Unceremoniously

Sunday: Unceremoniously bundled into the van – no luggage, no backpack, not even a cushion so that I can sit on F’s knees.  Clearly we were not going to the V-E-T, nor were we going on holiday.  The weather was ‘grey’ and dampness was trying to fall out of the sky – and F was wearing the overalls she keeps for really filthy jobs.  As we pulled out of the drive, I was sitting in the back window and realized that something was following us, so I had to keep a close eye on that for a while to ensure it was not a threat.

After some driving around rural roads and tracks, between close hedgerows, in the shadow of embankments and trees, we eventually pulled up outside a gate into a muddy yard that smelled of large grass-fed animals.  There were piles of bags that smelled like they were full of ‘processed’ grass from said animals, all mixed up with straw and wood shavings, and F delightedly loaded as many as she could into the trailer that had been following us. 

Back to the allotment.

Our return route completed a circuit which took us past another gateway similarly stocked and I overheard F and Mr B discussing the name of the road for the purposes of finding their way back.

All that ‘stables manure’ was dumped onto a bed of the allotment and sort of shovelled around, upon which Mr B suggested a second trip to fetch another load.  I gather that hadn’t been in the original plan because it involved picking up all the scrap wood that had been piled up on one end of the garden, building a tepee shaped pyre (oooohh a bonfire, I like a good bonfire), and peeling back the cover that had been laid out on the freshly dug soil last Autumn.

No fire. What? Not setting fire to it right now, right here? Awww?!

Bags at the second gateway were a lot bigger and a lot heavier.  From the van’s back window I supervised my humans having to lift them together, but we got another trailer load and that was duly added to the allotment too.  More was left behind at the gateways than was carried off by my humans, so I anticipate further forays into rural Hampshire next weekend.

About ¼ of the allotment is now under a duvet, several inches thick, of ‘mulch’. F explained it should have been done in the autumn, but better late than none at all.  Some of the beds won’t get any – beans and parsnips don’t thrive in fresh(ish) farmyard manure, so the supply of well-rotted compost in the bins at home has been reserved for those beds.

My humans bundled me into the house and went off somewhere (in cleaner clothes) still towing the trailer.  When it returned it was full of bags of leaves – which I am informed had been raked up by a small-human and gifted to them for use on the allotment.  It is a big lot of leaves so there must be a lot of trees where small-human lives.  The leaves haven’t gone to the allotment yet; F is still working out what to do with them.  (They should really be rotted down first – but she has a plan.)

Monday night was calm, clear and bright.  My humans selfishly went off in the dark to set the bonfire alight and left me in the house.  I know where they had been, they smelled of smoke on their return.  They must have looked a right pair of criminals dressed in their oldest duds, wandering up the road carrying lanterns and a shovel and letting themselves into the allotments in the dark.

All I got of bonfire was a photo, which I studied intently for a while before resolving to wake them painfully in the middle of the night as revenge for not taking me along too.