That Sinking Feeling

After repeated toppings up, and constant draining away, it would appear that the water level in the pond now holds (for a while at least) at about nine inches at its centre. In the middle it looks quite pretty and habitable; clear water, bulrushes and a water lily or two.

But at the sides it all turns a bit dark; a foot of black puckered pond liner slopes down to a shallow bank of muddy water filled spongy olive moss and something that looks like green felt, the bright baize playing surface for a gathering of skittish, water skating insects.

The green felt is actually blanket weed, grown fat from all the nitrates and phosphates in the tank water we've been using to top the pond up. I fish most of it out and add a little rain water that's been collecting in a bucket, thinking "when would be the best time to empty it all out and fix the leaks?"

Whilst I ponder this, peering into the water looking for newts, my eyes adjust and I realise that what I thought was the back of a water lilly bud is actually the frog, from two posts ago, still with us. He's clearly been riding the rising levels, feeling out the falling ones, whilst the bulrushes above him bend in the wind and sway with the breeze.

The Compost Bin

I am now the owner of a part built compost bin, thanks to a neighbouring plot holder, Lou. Yesterday he interrupted my weeding reverie by calling out that "We had a meeting last night, and all the plot holders must now have a compost bin; which, I see you don't."

He paused, gently kicking some tufts of grass, and asked "What are you going to do about it?"

I explained that whilst I didn't have a compost bin, I did have a compost heap, which was a step in the right direction; and that I had two pallets at home waiting to be converted into a compost bin: I just needed two more. He then surprised me by offering to donate the two pallets needed, and assemble them for me, to which I agreed and thanked him. "That's really kind of you Lou. Thanks."

As I look at it today, the compost bin is now five pallets strong, and growing. The tidy, uniform side of the pallets faces in, the irregular, shabby side facing out. The pallets are held together with various planks of wood, some of questionable ownership. As far as I can work out (as Lou is hard to interpret sometimes) a fellow plot holder made off with some of Lou’s wood, so Lou stole it back and is now building my bin from it, for which the charge will be “fifteen pounds for the wood, ten pounds for the labour”.

And I thought it was just a friendly gesture.

As I appeared to be paying for it I thought It would be OK to contribute some thoughts about the design.

"Can the three sides be the same height please,” I asked, “and can the tops be level? And can the front section come off, rather than be nailed shut?"

These may seem simple requests but having taken a minute or two to inspect Lou's compost bin, they were important points to clarify.

After much rumbling and protestation about what was needed, and what he considered pointless, Lou wandered off and returned with a nice new gate/fence panel to use as the bin's front. This made me feel much better about the fifteen pound charge for the wood, but i couldn't help but wonder, what was I getting myself into here? "Lou,” I said, “I'm not going to find myself in the middle of something here, am I?"

He stopped hammering for a moment and pointed at me with a galvanised nail. "If anyone asks you anything, you tell them you built it yourself! Or, to mind their own bloody business!"

"I won't be doing that, Lou,” I said, “ I'll say a friend built it, if a stranger asks. But look," I said, pointing at someone walking past, "Other people have seen you building this for me today. There's no secret here." He laughed and motioned me away with a wave of his hammer, loudly muttering, as he returned to his work. Malcolm, the chairman of the allotment committee approached us, his eyes taking in the scene: Lou, the compost bin, the planks and the offcuts of wood strewn across the public path. He looked at me seriously, and, touching my arm, whispered in my ear: "If he bothers you at all, you will let me know, won't you?"