Fruitful growth


We made a couple of visits to the allotment today. The first was during the hottest part of the day – stupid idea in retrospect – and we achieved nothing except to get demoralised and pick up sun-dried headaches.

So we abandoned that, retreated home until it got cooler, and then took the Spitfire with the hood down on a run out to the RHS gardens at Wisley, where we'd gone with my Nan a month or so ago. Great fun – hair blowing everywhere during the drive.

Not so good news from the Grand Prix qualifying – the Toyotas found some speed, the Minardis lost some, and we're at the back of the grid again (unless the unfortunate Jensen Button makes it out of hospital in time, which I suspect he will). Still, at least the Ferraris didn't dominate.

Anyway, we returned to the allotment at about 7pm and did many of the things that we hadn't been able to do earlier, including a lot of heavy digging with mattock, fork and shovel. There's an incredibly nice bloke with a plot near ours, he's the one who recommended the physio who sorted my foot out. We often see him when he drops by to pick some vegetable or other that his wife needs in the meal that she's in the process of cooking. He was there tonight and when he heard we were going away he offered to keep an eye on our plants and water them if they looked like the heat was getting to them. he's a star – so everyone leave comments saying “thank you Brian”…

Right now, I'm kicking back with a cold beer or two… going right to my head because of the heat and lack of food…