I stand dazed, in an untouched, overgrown allotment bed, as weeds, swaying grasses and nettles brush my knees. They've shot up, thick and fast, and the prospect of weeding them out, which seemed manageable before, is now daunting. The last stretch of gooseberries and currants that hug the tumble-down -fence are choked with brambles, comfrey, and tall grass, the wanted and the unwanted knotted together. A harsh twist of dark spiked leaves grows out of a gap in the thicket, the stems trailing behind, like lines of abandoned bunting snagged in briars.
I shake myself out of my reverie and remember that the allotment shop opens on Monday afternoons. I go there, (it's a large green portacabin in the nearby car park) and have a long chat with John the shopkeeper about gooseberry mildew, (which my plot has) and which size of bamboo canes to use for what peas. He also introduces me to an implement known as the Chillington hoe, a viciously efficient agricultural weapon, which I duly buy and use all afternoon to rid one whole bed of knotted weeds.
It's exhausting but satisfying and I feel like a cherry-red Grim Reaper in my bright poppy windcheater as I swipe the hoe across the ground, watching the vegetation fall. My compost pile is growing higher every day, looking more and more like a scruffy Jeff Koon's puppy.
At the end of the day I fall asleep whilst reading up on how to build compost bins. I dream of mice, eating the peas I've yet to sow, in the ground I've yet to clear.
What a cute mouse!
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