Vegetable Matters

I sincerely apologise for the lack of veggie related posts lately. Unfortunately I've been unable to do anything to the allotment since returning from Bruges as I've aggravated an old back injury and my osteopath has banned me from doing anything strenuous like training for The Moonwalk, gardening, allotmenteering or anything involving stooping or carrying anything too weighty for a while.

This has resulted in me taking a rather inventive approach to gardening, such as finding ways of doing it whilst lying down. Having a raised central area to the garden has also helped me to continue at one of the busiest times of the year. My friend C from choir has told my osteopath what I've been up(?) to (she's the receptionist there), who finds it all rather hilarious. One of the more bizarre aspects of this whole episode - apart from the imagined sight of me gardening in a prone position - is my treatment involves being pummelled around a lot whilst staring at walls festooned with signed England football (soccer) shirts: the practice owner is their osteopath. I also have a long list of back strengthening exercises to do several times a day: it feels a bit like being in a continual yoga session.

Unfortunately such inventive measures can't be applied to the allotment, where the weeds must be as high as an elephant's eye by now. There's an awful lot of clearing, digging and planting to be crammed into April at the earliest. Threadspider of course is well ahead of the game in her quietly efficient way. So, to make up for the lack of vegetable related bloggage, I thought you might like a look at the total butternut squash harvest from last year. I've just found it at the bottom of my vegetable basket whilst clearing out all the old onion skins. It's posing next to a 10p coin for scale - yes, that does mean tiny ;)

I promise a full return to vegetable related matters as soon as possible.