Robbie was keeping an eye on my digging technique last week as I dug the bean trench on Plot8.
It took me three separate visits to complete, as it was hard work. The soil was bone dry and like concrete at the bottom of the trench which is about 50cm deep.
There were a few weeds but it was mostly salsify roots, though I still wasn’t inclined to take any home for eating.
Phew, finished, I left the hollyhocks at the end. I added cardboard and emptied the builders bag of decomposed weeds - hoping the seed heads are rotted and deep enough to not re-emerge - along with some partially-composted vegetables before adding the sweetcorn stalks. All that organic matter should provide a good base for our climbing beans next year and helps with the plot clearance.
The trench has had a good drenching over the last couple of days so there may be room for a bit more green waste before I back-fill that soil heap.
Whilst working on that I uncovered this
little field vole. It was trying to hide under dried grass where I was working so I caught it in a pot and released it in the hedge. So cute.
On the Saturday I knew when the steam train The Flying Scotsman was passing through Hungerford so I secured my spot to get a reasonable view - it’s not the best view from the allotments, but good enough.
There it goes! I took a small video but the camera lost focus at the vital point 🙄
Here’s a rather better record of it passing over Hungerford High Street, courtesy of
Oxygen Aerial Images. Perfect.
On the chilly Sunday morning I joined a little group of Britain in Bloom volunteers in returning to the roundabout to plant Spring bulbs (I think there were 400) and sow some drought-tolerant wild flower seeds. The perennials that we planted in May have grown pretty well, considering the weather.
Since May other volunteers have been watering and borage-pulling, it’s always threatening to take over. Such a lot of work and dedicated volunteers involved. Hungerford won the Silver Gilt award in the Small Towns category of the 2026 RHS Britain in Bloom competition - I’m not sure that the roundabout played any part in that, but it has looked good and should look even better next year.
Yesterday I was at the hairdressers as we watched Storm Austen stripping leaves and blowing horizontal rain up the road. Jamie and I were meant to be going to see lit up trees at
Welford Park’s Spectacle of Light — we aren’t sorry that the visit has been postponed for a few days, we got a drenching when we went last year. We popped over to Oxfordshire last week and saw quite a different spectacle at
Millets Farm.
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Pick your own dahlias and pumpkins! It was a very grey and rainy day but both fields were very impressive. I was sneaking up a muddy side track to get a peek of Dahlia Beach before I realised it was closed so could wander about a bit more, but couldn’t get in amongst the blooms. The buckets in the foreground are for collecting bunches of the flowers and they also sell the tubers. And I’ve never see so many pumpkins! They planted/planned for 100,000 fruits 😳 
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| Pumpkins galore |
And another cool thing. Jamie’s been having one-to-one swimming sessions with Next Stroke Swim School since finding that he could no longer swim post-stroke. Well, last Sunday he swam unaided for the first time - on his back and his front. “Drowning slowly” he calls it, but I call it a breakthrough 👏 Mike (and others) have been really great. I’m so glad we spotted their advert.
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| Jamie’s tutor, Mike, urging him on |
This morning there’s a blue sky with pink clouds as the Sun’s just rising. We’d better go to the allotment later to see what damage the wind and rain has caused - hoping our polytunnel is still in one piece.
So to the title song, by the brilliant Lightning Seeds for this mishmash of a post. Well, since I retired, 8 months ago, I determined to achieve at least one thing each day rather than lounging. Last week on a rainy day I made a cherry and almond flapjack which counted as ‘an achievement’. I really do think some people could say I’m living the life of Riley!
