allotment_150107

Today was our first functional visit to the new allotment. We popped up last year to drop off the compost bins and lay carpet (to suppress the weeds, not from some sort of wacko Hyacinth Bucket need to make it tidy) then abandoned it to rain and childbirth. Now, with a new year, we are ready to go!

After picking M up from nursery we had a wander up there, just to see what sort of state it was in: had the carpet worked (yes, rather nicely) and was the mud ludicrous, today being only the second dry day in living memory (not too bad). Chatted to the old boy on the next plot – I can see the chatting is going to be an issue – then came home, packed up some tools and wellies, and went back for an hour’s digging. I managed about a square metre (it is very heavy clay) so it is going to be a long job, but the girls were great. Tamsin slept in her car seat in the middle of the carpet (then woke up and cried so we came home). Maggie dug a medium-sized hole, put on her gardening gloves to try to pull up some weeds, lay about on the carpet under a blanket with her wellies and socks off, then ate cake – I am good at packing for afternoons out – until it was hometime.

Now I ache. That’s the first real physical exertion I’ve made since…well, since labour! And people allowed me weeks to recover from that. Am pleasantly sleepy from all the fresh air (and Cameron has gone to London so if I want to go to bed at 9, I can*).

*Not that I am suggesting he would prevent me if he was here – but I’d feel a bit mean and unsociable.