Ted The Shed, Chapter 21 - Plum Crazy

In this latest episode of my memoir about my Dad's allotment, Mr. Mandy Sutter goes off on a meditation retreat while I contemplate the tempting idea of building a composting toilet in Dad's shed. He isn't keen, and nor is anyone else at the allotments, so I resolve to refloat the idea another time. Dad turns 90, and Mr. MS and I move to a house with a plum tree, which immediately presents us with 100lbs of plums that we have done nothing to earn.

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Transcript

Hello there,

It's Mandy here.

Welcome back to Ted the Shed,

My memoir about my dad's allotment.

We've reached March 2012 and Mr Mandy Sutter decides to take himself off on a meditation retreat.

But before I begin reading,

Please go right ahead,

Make yourself really comfortable.

Sit down into your bed or your chair,

Relax your hands,

Drop your shoulders and loosen your jaw.

That's great.

So if you're comfy,

Then I'll begin.

March 2012.

In early spring,

Mr Mandy Sutter,

Not understanding that I am the designated spiritual member of our household,

Goes on a meditation retreat.

It is something I've been urging him to do to combat the stress of his chosen hobby,

Driving instruction.

So I can't explain the strange resentment I feel when he finally goes and breaks all contact with me for 10 days,

As meditation centres urge you to do,

Though I have always disobeyed them in this.

But Mr MS doesn't even text.

To make matters worse,

I find myself unable to meditate while he's away.

I obviously need a distraction and so my thoughts turn quite naturally to the absorbing subject of humanure.

It hasn't come completely out of the blue.

One chap at our allotments is fascinated by composting.

His plot is a squirm with wormeries and a pong with buckets of soaking comfrey leaves.

He recently showed me inside his shed a ferment with nitrogen fixes and bottles of his own wee that he keeps for experimental amounts of time.

It isn't just human wee that interests him.

He is keen on dog's urine too and somehow manages to collect it from passing dogs to put on his compost heap.

One morning it is so sunny and fresh that I managed to persuade Dad to join me at the plot.

It is the first time he's been down in ages and he thinks he might paint some preservative on the shed.

I am delighted.

On the way there we pass compost man watching his garden shredder cut all his plot waste into tiny pieces so that it composts quicker.

I find this encouraging and decide to pop the question.

Morning,

I say.

Have you ever thought about a composting toilet?

I've been reading up about it online.

All you need is a bucket and some sawdust.

Hmm.

The man scratches his grizzled chin.

It's composting with knobs on,

I say.

I'm sure it is,

He says.

I'll think about it.

I suspect he's just being polite.

Dad seems puzzled by our exchange.

Do you know that fellow?

He asks as we totter on to our own plot.

Not really,

I say.

Well,

Only to talk about bodily excreta too.

Hmm,

Says Dad.

I begin to wonder if he might consider setting up a composting toilet in the shed,

Keen as he is on DIY.

He's always been interested in chemicals,

Which is promising.

What's your view on it,

Dad?

I ask as I unlock the padlock on the shed,

Open the door and wind the string around the coat hook.

Dad goes into the shed and extracts an ancient paintbrush and an equally ancient tin of creosote.

My view on what?

You know,

Setting up a composting toilet in our shed.

All we'd need is a bucket and some sawdust,

I heard you.

He puts the tin down and goes round and round the rusted lid with a screwdriver to prise it off.

It's the other part of the operation I'm not so keen on.

You mean?

I mean going in a bucket.

I don't think we've come to that yet.

He dips his brush in the tin.

I'm pretty sure creosote has been banned for years,

But there's no point telling him this.

He'll get angry and use even more of it than he'd planned to,

Perhaps painting the bench and the tree into the bargain.

Also,

I'm encouraged by his use of the word yet as regards the composting toilet.

Okay,

I say,

Maybe next year then.

Dad begins daubing the shed.

I start weeding a nearby bed,

But glancing over from time to time,

I see that although he starts off clumsily,

As he works on his painting,

It becomes more fluid.

It's a treat to see him in action again.

As for me,

I recognise it's the old story.

I am trying and failing to get males to do something of my choosing,

Not theirs.

I wouldn't mind setting up the actual toilet,

But I gather that maintenance is the crucial thing and can make the difference between a toilet success and failure.

And maintenance is the bit I really don't want to do.

I must be missing Mr.

MS.

Luckily,

He returns the next day,

Having left the retreat a day early.

He looks radiant,

Relaxed and 10 years younger.

I am unsettled by his sudden good looks.

I've missed you,

I say.

The upstairs sink got blocked with hair and I couldn't bring myself to fish it out.

You look stressed,

He said.

You need to meditate.

How can I know that you've taken it over?

I cry.

I think you'll find there are other people in the world who meditate besides me.

I suppose he's right.

And another thing,

We do have a small shed in our backyard.

Perhaps we could have a composting toilet there.

It might be a healing thing.

I'll ask Mr.

MS about the maintenance aspect tomorrow.

I'll have to get him off that meditation cushion first,

Though.

Two years go by and suddenly Dad is 90.

Well,

That crept up on me,

He says.

Mr.

MS buys two gigantic silver skinned helium balloons,

A nine and a zero,

Bringing them home in a black bin bag to stop them floating up into the ozone layer.

Are you mad?

I ask him.

Dad will absolutely hate those.

He'll think they're hideous and a waste of money.

Maybe,

Says Mr.

MS,

Mildly.

We'll see.

That afternoon,

When we go round with cake and card,

Dad absolutely loves the balloons and insists on multiple photos with them as the centrepiece.

He keeps them for weeks until they are collapsed silver remnants dangling from the ceiling.

A few weeks later still,

Mr.

MS and I move to a new plum tree.

The plum tree isn't the main reason for buying the new house,

Of course.

That would be the greenhouse,

Small and rickety with many cracked and missing panes,

But as other gardeners will understand,

Worth shelling out £300,

000 for.

There's also a little green gage tree next to the plum,

Which we're told has never borne fruit.

Another reason for moving is the garage.

I'm not interested in it from the campervan's point of view,

But from Dad's.

It offers workshop space,

Something missing from flat life.

All his old tools come out of storage and are installed along the top of a lovely old workbench that belonged to the late husband of a kind friend.

Dad gets his own key and is free to come and go as he pleases,

And come and go he does.

If I see cheeky looks parked outside,

I bob out to the garage to offer him a cuppa.

Engrossed in a project,

He's often irritated by the interruption,

But if I time it right,

He sometimes accepts.

As for the tree,

It presents us with plum upon plum.

In August,

My kitchen scales register £100 worth.

Mr MS teeters on a stepladder with a rake,

And I plum all my new neighbours,

Even the men who hang around the lock-ups at the bottom of the lane.

Via the fruit,

We get to know everyone a little more.

One neighbour,

Who is 10,

Has been gardening since he was three and has his own greenhouse.

We also discover that the people in the other half of our semi don't like plums.

What freedoms they must enjoy!

The plums also bring reflection.

How salutary it is to receive bounty that one has done nothing to earn,

Especially when weeks of back-breaking labour at the allotment often produce nothing more than a few handfuls of broad beans and some unimpressive onions.

Being my father's daughter,

The thought of waste makes me edgy,

So I find myself enslaved to picking,

Distributing,

Freezing,

Jamming,

And chutneying,

As well as cake,

Clafoutis,

And crumble-making.

Mr MS no longer listens to sentences that contain the word plum,

And my trousers grow tight.

Dog MS learns to eat windfalls with colourful results.

As for Dad,

He has always loved stewed fruit.

Strolling past any autumnal fruit tree that overhangs public land,

He never fails to hook the branches down with his walking stick and fill his green nylon shopper with sweet plunder.

He's therefore only too happy to receive bags of plums from our tree,

Throwing them straight into the pan with a kilo of sugar and waving aside my warnings about maggots.

Maggots won't do you any harm,

He says,

Or rather shouts.

Plums stone deaf these days,

And still a hearing aid refused Nick.

After all,

What do they eat?

Plums,

That's what.

Maggots are made entirely of plum.

If I didn't find so many maggots in our plums,

And if we didn't go round to Dad's house so regularly for tea,

I would find this view refreshing.

As it is,

When the bowl of stewed plums arrives,

Topped by what Dad calls a bolio of vanilla ice cream,

I can't help examining it for the grey crescent-shaped creatures that once cooked look so much like toenail clippings.

Boiled alive,

Imagine it.

As so often at Dad's,

I resort to a surreptitious approach,

Enjoying my bolio,

But transferring purple spoonfuls into Mr.

M.

S.

's bowl when Dad isn't looking.

Steady on,

Hisses Mr.

M.

S.

,

But he is nothing if not tactful,

And,

As calculated,

Stops short of exposing my misdeed.

But back to gardening.

French gardener,

Botanist and writer Gilles Clement,

Known for his design of public parks,

Wrote,

All management generates an abandoned area.

Wise words that make me wonder what area of my life is now abandoned because of obsessive plum management.

If I let the fruit rot on the tree,

Would there be benefits in other areas?

And would those areas be more or less valid?

I used to throw my hands up in horror at a local Bramley apple tree,

Gravid with apples that the owners never picked.

I wonder now if they had other areas of life they weren't prepared to abandon in service of stewed fruit.

Perhaps they were more spiritually evolved than I,

Though of course that is hard to imagine.

I resolve to ask Mr.

M.

S.

About this.

If you've ever wondered what goes on behind closed doors at our house,

It is discussions like this,

Accompanied by a nice cup of tea and a plum flapjack.

Before I have to face up to a full examination of my life's priorities though,

The plums begin to slow down.

Ah,

I can delay the moment of truth until next year.

Or can I?

Unfortunately,

The green gage tree is fruiting for the first time this year and that fruit is starting to ripen.

To be continued.

Reviews

It’s always great to hear Mandy read a story she has written! 😁👍👏

So happy for your new place (in 2012!). I still haven't finished this story, but I wanted to rate it just the same! Thanks for putting me to sleep!

Loving this story, it’s like I’m there. Your wit and words are always a delight! Thank you…🌳🏡❣️ I love your story as a gift unwrapping slowly as to savor the suspense 💝

Hmm, interesting, exciting (Congratulations!), thoughtful, delicious (minus the cooked-in garnish lol), and more, leaving us on the edge of our bed, again 😅 Well done, Mandy, thank you! 🙏 ❤️

I so enjoy this series - your so funny as well that I’m laughing under the bed covers. Thank you as always

What a fun story! Your dad is so intrepid and just when you think you got him figured out he goes and “loves” the “90” balloons!! Mr MS is full of surprises as well, taken so completely into meditation! One begins to understand how much work one healthy productive fruit tree is and you can sympathize with those whose fruit is left to rot on the ground. Thanks, Mandy!

I love these stories about your dad and the allotment.!

Each new chapter more delightful than the last! Thank you, Mandy!