I Just Can’t be Happy Today

I’m attempting to stay calm, so here’s a calming bumblebee enjoying the pollen on a fresh cosmos flower in the warm November sunshine.

I’m actually very angry as our peaceful site has been violated over the last couple of weeks. The communal tool shed was broken into twice and someone had a table stolen from their plot - we couldn’t work out how the thief got in on that occasion. Then last week, on a pre-work visit, we saw that the deer fence was cut down.

It soon became clear that this was worse than we thought, with vandals spraying offensive graffiti on several polytunnels and scattering belongings as they searched for items of any ‘value’.

They even took out our happy bench by the wildlife plot 🤬

Over the following few days, while still waiting for the police to visit the site (don’t get me started on that!) we received more reports of losses as plotholders noticed things missing. Including us, we found that our two forks, a spade and a Wolf tool had been taken from the communal toolshed. Others have lost more substantial and valuable items. We’ve been told by a plotholder, who’s a police special, that the case has gone to the ‘Hate Officer’ because of the graffiti - I expected that would mean a more speedy response. It’s funny how we still expect crime scenes to be finger-printed so that criminals can actually be caught…

Anyway, let’s have some good news - most of our broad beans have germinated. The rain and warm sunshine have really done the job. The geums are back in flower along with the cosmos and the carnation I transplanted the other week also has buds appearing.

I had this extremely tasty borlotti bean, tomato and Cavolo Nero meal the other night. I also re-hydrated a couple of Ivan’s dried peppers. What that naughty man didn’t tell me was how hot they are 🥵! 

Picking the Cavolo Nero gave me an opportunity to update my Allotment Wildlife Blog with information on whitefly - it’s been a very good year for them…

So, after that rather sorrowful post, here’s the sky from last night. So beautiful and look at the trees stripped of their leaves, like Autumn but not cold enough yet. I’ll be moaning about being too cold quite soon!

The title song is provided by The Damned, my favourite band for such a long time.