We are allotment holders!

It’s official. We are allotment holders. Had our first ceremonial turning of the first sod today. Or is it the first turf? Anyway. Felt great. Yesterday was spent purchasing a gleaming fork from Camden Garden Centre (plus fripperies such as Nicola potatoes). Naturally I didn’t have my master list of ‘recommended varieties’ with me, and chose badly. But there were only 10 tubers, so even if they are bland, they won’t swamp the site. This morning we had the 11am meeting with the real allotment holder – a friendly but fey lady named Jana. She only managed to work about ten feet of the whole site last year and was feeling a bit fragile. Naturally our bright eyed and bushy tailed demeanour wasn’t well received. But she is keen to help out and gave us a key to the immaculate little shed on the site. The lock has already been forced by vandals, so you can actually prise it open using the screws attached to the lock, but never mind. I’m just relieved there will be somewhere for me to have a discrete pee. Into a bucket and onto the compost heap someone helpfully told me in my question as to whether the site had public loos.

We have unearthed a third of the site today. It was covered with a massive carpet. Obviously the previous owners had redone their wall to wall carpeting in their home, as the amount of stuff on the ground is phenomenal. And phenomenally heavy. Thank goodness David was there to haul on the other end of the sodden material. I couldn’t have budged it. But we have unearthed a clean part of the garden, and moved the carpet to strangle some weeds down ‘David’s end’. He has to have his own patch or There Will Be Words. My ideas on raised beds are still being met with excoriating comment. Sigh. Tomorrow I shall head out there on the tube to Brent Cross with my shiny, shiny fork, and lots of protective clothing. We positively clayed up our climbing trousers today with our brief work. I want to dig over the exposed site and then have a look at the next third.
Shall go to sleep dreaming of chitting potatoes. Funny how such an active word actually just applies to popping potato tubers into egg boxes and keeping them on the kitchen window sill. Why then is forking over the plot more akin to heavy lifting and bench pressing huge weights when it actually sounds like forking pasta onto a serving platter?