Occasionally someone asks me for advice about getting an allotment and the only advice I have is go often. Don’t be mad keen in summer and ignore it from October until March.
This year I just failed to take my own advice, my attendance and attention at the plot had been spotty from August but after October I just didn’t have the bandwidth for it. I love the plot but f I can’t give it the attention it needs, then I need to consider giving it up or losing half and honestly, I’ve worked too hard to want to do that. So I need to commit.
This is what I started with on New Years Eve
I had made the new bed at the front in August so that was the first place I wanted to weed.
By Saturday, it was looking a lot better
I’ve also weeded the rhubarb. And cleared and topped up one of the beds. There is so much to do, I also cut back the raspberry canes in the bed by the compost bins and weeded the path at the back.
BeforeAfter
Finally, despite all the neglect, there was produce, cabbages and sprouts.
Look what I grew!
There is still loads to do but my plan is just to turn up every Sunday morning and do a couple of hours. Next week my mission is to cut down the other raspberry bed (and dig some canes up for plot neighbours), get the rest of the grass up under the plum tree, clear and top up three beds and start weeding around the gooseberry bushes.
As you can see from the photos, it’s going to take some work to get it ready for March!
Those corn flowers are out of control There are gooseberry bushe’s in amongst the grass honest!
I was planning on having a strong autumn and winter as the end to 2024 but in reality, I fought 2024 to a draw and honestly it could have been worse. That meant this space got neglected as life felt overwhelming.
The 2024 Christmas Tree
So quick catch up, Ma is still wobbly, the allotment has been neglected since October (more on that on Wednesday) and the house could use some attention. However, I have also organised the team Christmas, organised my Christmas, cleaned two ovens (mine and my mother’s), did culture and catching up with Christelle just before Christmas, celebrated Ma’s birthday, saw Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre, made several banoffee pies and managed to catch up with friends over Christmas.
Christmas at my brothers includes time with my favourite nephew!!But the other two are lovely
Now it’s 2025 and today is Epiphany and real life resumes.
View from Waterloo Bridge
This week begins with taking Ma back to the audiologist this morning (we tried over Christmas but her ear wax is like her and wouldn’t budge!). She’s still waiting for the ENT referral but until we’ve cleared her ears the doctor won’t entertain the idea that there’s something wrong with her balance (and there is something wrong) so we threw some money at it and that will take her off the waiting list.
Then 4 days of work and two days in the office. Friday night I’m out to celebrate Charles’ 80th birthday. It’s weird to me that I’ve officially known him (and Christina and Tom) for 35 years, I’ve become a ‘family friend’ and yes it does make me feel old!!
Waiting for Ballet Shoes
On Saturday, I’m at Ma’s and Saturday night is Grace. Sunday morning is for the allotment and Sunday afternoon is for some rest and prep for the week and then I do it all again!
People have busier lives but I’m naturally lazy, so that feels like enough!!
So I had a whole post prepped for the first Sunday of Advent but I got distracted and didn’t post it.
The dictionary definition of Advent is ‘the beginning of an event, the invention of something or the arrival of a person.’
Which sums up this time quite well, because we’re waiting for all of that. The beginning of a time of God as human, the arrival of a person and the invention of God’s Kingdom on here.
Christmas marks something extraordinary for Christians, the idea of God coming to us as man, working to experience human life and understand us better and also maybe to hope that we might understand God better. Which is why, I’m kicking off my reflections with this poem from Teresa of Avila (look I’m Catholic at some point Saints were going to be involved)
Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Often atheists will argue that if God exists, God is cruel because look at the awful things in the world. Some Christians will tell you that the world is as it as because of the Fall, this is not the world that God planned. I have another view and I don’t think its a particularly revolutionary view but you don’t hear it argued very often.
How much of the horrible things that happen in the world would happen if we lived as God would wish us to?
Hunger, war, homelessness, poverty, most death from illness. Would those things happen if we truly cared for one another, if we saw fellow humans as we see ourselves? The world could look very different. We choose the world the way it is.
I believe that God gave us free will. Free will has issues. So in the lead up to the celebration of God becoming embodied, I’m here thinking about God’s work being my work. There are many ways we can help, one of the ones I have chosen is the Amos Trust.
The state of the world right now is pretty grim, it’s estimated that there are 110 armed conflicts happening in the world. The World Food Programme estimates that 343 million people in the world face acute hunger. What I’m about to say, concentrates on Palestine and the work of the Amos Trust but I do recognise there are other places that also need our help. However, Chris Rose, the director of the Amos Trust, came to Grace in November to talk about their work in Gaza and the West Bank and about their Christmas Appeal.
Amos is working with its with partners in Gaza, to help and they are well placed to help because they were there before the bombing started. This from DSPR, who work with traumatised people in Gaza really drove home to me how inhumane what’s happening in Gaza is:
“We are not providing trauma therapy like we have done for the last 15 years in Gaza. It would be impossible, pointless until there is an end to the fighting. Instead we are helping parents and children cope — addressing their fear and anxiety and helping them get through another day.
If we do not do this now, we believe that when the war ends many of these children, even with the best therapeutic support, will never be able to overcome their trauma.” Nader Abu Amsha DSP
No child deserves this, not a single one.
If you are able to donate, please think about it, the Christmas appeal is open until 10 December and someone will match funding up to £36,000.
I’m tapping this post out at 7am on Monday morning from Bristol Coach Station, which should give you an idea of how my travel plans went over the weekend.
Saturday night’s delay in a waiting room at Worcester Foregate
The plan was to go down to Sarah’s on Saturday night, spend Sunday with her and Noah and Ryan, and come back on Sunday night.
Storm Bert and the uselessness of GWR (God’s Worst Railway) put the kibosh on that. First all trains from Hereford Station were cancelled. But that was ok, Ryan dropped me at Newport because the trains were still running. The 18:33, except when I got to Newport, it had been cancelled. So I followed the advice and went to Bristol Temple Meads. Nope, all trains to London cancelled. Look, I get things happen, there was a storm, it was GWR’s complete lack of preparation or help that threw me. No one organising taxis or hotels. Nothing except a promise that GWR would pay for it!
Delays, delays and outright lies
Fortunately, I do this for my day job and I have money. Not enough to pay for a £350 taxi from Bristol to London, but enough for a hotel! I booked a room at Delta by Marriott and then a coach to London for the morning. I even sent a friend to go and pick up the wine that had been delivered to my doorstep that afternoon (it was missing but I’ll deal with that later!)
I’m lucky, I had money and credit cards and a charged phone and experience of how to cope with nonsense like this (and I still called my mum!) I also have a job where I have some person credit and great management (that have, as ever, been fantastic about me not being in on a Monday morning). 25 years ago that would not have been the case. For me, this is an annoying story, for the girl in the station crying that she would lose her job if she didn’t get home and she couldn’t afford a taxi. (Yes, I helped her book a coach and bought her a sandwich and I really hope she got home ok) it was worse than that.
Bristol Coach Station
I’m good and mad that GWR didn’t have a single fucking plan in place to help. It look like I’ll get my tickets refunded and possibly my hotel and coach booking too but the absolute lack of planning for an emergency was a shambles, it’s more than time to renationalise the trains.
Other than that, it was lovely to see everyone. Sarah, Ryan, Noah and bonus Elayne and Justin, who is out of hospital and grumpy so must be on the mend. Of course I got a cuddle from Fred l, ok he sat on me to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere..
We walked the dogs, in the very flooded campsite, Noah is so much like Ryan at the same age (completely nuts!)
It was a good visit, shame about the travel!
What else? Once I get home, and locate my wine, it’s a pretty standard week. It’s the last week of November, so there are two birthdays and an anniversary. I’m having lunch with godchildren and various others on Sunday because we’re at 20 years since Stef died. Yep, time piles up..
View from a coach
Sunday is also Advent which means Christmas is coming but more important than that, next week Ma has a birthday!
A couple of years ago, Ma bought me an orchid for my birthday, I’ve managed to keep it alive so far but this summer I’ve been rubbish at watering my house plants and the orchid needed repotting. I saw a thing about growing them in water and thought I would try it.
So I took the orchid out of it’s pot and cleaned off the roots, I had a handy glass jar and filled it about a third of the way up and put the orchid in, I also added a drop or two of orchid feed. I change the water every week and so far, so good and the leaves aren’t wrinkly anymore because I forgot to water it. I suppose the real test will be if it flowers again, we’ll see. It is already growing a new leaf, so it’s going well.
It makes no sense why this should feel easier to do than just watering it once a week, but I can’t control the way my brain works!
Back in the mists of time, when I lived with both my parents, I had a pottery mug. It’s this one, it’s the one I still use when I’m at Ma’s.
I’m not sure where it came from, but I know it was something that Dad bought. We didn’t have much hand made anything and most crockery in our house ended up broken, that notwithstanding, Mum and Dad liked pottery and stoneware and we had more of it in our house than my contemporaries did (the whole pottery thing was something that my aunt never got). This is one of the reasons Mum has so many bowls and mugs, because I know that she really likes them, the more handmade the better. I bought her a mug when I was in Cote d’Ivoire because I knew she’d appreciate that more than anything else I could bring back (yes eventually it died because she dropped it but at least it wasn’t thrown at anyone!)
I’m the same, I’m really lucky because Jo often buys me small ceramics on her travels. I’ve been trying this year to think about presents and if I’m buying a object, I’m trying to buy nice handmade things made by people not in factories. I’ve not got it right or perfect but I’m trying.
I was thinking about this when I came across Blue Air Ceramics on Instagram. Sweary handmade mugs, that are tricky to get hold of because they are a lot of work for one person to make. Alice, the person behind the website, took up making mugs with swear words on them in memory of her friend who died of mouth cancer and swore like a sailor. I couldn’t think of anything more delightful (I am a woman who has a ’30 ways to say fuck’ poster on her kitchen wall after all)
I signed up to the email list in the hope of being notified next time there was a drop and didn’t think much else about it. Until one day, in August, I was on a bus on my way to Ma’s and the waitlist for personalised orders opened while I was checking my email. So I ordered two mugs, one for me, one for Ma, paid for them and settled in to wait.
Yesterday, my mugs arrived and I am so absolutely and completely delighted with them. Ma knows that this is one of her birthday presents so I’m not spoiling it at all but look at them, they are just perfect.
They are a delight and I’m so happy I wasn’t working on the day Alice opened that waitlist so I saw the email in time.
I would sign up to waitlist again, if I could, these are just so lovely….
I’ve been completely absent over the last couple of weeks (so much for my Get a Grip goals in September!) because October is hard and I am tired and there is more change at work.
However, we have just entered the ‘dead cat bounce’ part of the year. For those of you that don’t know, it’s when the clocks go back and its lighter in the mornings for a bit. I struggle generally with light levels in winter but the dark mornings are the worst thing for me. So while everyone else complains about it being dark at 5pm (which is hard) I’m marginally happier because I can wake up in the light. It’s a dead cat bounce because the cat is still dead, there is no good news, in a month’s time it’s going to be dark at 7:30am and there is no stopping it, but for the next week or so, I’m a tiny bit more able to cope…
The light lamp does help but it’s not as good as summer!
It other news, good change at work but I’m giving some support to others, in addition to my actual job. I do want to help but I’m also wondering about my capacity for stretch (at work and in my life in general). After a chat with my boss, we’ve come to the conclusion that we’ll (ok I) will carry on until Christmas and then, assuming I haven’t had a nervous breakdown, we’ll review for the New Year. There are only 66 days until 2026 and that’s only actually 40 working days if I take out weekends, bank holidays and leave, it’ll be fine!
In addition to work being busy, I did a day in Southampton which involved a 5am wake up, which I really don’t recommend. Ma and I went to the farmers market, we’ve had haircuts and I’ve assembled furniture for her (and witnessed her doing actual housework!) and I have bought more than one of the many birthday/Christmas presents that are required for the coming season. Last week, I gave blood, I’ve started to donate regularly, inspired by a colleague who has a goal of 50 donations before he’s 50 and the shortage in the summer, if you can donate, I would encourage you to do so, it does really help and it’s easy to do.
Action shot
This week is going to be very quiet, I spent a fair amount of time getting myself prepped for the week, there’s a Grace meal on Monday, and other than that I have no plans to be social!
I love a lip balm, to the extend that when pressed to pick me a present from the school tombola, the youngest nephew bought me a box of nivea lip balm (best gift ever!).
The pot of lip balms
I have a little pot in the hall at home, for lip balms, so I can grab one on the way out of the house. My last big restock was last autumn, so it was time to reup.
My god-daughter gave me the vanilla version of this and I was impressed and it tasted like cake! I now have all the favours Amazon had available (Honeydew, Peach, Grape, Strawberry) in addition to the original vanilla and they are great because they are favoured, shiny but not too sticky and they actually moisturise your lips not make them drier.
If like me you believe that you’re never too old for good, flavoured lip balm, these really fit the bill.
Pro-war, anti-Netanyahu: that has been the Israeli liberal conundrum in a terrible year. This is generally my issue with Israelis of all political stripes, they just don’t see the Palestinians as human beings and so they can’t see that all they are doing is making themselves more unsafe. Israel is currently bombing the Lebanon to ‘defeat’ Hezbollah, the organisation formed when Israel invaded the Lebanon in the 1980’s. There is a pattern, but Israeli can’t see it.
Israel is high on its own propaganda, always the victim and never the perpetrator. Every bad thing done by Israel is explainable and understandable or accidental, everything done by the Palestinians is wicked. The Israeli army is the ‘most moral army in the world’, (if you ignore what it’s doing in the West Bank, or the rape of Palestinians, or anything the UN and human rights organisations say). De-escalation through escalation. Nothing can justify the violence of 7th October but everything Israel does is justified by 7th October.
To my shame, my government is supportive of this nonsense, calling for a ceasefire but providing arms. In the US, it’s the same.
The only way to stop this, to stop Israel is to stop supplying them with arms. During the Suez crisis, the US got the UK to withdraw by threatening it’s economy. Stick not carrot.
“It did not start with the tragedy of 7 October. And it will not end, not only for Palestinians, but also for those Israelis who have been corrupted by entitlement and impunity. Until those who have the power to determine who deserves to live in safety and dignity understand that you cannot deny those rights to Palestinians and expect them to underwrite peace and stability by submitting to their fate as subhuman, this will not end.”
Family of deceased tenant refused entry to property containing life’s work. Really? What a terrible thing to do. There are a couple of issues, firstly the rule, you should be working with the family to get the flat cleared and handed back so you can let it out again, not making a family apply for probate. Second, this is the discrimination that people without money suffer, because if the house was owned, they could get all the access to it they needed without probate. But also, write a will, even if you don’t have money, write a will!
In the last three weeks, I’ve managed about 2 hours on the plot.
Yes I do feel bad, but I can’t be everywhere. The plot just carries on though.
This week, there was one winter squash, two summer squash, purple sprouting broccoli, a few sweet potatoes, a cauliflower and tomatoes!
The only work I’ve done, aside from collecting produce, was taking down the tomatoes and a small bit of weeding.
I’m hoping to take Friday afternoon off and go do some actual work on the plot but as the allotment committee chair said on Sunday, “there’s always winter for tidying up”
Nic Dempsey 