The Curmudgeon

We went away on a summer holiday, you see. Not so much for pleasure as to do a mate a favour. Westmorland Will and his wife were flying off to the Greek islands and wondered if we could look after their cats, dog and nice little house Kendal way.

It was only ten days. What harm could that do? The answer to that, I now know, is plenty. For my allotment, and Mrs C's flowers, are blackmailers of cold-hearted fury when they do not get the attention they demand each summer (what summer?, you may well ask). The price has proved very high indeed.

Physically frail readers are recommended to take a deep breath before reading the rest of this paragraph:

Buttercups, couch, docks, nettles, thistles, dandelions, goose grass (alias sticky weed), cow parsley, ragwort, fat hen and redshank; blackfly, greenfly, slugs, wireworms, leather jackets, cabbage whites, pigeons, rabbits and the occasional sheep (which could in fact be ex-sheep had they got into the allotment to eat the ragwort before Owd Tom climbed my gate and cut down the golden-haired killer himself).

The above, dear reader, are amongst the various species of wildlife, plant, insect and animal, which also immensely enjoyed our 10 day break. For whilst we were away, it managed to be hot and wet all at the same time: glorious growing weather for weeds and various creepy crawlies.

For some reason, however, this is awful growing weather for the things that we want to grow, like flowers and veg. The blackfly got the broad beans, the slugs (or was it the rabbits?) got the runner beans, the caterpillars got the cabbage, the pigeons got the sprouts, and various forms of blossom end rot got most of Mrs C's flowers along with my marrows and courgettes.

That was just the mature plants, the ones we should be harvesting now. The seedlings, coming along nicely to make up our autumn and winter crops, were either masticated by slugs or strangled by weeds.

And all because we went away for a mere 10 days - and that to do friends a favour!

This has set me wondering about how much time television producers think of the consequences of their actions before they actually start filming their programmes.

I mean, do the producers of the now repetitive and boring gardening programmes ever talk to the producers of the repetitive and boring holiday programmes or the producers of the repetitive and boring cookery programmes (with apologies for such a repetitive and boring sentence).

I mean, the former get the young and the gullible out into the garden, whilst the travel people persuade them to abandon it at the most crucial time of the year, and the cooks spend hours extolling the virtues of fresh herbs and veg when there are none left: they have all been eaten or choked.

However, there is a slight note of comfort to this sad tale. Will rang the other night to say a family of squirrels had set up home in his garden, and were destroying his plants left, right and centre.

At least we don't have marauding squirrels in Beggarsdale. Not yet. But Will will have to look after his own house and garden next year. I can no longer afford the pay-off to my blackmailers.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.