Richard's Blog: September 2010

Disadvantages to allotments; bureaucracy and lack of practical sense

Despite attempts at having a gate installed (we would pay for), which falls on deaf ears, the council have started fencing around my plot, cutting us off from the house, and for some odd reason the shed too. It just reminds me there are disadvantages to renting land under allotment laws, try all you like the council will do what it likes, which is too make a mess and throw money away.

What I read this September

The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Imagine a grown man as innocent as Christ in a material-greed obsessed society, and then make him wealthy and fall in love for reasons he cannot understand, and you have, in a simplistic way, the premise of The Idiot. At times it's about someone finally enjoying life, while at other times it's like witnessing a saint falling from everything. This is my third Dostoevsky title, I think I'll move to Notes from the Underground one grey day.

A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. The only other Hemingway I've read is For Whom the Bell Tolls -a Spanish Civil War story, this however was more enjoyable and set during the World War. The plot is straightforward, but not predictable. The war scenes are chaotic and you even start to believe, as do the characters, the war is endless. The love plot and drinking is very Hemingway, beautifully written and cuts all the crap.

Olympus xa2 test roll

Asked the photo developers for a cross processing service. -What's that? Oh, never mind.

More apples, more pumpkins

Everything seems to be slowing down on the allotment, it's getting cooler and the day's shorter. I cant believe it's October in a week. I'm being asked a lot: have you got any apples left? Yes, I have apples left. There's a whole box in the hallway full. I picked more today, I slung a carrier bag around me with some heavy duty jute string and climbed the bramley tree in wellington's.

I keep feeding and feeding the pumpkins, determined to have one bigger than last year. In my heavy-ish soil they seem to grow better in hills of compost and potash.

I'm bagging and freezing hops tomorrow. The fun.

Harvesting the biggest Apples...

before they are pinched by $£!# heads -it would be okay if people just asked. A box has already gone to a scout group.

Also went to the new library. Very swank though a lack of classic books. Only two copies of Dostoevsky, though that's two more than the old one. I got Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Orwell Diaries.