Phut the Idiot

Today was marked down in the mental diary as Last Drafting day. In the time from tomorrow to submission I would fart about and generally tart things up in a very preliminary and superficial manner. Not to be.

The Idiot has been thinking for quite some time that an allotment would be a Splendid idea for a couple of obvious reasons. As anyone who has strolled past one on a balmy summer's evening could tell you they are obviously a bounteous source of the fruit of the land, and an Elysian corner where a man can put his feet up, lager can in one hand, fag in t'other and survey this miraculous bounty. And further more all the overflowing milk and honey surplus produce can be flogged for simply oodles of dosh (having labelled 'organic') at the local farmers' market.

Hm. This idea took root (sorry) about the time his best mate secured an allotment as an excuse to get out of the house and away from the missus for an hour or three per day between late spring and early autumn (which in these parts and in recent years has been a singularly Un-dull fortnight at the Start of September after the brats have all gone back to prison school).

I've pandered, since pandering is much less stressful on both of us than telling the truth and not as soul-destroying as barefaced lying. It is also the one of the three I'm now best practiced at. For example I suggested he tidy his room before Christmas, and he sulked for a good hour and a half, and refused to eat his breakfast. I feel like a single mother of two children. My novel feels neglected.

He put his name down on the waiting list with the Allotment Association which is a confederation of toothless and witless long serving and troublingly inbred dribblers. Yesterday the call came through; and so instead him taking the offspring or their regular fortnightly visit to his mother I had them under my feet. We treked to the allotments and inspected the vacant 10 rods. He wanted it so he handed over a bit of cash and it is now 'ours'.

Quite how he will turn 10 rods of weed infested swamp into a productive patch of ground is a mystery to me and, also I suspect, a mystery to him. Clearing the weeds won't instantly produce spectacular potato and onion crops. I don't think he understands this, or weeding or watering or seed beds or planting on or watering or fertilizer or tying up or digging up or netting or watering or crop rotation or weeding or watering or ... hard work.

He just knows he will be able to vie with his best mate for Badgers Ate My Corn Crop story of the year and he thinks no bugger will observe him with his feet up, lager can in one hand, fag in the other while the weeds reach for the sky and know better.