Feet and millimetres and clay and spirits.

I've called her Moley Cyrus. She's 8mm long, and she's coming off tomorrow. 

I won't be digging for a bit, so I made the most of the glorious weather today, and went down to the allotment to plough the fields and scatter (aka pull up a lot of bolted lettuce and weeds, and plant out some spring cabbages that likely won't survive our current plague of whitefly). 

The sun was going down, and it was just me and J from over the way left on the site. "Don't overdo it," he said, as he loaded up his bicycle. 

One of the many, many reasons I love my allotment is because I get to hang out with people like J, men who are either retired or very partially employed, who practically live on their plot (they have sheds, and quite likely *have* spent the night there on occasion), whose wives probably despair of them in a well-at-least-I-know-where-he-is-and-I've-not-had-to-buy-an-onion-since-1983 sort of way, and who are generous with both their advice and their surplus apples. 

I'm fine, I said. Beautiful day, isnt' it? 

It is, he said. I just spent the last half hour drinking whisky in the sun and doing nothing. 

I'd guessed whisky was one of the many things J keeps in his capacious bike basket. He has that look, and occasionally that smell, about him. But he has asparagus beds, and has just single-handedly built his own polytunnel. I aspire. 

He checked I had a key on me, in a delightful slightly pissed courteous way, and took his leave. I stayed there a while longer, pulling out the bad stuff and leaving in the good. 

Listening to: See that my grave is kept clean - Diamanda Galas

joella