Introduction..
People keep asking me why do we have an allotment, and i always seem to come up with a different answer - the father in-law talked me into it, the kids wanted it, I'm an horticulturist, I need it to relax, it's trendy!
I guess the short answer is all of the above to a greater or lesser degree.
So, partly in response to those who constantly pester me for updates even though they insist they think having an allotment is 'geeky' or slightly odd, and partly because having a blog will mean I'll have to haul my sorry backside up there more often.
Father Christmas and the Geese..
Firstly a bit of background on how we got to this point. We had often walked or driven past the Rushden Permanent Allotment and Smallholdings Society Ltd gates over the six years we have lived in Rushden and often said 'one day'. Years past, we grew old, had kids, changed careers, painted the fence even descaled the kettle before we gathered our courage and made a date with destiny. We approached the galvanised steel gates with some caution only to be greeted by Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas, obviously on one of his many days off attending to his brassicas. 5 minutes and £15.25 later we were proud shareholders and fully paid up owners of a 1 chain allotment for the next two years. Safely back at home we contemplated our new found status as allotment owners when it dawned on us the enormity of what we had done and exactly how big is 1 chain?
Two agonising weeks later we got the phone call to say that our new plot had been ploughed and prepared and was now ready for us. Gate key in hand, we put the tools in the car and went in search of our plot. Once through the gate we were accosted by a gaggle of geese and we were introduced to the Smallholdings part of the society. We pushed on and faced the daunting prospect of freshly ploughed soil and our ideas..
