Late afternoon sunshine at the allotment

Today was a lovely autumn day, most welcome after the last few dreary, dull days. Down on the allotment our neighbour Tony was continuing to transform a plot he had taken over which for the past four years had been intermittently cultivated by two different sets of people.

Every time I got up to the plot Tony's there doing something. He has another half plot on the site. He's planning to use this plot for fruit and flowers and keep the other plot for vegetables.

The great thing about Tony, apart from his dedication and the fact that he must not have any home to go to, is that he does all his cultivation from the comfort of a chair. He has a bad back and other skeletal problems which prevent him from bending over. So he's dug and cultivated both his plots sitting down. He's always at the allotment as he says if he sits still doing nothing he seizes up, so he might as well do something active.

It was a disappointing afternoon for me as I was on spud digging duty while Susan continued to weed for England. Five or our seven rows of potatoes failed to do anything, the tops dying off very early in the season. So digging up the megre harvest was quite depressing, much hard work for little reward. The other two rows were Casablanca, a first early which continued to grow well all summer and we have a few plants left in the ground still with tops.

You win some, you loose some each year.