it took a whole hour...

...and a whole gingerbread loaf (with big chunks of soothing crystallised ginger in it) to get through that meeting. We sat in the hot sun, in a circle of assorted shed chairs, the dog in the middle looking hopefully at anyone with a piece of cake. Everything I predicted happened, plus much arm-waving and finger-pointing, and eventually - eventually! - agreement was reached to give A time to harvest her crops - a handful of broad beans and a small patch of potatoes, lost amongst the weeds) before she is cast forth into the Vale of Shame that allotment defaulters must face. The old chaps kept muttering "Get 'er off!" while the wishy-washy liberal do-gooders (the rest of us) thought she should be spoken to kindly and not left with searing memories of public humiliation and abandoned beans. It was also agreed that some other plot holders would be sent a Letter too. The rules were read out again and everyone fell about at the one about keeping the plots weed-free.

Several conversations went on at once, getting louder and louder in order to be heard over each other. Out of the blue, there was a racist comment (not that we have any hint of mixed ethnicity amongst the gardeners down there) and a suggestion was made for an Inspection Sub-Committee - duty to inspect the plots on a regular basis, which would almost certainly result in one or two of us either pulling our socks up sharpish or being Thrown Off too. Roger commented later that he had been surprised at the sudden 'bonkers' turn of the meeting, but it could have been even madder. P stood up suddenly, to ease her aching back, and we all took this as a sign that the meeting was over, and drifted off, otherwise we could have been there till nightfall.

No notes were taken, or indeed were possible. The treasurer offered to list all the points raised, in the hope that we can have a clearer system for Throwing Off in the future. I slunk off to pull up my socks and some of the weeds.

subject of the meeting

This is A's plot. Somewhere in there are half a dozen broad bean plants and a square yard of potatoes. Maybe a lost city too. I suppose you couldn't blame A for being completely defeated by it, or the Committee for wanting to evict her.

in 15 minutes....

...I will be down on the allotment for that hastily-convened Committee meeting that might be throwing someone off their plot. Maybe there will be cudgels and pitchforks. I'm not going a moment sooner, for fear of being nobbled by the secretary, who can't hold her water at all, and will have poured out a litany of grievances to anyone foolish enough to cross her path before the meeting begins.

I am taking a gingerbread loaf, very dark and black-treacly, and cut into thick slices, in the hope of sweetening the proceedings, but I fear the worst - there will be strong feelings, raised voices, incoherent dissent, ill-natured digression of the sort known as "going all around the houses", and cake isn't going to stop any of it.

I'll let you know.

down Memory Lane, St Petersburg

Feedjit tells me that someone visited from St Petersburg. Exciting! I went there once, when I was a girl, and the city was still called Leningrad. I was in a school party of 13-14-year-olds, accompanied by two of our nuns. We were taking a Baltic cruise on a school ship, 22 of us having won 1st prize from Nestle for a national schools competition. Our project on cocoa had been laboured over; I had been responsible for drawing the maps. This was because I was considered to be "good at drawing" and could manage a steel nib and Indian ink without spattering the entire page or my school blouse, rather than to have any understanding of world geography, cartography, or, indeed, cocoa.

In hindsight, the trip was largely wasted on us; we were too young, too excitable because of the unaccustomed freedom, and too shockingly ready to forget most of the cultural experiences on offer. We would have enjoyed Scarborough just as much. Later we talked most fondly of our visit to Copenhagen, and in particular to the Tivoli Gardens, which tells you a lot about our age and maturity. But the trip was memorable, for a variety of reasons, chiefly because the ship was filled with other girls - and boys too, how thrilling! - from schools up and down the country. We had fun on board, despite the ghastly food and the crowded bunk rooms.

The Leningrad visit was one to remember, though not for any fun-related element. Firstly, we had been so heavily warned about dire consequences should our behaviour be less than angelic that we were frozen with nerves for most of the visit, and hardly dared to look around us, let alone laugh or speak. Security was so tight and oppressive that a sense of threat and of being watched penetrated even our teenage brainlessness.

We were rushed at lightning speed through the Hermitage Museum, of which my solitary and bizarre memory is of a red crystal door knob, while feeling terrified that friend Leonie and I might become separated from our group, which was usually just what we tried to be. The official guides were strict, officious, and difficult to understand, and were keen to avoid the nuns having any contact with another living soul save themselves and us; however, I noticed repeatedly that older women (of whom there were many, all in large headscarves) crossed themselves when they saw the Sisters. We speculated later, out of Sr. Cuthbert's hearing, as to whether this was to signify religious solidarity or a Russian version of averting the Evil Eye. We tended to favour the latter.

Buying souvenirs from the official outlet was an unforgettable lesson in queuing - and we British think we have cornered the market in forming an orderly queue? - we know nothing, nothing, compared to those pre-perestroika Leningraders. Only last year I found my enamelled brooches in an old jewellery box, the Soviet hammer and sickle, a flag with the head of Lenin in relief on it, and the Red Star, and passed them on to the Lovely Son. He will never understand how long and how patiently we waited, at three separate counters, for those little beauties!

A few years ago, the Lovely Son and I went to see Alexander Sokurov's "Russian Ark", stunningly filmed in one slow take entirely inside the Hermitage. I watched open-mouthed at all that I had failed to see or remember all those years ago, but could I spot that red doorknob? Well, no.

sad sight

Noble creatures reduced to beggary.....

back yard 7

maybe I need a water feature....

back yard 6

And now it's time for a machete, a flame thrower and a ruthless approach. The passion flower has strangled the clematis. The acer japonica has spread and made the seat unusable. The collection of pots and boxes, filled with herbs and and sweet peas as well as perennials, looks a mess. The seats and table need to be painted, and the paving needs to be scrubbed and de-greenified.

Into action!

back yard 6

A handy shed was added; the Neighbourhood Watch lookout point. More growing went on.

back yard 5

The yard started to look quite full. Hanging washing out could be challenging.

back yard 4

Sometimes bad things happened.

back yard 3

And they grew, and grew.

back yard 2

Things started to grow, and to look happy there.

back yard 1

The back yard once looked like this. The outside lavatory and coal house had already been demolished by the Lovely Son. The yard was levelled, a sturdy back fence built, and the walls rendered. They were painted the colour of an English sky, neither blue nor grey.

Some basics started to appear, haphazardly, and with no budget or know-how, but it was Better. Or, as Manuel from the Dominican Republic, who rendered the walls, would say, "more bedder".

hello July

allotment gardening - the Dark Side

Oh dear, black clouds are gathering over our leafy Eden. The secretary appears to be on the warpath. An Allotment Committee Meeting has been called for this coming Sunday, and Roger, quoting one of the old codgers, tells me that it appears to concern "getting rid of A".

Now I've never met or even seen A from a distance, and her plot, the blighted one with huge tree roots, is indeed a bleedin' disgrace, probably because it hasn't seen her either, but so is the one next to Eddie's, shared by a dentist and a policeman (true! supposed pillars of society - you can tut loudly here). The secretary's oft-threatened but previously mythical Letters have been sent out, and the errant gardeners should have 4 weeks in order to make a respectable effort. It may be that the meeting is intended to ratify the first step in eviction of these offenders, in which case it seems a bit premature to me. Or as they say here, a bit previous.

However, these are not the only plot holders to make little effort, and two other allotmenteers, not happy with the arbitrary nature of the Letter-sending, asked me what I thought we should do. All I could think of, my heart sinking at the sudden and unusual emergence of open conflict and decisive action, could only think of being awfully British and playing fair. "Er, ask them if they really want their plots - they have paid their year's rent, after all - give them more time, and (oh, a revolutionary thought, this!) maybe even give A a hand".

Something tells me that this Sunday's meeting will not be seeking arbitration, mediation, or even ordinary niceness; I'm not looking forward to it. Maybe I should make cakes again.

Eddie the Poisoner tried to convince me today that my own Letter would reach me next week.

little corner of heaven: the guided tour

As some of you, unfamiliar with the allotment tradition, have asked me about it, I thought you might like to see this fabled allotment of mine, so now, thanks to Roger's skill with Google maps and dotted lines, you can.

Picture 1: the serene environs of Bacteria Gardens. Here they are - the dozen or so streets of gardenless terraced houses and student flats, the steep hill rolling away to the little river Ouseburn, and on to glorious Jesmond Dene and Heaton Park,or, by taking a right turn which suddenly plunges you into an open grassy area where no roads or buildings are visible, our allotments. To reach them, we must trudge down this steep hill and along to the gate, and the return trudge after a strenuous digging session is often accompanied by loud puffing and groaning .

Our site, outlined in red, with the vaguest-looking allotments, is positioned next to the pigeon holders' site, with its cluster of crees and sheds. Most of the men in there seem to be named Alan, and the river sometimes bursts its banks at this point and floods the lower half of their site. The whole area used to have its own little village, with two pubs and a church, and much was eventually abandoned because of persistent flooding. One pub remains, recently refurbished so that new customers under the age of 60 and who do not wear flat caps and nicotine stains could be encouraged. The walls and ceiling are no longer brown, and while it is certainly much cleaner and better-lit, it has lost its charm entirely

There is another self-contained group of allotment plots at the top right. The gardeners there have clubbed together to build a gazebo; we don't have anything to do with them, for no known reason, unless, perhaps, we just aren't gazebo people. Maybe we are tumbledown hut people, neo-Neolithic types with low brows who wouldn't know what to do with a gazebo and a glass of chilled white wine.

Picture 2: a closer view. The plot outlined in red near the top is mine, although the picture was taken a couple of years ago, and some derelict cold frames have been removed, to allow the weeds greater freedom. Oddly, my beloved shed is near-invisible, as is any evidence of gardening activity on my part.

The largish polytunnel in the plot above mine is Suspicious Colin's, who builds it himself every year, grows huge leeks in it, which he invariably pronounces a deep disappointment (prize leek growers are rarely satisfied) and then gives up as the winter winds tear his sheets of polythene to ragged shreds that are left to flap forlornly till next Spring. Colin responds to any question, no matter how innocuous, with a shifty and alarmed look and an evasive response. This could be the mark of a chronically guilty conscience, or perhaps I haven't recognised my own unconscious imitation of a copper's nark, but it makes conversation challenging.

Eddie the Poisoner is opposite me, his tidy garden filled with bird feeders heavily vandalised by squirrels, and considering Eddie's state of health, the Grim Reaper hovering at his elbow and breathing hotly down his neck, it may be that the war of wits he wages on those squirrels is what keeps him alive. Not that he poisons anything except weeds, being a great softie with all wildlife, but he talks tough, and frequently encourages me to poison my weeds, hence his nickname. I am very fond of Eddie, and also, to my shame, secretly covet his old 5-tined curved fork specifically designed to dig up potatoes.

Roger's plot is on the opposite side, bottom right, also outlined in red. The end section of his plot is tangled riverbank, and the dog finds that it all smells very interesting down there under the briars, suggesting wildlife that appeals most to terriers. Roger grows woad, and other things that can be used as natural dyes, but before the knitters and weavers amongst you get excited, he doesn't appear to knit, spin or weave. Or, to my eternal disappointment, to paint himself and Tim blue in order to advance menacingly on Hadrian's Wall.

The other plots are held by a motley group of gardeners, some very experienced, with fine soil and serried ranks of cabbages, some so new that they haven't seen, as I have, the relentless march of the Jerusalem artichokes that someone planted some years ago and then shared. Another ten years of this insidious invasion, and the entire site might be renamed Jerusalem Gardens, with a bunch of defeated gardeners putting together J.A. recipe books and presenting a brave face to the world.

So, that's the place where we go to battle with Nature, wreck our fingernails, and replenish our souls. See how lush and green it all looks? Mostly weeds and brambles, perhaps all that stands between us and world domination by the artichokes, but a secret little patch of heaven between the city and the Dene. I love it.

misty

Anyone who watches the weather forecast might notice that the North East coast often has entirely different weather from the rest of the country. I know you probably all say the same about where you live, but unless you live in the Tyne & Wear area (or Stornoway), you haven't got much to complain about, I reckon. While you bask in temperatures of 19-24 (and 30 prophesied for next week!), we have 12-14; while you have occasional showers, we have rain, drizzle, downpours and occasional cloudbursts.And generally a nasty wind, a North East coastal speciality.

But yesterday and last night it was still and misty, a soft, hair-curling dampness that looked dreary when viewed from indoors, and not at all alluring to either the dog or I in our comfy chairs. But when we stepped outside, and in particular first thing this morning, oh, the feel of the soft milky air, the glorious scents, even in a city, of green things growing, of trees breathing softly, of the allotment calling faintly - come and see! everything has grown, the spider webs are glistening, the birds are flicking splashily in and out of dripping bushes, and your curly-leaved lettuces are ready to cut!

So the dog and I set off, lured by the scents and the feel of the air. I took a large umbrella, just in case, and we let ourselves quietly in at the allotment gate. Not a soul was there. The secretive little wrens allowed me to watch them for a long time, before we walked the narrow overgrown ribbon of path to my allotment, arriving soaked from the knees down, just through brushing past grass and cow parsley.

Everything glistened and gleamed; the pond was full, and the alchemilla mollis held perfect diamonds in the centre of its leaves. I watered the tomatoes, picked a handful of strawberries, encouraged the peas and beans with friendly thoughts, and tested one of the red gooseberries - no, not ready yet - and left it at that. It wasn't a day for gardening, but for being still. I could have sat for hours, drinking it all in, the peace, the silence, the utter tranquillity, fullness and greenness of it all, ten minutes from the city centre. I never cease to marvel at this, the isolated patch of gardens, surrounded by a belt of trees, hidden from the bustle and noise of the nearby streets and the thundering coast road traffic.

I had to change soaked shoes and trousers on returning reluctantly home, and the lettuce, sorrel, spinach and oriental salad leaves had to be washed twice to get rid of splashes of soil and tiny slugs, before sharing with neighbours. We'd had a lovely start to our day, and now the mist has cleared and the sky is brightening. I'm glad we hadn't waited for the weather to 'improve'.

little bowl of happiness

fly

sigh.....

just one year

In June last year, Harry and Kevin were still here with me. I had no inkling of how short Harry's time as a delightful companion would be. And Kevin, it seemed, could have gone on for ever.

And now I have Lottie and Millie, delightful companions too, hopefully here to stay for a very long time. But I haven't forgotten my lovely boys.