now some folks paying for Search advertising on “allotment blog”. Astonishing.

They’re mostly advertising for start-up community gardening sites, no doubt supported (eventually) by advertising from the industry. And good luck to them. It’s lovely to see anyone giving a shit about allotments… especially now there’s (apparently) a few quid in them there hills.

But you know what? I thought I’d just take this opportunity to mention – while the allotmenteering space is commercialising all around us – that if you don’t want to pay for advice, or be advertised at in return for the privilege, you don’t have to.

There’s a huge number of garden bloggers out there who, like me, do it all for free (sad bastards) and will always try to help anyone who asks… gratis. Check out my blogroll to find them.

We do it for love, laughs and a genuine desire to help (plus a bit of boasting and vainglory, on my part, when something goes right). So take advantage.

Just one small cost: You sometimes have to read a lot of shit about midget sex.

This morning I’m starting to look forward to my Christmas holiday. Which is like looking forward to sex with a dwarf. It’s probably better than no sex… but depressing and awfully short.

Actually, I’ve decided that anticipating holidays is the most enjoyable part. The holiday itself is over in seconds, and you spend at least the first five days of it waking at 6am as if it’s a work day (I do, anyway; my body clock is as inflexible and rigidly programmed as a North Korean public holiday).

The Christmas holiday has a special angst, of course. There’s the expense of gift giving… and receiving (“Gosh. A musical sock drawer tidy. Just what I always wanted”).

This year, though, is special. In fact, it’s a triumph. By dint of quiet diplomacy over 12 months, I have delicately concluded a no-gift pact with everyone I know – even family.

The momentous outcome is simply this: For the first time in 42 years, I will be buying no Christmas gifts whatsoever. Yep, you read right. That means no shopping, no queueing, no shit.

So think on that while you’re trying to decipher the inarticulate grunting of a spotty 18-year-old cashier clerk in John Lewis, or hovering over a skid-marked public toilet seat after getting caught short in Tesco.

In horrible contrast to all your suffering, I shall be ensconced at home watching porn (perhaps Christmas-themed – “Jiggle Belles” etc) and stuffing my face with Leonidas’ best.

Cheers.

PS All comedy Christmas porn movie titles gratefully received

The non-gardening theme continues. Reason? Still pissing.

(Dear God, when will it end?)

Took a daytrip to the Slimbridge Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust today. In the rain (but of course). Didn’t have time to see it all, but enjoyed the flamingos; the first non-grey thing I’ve seen outdoors for weeks.

… and so my thoughts turn to Christmas.

I wish they wouldn’t. I loathe Christmas. It’s an ordeal that I rank up there with unblocking the lavatory, protracted root canal work and proctological examination (which last I have yet to endure, but visualising the procedure’s psychological effect demands minimal imaginative chutzpah).

There is one small glint of moonlight in the morgue, however: by some horticultural miracle, last year’s potted tree is still with us – just.

Granted, it’s lost half its foliage. But at least I can save £15 by re-using the bugger. Assuming I stand it against a wall.

It’s got me thinking about other things I could re-use. Hey, why not? If you’re hating it anyway, why not claw back a few quid on the deal?

I’m figuring a bit of glue and concentration could probably resurrect the Xmas crackers, if you remember to save the pieces. And the Christmas cake’s a dead cert. Nobody eats the fucking thing anyway, so they’ll never notice if I wheel out the same cake 10 years in a row.

I’m inspired by the Empress Dowager with her 100 dishes at every meal. The eunuchs knew she only touched the same 10 favourites every day, so the rest were served up, untouched, week after week… until they were rotting under the porcelain tops.

That’s my kind of hospitality.