Context is everything:
It is a late sunny summer Sunday afternoon in the crowded beer garden of the Rat and Broadbean. The band have been playing for a couple of hours, pausing only to rehydrate in the hot sun. The vocalist left the stage a few minutes ago saying that he was going for a little lie down and the remaining band members have decided to play out with a light jazz number.
On the day after the referendum, on the day the result was announced, I went up to the allotment, but found myself unable to concentrate on the weeding. After a number of attempts to motivate myself I gave up and went and sat in the greenhouse, drinking coffee from a flask and regarding the now lightly falling rain with some distaste. Eventually I had to admit it was no good – I couldn’t distract myself – I would have to deal with it, and that for me, often entails writing stuff down.
Our family, and many of our friends and their families, have regularly camped in the summer holidays on a small, family run, campsite on the north coast of the Llyn peninsular in North Wales. Earlier this month Sue and I were camping there, where we met Simon from Shropshire who reminisced about the years that he and his wife Jane had been coming to the site. Simon was particularly keen to recall the evening football matches that took place in ‘the top field’ in the late 80s / early 90s – ‘England v Wales, often 40 a side,men and boys …. men and boys!’
We routinely camped in a different field and our children were too young to be involved in these matches – but it was impossible not be aware of them.
The following is based on memories of actual events ……..
Elephant in the cold frame? – more like ‘Mastodon crashing through the raspberry canes’ when this explodes across the front pages tomorrow. So I see no point in holding back the inside info any longer – remember you read this story here first!!
SPOILER ALERT – This is the last of 4 episodes chronicling the predation of 9 broad bean plants on Allotment 335. Episode 1 was posted on 20th April 2016 (below).
A number of you have asked about the extraordinary Allotment Committee meeting trailed in the last edition of The Examiner. The meeting was last week and I trust you will agree that for all right minded people it was one to miss!
With mixed feelings I am sharing a further set of extracts from the latest edition of The Examiner which covers the meeting and subsequent events in Smallton. I have no wish to attract the sort of criticism currently being levelled at the script writers of the Archers and am very aware of the potential consequences to my reputation of forwarding contentious political views dressed up as satire.
So this will be our last visit to Smallton ………. for a while.
SMALLTON and HEDGE END EXAMINER
No story is not a story – no manure!
EDITORIAL
Frank Lee Tosh, Executive Editor
The office of the Examiner has been overwhelmed by the response of readers to the article in the last edition about the vermin threat on the town allotments (see letters below for a selection of views expressed).
SMALLTON and HEDGE END EXAMINER
No story too small, no turn left unstoned
By Reginald E Porter, Chief Horticultural Correspondent
Mr. D A Trench of 24 Hop Gardens is struggling to come to terms with the loss of 9 prized broad bean seedlings in the greenhouse on the allotment where he works.
It was our last morning in Hanoi and Sue and I wanted to revisit the early morning public t’ai chi sessions around Hoan Kiem Lake that we had witnessed in the rain five days previously. We left our small hotel in a quiet side street in the Old Quarter just after dawn and made our way through deserted streets to the lake. We commented on how easy it was to walk the streets when there were very few mopeds about – either on the streets or parked on the pavements.
Everyone who has been to South East Asia talks about the traffic in the cities and old hands caution that this is something that travellers have to get to grips with. Guide books are clear about the optimum approach for pedestrians – to walk slowly across the road at a constant pace thus allowing vehicles to weave round you – to suddenly stop or run in response to fear of collisions is to be avoided as these are likely to cause the very problems you are seeking to prevent. This sounds bad enough to a westerner who is used to more regulated traffic system (as you are putting your safety entirely in the hands of others) but the reality is much more complex and challenging!
Where do you start?
Well virtually anywhere on the network – Da Nang? Hanoi? – the trains are the same, long lines of carriages pulled slowly along by huge work-a-day diesel units, no streamlined euro trains these! Passengers gradually assemble in large echoey station waiting rooms and are entertained by Vietnamese soaps at high volume until the gates are opened and everyone streams out across the tracks to hunt down their carriage, conscious of large machines moving in the dark as engines are changed with much clanging and not a little shouting.
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