Hello there,
It's Mandy here.
Welcome back to Ted the Shed,
My memoir about my dad's allotment.
We've reached December 2011 now.
It's amazing how quickly the time passes,
But hopefully you can stand hearing about another Christmas,
Even though it feels as though we've only just had the one that's happened in real life.
Anyway,
Before I begin,
Please go ahead and make yourself really comfortable.
Settle down into your chair or into your bed and just try relaxing your hands,
Softening those shoulders and just releasing any tension that's left in your jaw.
That's great.
So if you're ready,
Then I'll begin.
December 2011 of Gnomes and Names Although I've been looking forward to the cold weather and the excuse not to visit the plot,
Now that the winter is upon us,
With its indecently short days,
I keep finding little jobs to do down there.
The place must have more of a hold on me than I realise.
Perhaps it's something to do with my new camping gas stove,
Plus whistling kettle,
Mug and tea bags.
I never was one to visit the allotment,
Or indeed anywhere,
Without a thermos full of boil,
But I find that brewing up in the shed beats the flask system hands down.
It isn't just the taste of the tea,
It's the walk to the tap and the joy of finding that the council haven't yet turned the water off for winter.
It's the delight when damp matches finally flare against damp box.
Once the kettle's on,
It's the frequent breaks from whatever I'm doing to peer at the blue flame and rejoice that the gas hasn't run out.
The whole process is so fragile that when the boil finally arrives,
It's a miracle,
A worthy substitute for seeing things grow.
And the lack of that growth is in itself paradoxically motivating,
Because if crops aren't growing,
Then neither are weeds.
So a cleared,
Dug-over bed stays cleared and dug-over,
A nice plain chocolate brown,
Unbespattered by Mother Nature's green paint pot.
The third boon is the post-gardening bath.
There is simply no ablution to top it,
Especially in winter.
Aching limbs are caressed by silken-oiled water.
Grime floats out from under filthy fingernails.
Nettle stings are brutally revived to tingle afresh.
The spent gardener lies contentedly under bubble bath foam,
As a landscape lies beneath clouds.
And then,
Of course,
There's that special motivation that comes from members of one's family.
When I tell Dad I'm still visiting the plot regularly,
He says,
Can't think why.
There must be naff all to do down there at this time of year.
As for Mr.
MS,
When he pops down to find me digging a bed over,
Something I claimed only last month was unnecessary in winter,
He stares at me with a look of distaste and says,
Crikey,
Don't overdo it.
Sorry I can't stay.
I've just come to get the loppers.
It seems one of our neighbours needs help.
Later,
I hear that while lopping off twigs,
He also lopped the head off her garden gnome.
But I'm getting sidetracked.
I'm not the only allotmenteer who likes being there in winter.
And before he leaves with the loppers,
Mr.
MS strikes up a conversation with our cowboy-hatted neighbour.
Being something of a blurter,
He lets slip that Dad and I call him the farmer.
Funny that,
Says our neighbour,
Considering I'm a car mechanic.
Things have the potential to turn frosty.
But they don't.
The farmer,
As I shall persist in calling him,
Admits that he calls another neighbour,
Who we know only by the disappointing title of Ian,
Mr.
Windy.
Mr.
MS looks at me.
The farmer goes on.
He put his shed up in a Force 10 gale,
You see.
Mr.
MS titters obligingly,
But I can see he's disappointed by the explanation.
He goes off muttering something that sounds like Coke and bowls.
Later,
He tells me that's indeed what it is,
A mnemonic to help him remember,
A,
To take some soft drink round to Dad's tonight to stop his glass being continually topped up with alcohol,
And B,
To ask Dad whether he'd consider going to the local bowls club.
Anyway,
I let Mr.
MS go,
With good grace.
After all,
It's only a matter of time before the decapitated gnomes-mates come calling.
Christmas Day comes round again.
When Mum and Dad first moved up here,
Mr.
MS and I formed a routine of cooking a bird at our house and taking it round to their flat to meet up with the sprouts and potatoes.
It meant getting up early to put the turkey in,
Because Dad has always eaten at midday and wasn't about to stop now.
But since Mum died,
We've had Dad round to our house for Christmas lunch and have managed to delay it in increments.
This year,
It starts at 1pm,
Which gives us an hour's lie-in compared to the old days.
Even so,
It doesn't feel enough.
Mr.
MS picks Dad up at 11.
30.
He comes,
Complete with a Tesco's carrier bag full of clanking bottles.
First out of the bag is a Tesco's orange juice bottle,
Containing a litre of decanted sherry.
Dad buys sherry in quantity.
And second comes a bottle of Moët.
Oh,
That's lovely,
Dad,
I say.
I'm not keen on sherry,
But Shampers always gets my vote.
I fear a third bottle,
But the other item in the bag is a hefty three-foot-long adjustable spanner.
Thought that might be useful for getting the cork out,
Says Dad.
It'll double as a nutcracker.
The saying,
Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,
Comes to mind,
But I decide not to risk getting off on the wrong foot so early in the day.
Dad sits down at the kitchen table.
Right,
We'll get stuck in,
Shall we,
He says,
Unscrewing the cap on the sherry.
We should see this off by lunchtime.
I make my calculations.
90 minutes to drink 33 centilitres of sherry each,
At 18% proof on an empty stomach.
20 or even 10 years ago,
I might have entertained this,
But age seems to have put paid to my drinking days.
And Mr.
MS always was a lightweight,
Barely able to swallow down one whiskey and coke before toppling over.
We brace ourselves.
It is pointless saying no,
Because if you do,
Dad tops your glass up when you're not looking,
In the cheery,
Firm belief that you will be secretly grateful.
Being in our own home puts us at an advantage though,
And we're able to implement a strategy of gentle sipping and wafting into another room where we can pour the contents of our glasses into the equivalent of the Asperdistra.
We pull our crackers and put on our Christmas hats.
An hour of steady drinking doesn't improve Dad's mood.
As the attentive reader will remember,
He despises occasions of any kind,
Even family ones.
They seem to put him under a pressure that he finds intolerable.
He has always hated Christmas,
Even before Mum died.
Back in the day,
He would refuse to buy presents for Mum and me,
Then get so embarrassed when we gave him his that he'd rush out on Boxing Day and buy the first thing he could get hold of.
One year,
There was only a garage open and he bought me an emergency windscreen repair kit.
These days,
He sells it with a large box of Belgian chocolate seashells with a token square cut from last year's Christmas wrapping paper sellotaped onto the front.
It is an improvement and much appreciated.
Today,
He offers to help prepare the veg.
He doesn't like roast potatoes,
So I always do some boiled ones for him.
I give him some Maris Pipers to peel.
Sadly,
Not from the allotment,
Although the roasted King Edwards that Mr.
M.
S.
And I will enjoy were dug only yesterday.
We will all,
However,
Be eating the meagre handful of Brussels sprouts I picked.
These blew open and looked like shattered miniature cabbages on the central stalk,
And now I've taken the shredded outer leaves off.
They are tiny indeed,
But they are homegrown and that's what counts.
Dad,
Sitting at the kitchen table with his red paper crown akimbo,
Explodes suddenly.
I can't do this job with a knife.
Mr.
M.
S.
Pulls a face at me and slips quietly into the sitting room.
Where's that peeler?
Dad goes on.
You know,
The one Mum and I gave you in 1974.
He doesn't actually say 1974,
But he has an astounding memory for everything Mum and he ever gave me.
I freeze for a moment before I remember that I do still have the peeler in the kitchen drawer and have had it there for years.
I present it to him proudly.
He straightens his crown.
Unfortunately though,
As he tackles the first Maris Piper,
There is more cause for complaint.
This peeler is completely blunt.
Oh,
I say.
What have you done to it?
He barks.
Well,
Nothing,
Dad,
I say in a reasonable voice.
To be honest,
I hardly ever use it.
I prefer you must have abused it in some way.
I can see Mr.
M.
S.
In the sitting room creasing up at the thought of peeler abuse.
But I'm nettled.
I've never used the blinking thing,
Not even once.
I always use knives.
OK,
So sometimes I might lop a fingertip off.
Get over it.
Look,
I'll do it,
I say,
Glancing at the clock.
The bird has already been resting for 30 minutes and I've got all my veg coordinated.
But Dad won't give up either the knife or the peeler and proceeds at a snail's pace,
Alternating between one and the other.
It's 12.
52 before I can get hold of the spuds to cut them up small and get them in the pan.
I put the sprouts on at the same time.
They will probably be too hard,
But never mind.
Christmas dinner will be served up at one p.
M.
Sharp.
Any slippage represents vital minutes.
I could have stayed in bed this morning drinking my coffee and enjoying the sight of Dog M.
S.
Getting high on excess dog chews.
I get the champagne out of the fridge and put it on the kitchen table.
How about opening this,
Dad,
I say.
Now you're talking,
Says Dad,
And gets his gargantuan spanner out.
His face has brightened considerably.
I sigh inwardly,
But after a few moments of clattering pans around unnecessarily loudly,
I find myself giving up on my timings,
Otherwise known as,
If you can't beat them,
Join them.
I knock back the remains of my sherry,
Arrange the plates on the work surface and prepare to get plastered on champagne,
Whatever age I am.
To be continued.
