Fencing! Loads of fencing. That is my aim. My allotment borders an area of public land. It is very pleasant with a maze and a sundial, but it can also be rather noisy at the end of the school day, and I am on full view through the wide mesh.
I like to consider myself a sociable kind of person, but my time in the allotment is a private time, to relax and reflect away from the hubub of daily life. Tending my land there is a peaceful active meditation. When in the middle of this very different kind of world, I find it disconcerting to look up and see someone watching me from the other side of the fence.
I seem somehow to become on these occasions a kind of therapist. I suppose I am a stranger and people find it easy to tell their troubles to me, but the harsh truth is I don't really want to hear about them. So fencing is the solution, even if it makes me look a miserable antisocial allotmenteer. It also has a sound horticultural function of protecting the crops from the frosts that drift down from the nearby hills, and will reflect and contain the sunlight and heat from the south.
Luckily split bamboo fencing is relatively inexpensive, even full price. I've been able to source it half price, so now have several cumbersome rolls of it loitering along the hedge in my Dad's beautiful garden.
The problem is they will have to loiter for a while yet, as access by car to the allotments is at the moment impossible. The gasmen are laying a huge yellow pipe all the way down the lane. This has had its exciting moments. The other day for example, I heard a manly exclamation of surprise, followed by the words 'Did you see the size of that one?', leaving me wondering what it was that had caused such a hearty reaction. The image of a huge rat persisted in my mind.
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