Toads, Allotments and Bugs

Last weekend we decided to tidy up the garden a bit. Actually, it was more that a friend had visited and I realised just how much I had neglected the poor patch! There is a corner where the bags of coal get stacked and sadly, some untidy male had taken to leaving the empty coal bags in the corner and then heaping full ones on top. It had to be sorted, so I started dragging bags of coal out of the corner and then began to pile up the empty sacks, ready to take to the recycling centre.

The aforementioned untidy male came out and did the usual manly thing of "taking over" a moment before the job was finished and as he lifted the last sack, he let out a croak (honest) and immediately started to put the sacks back from whence I had taken them. "What are you doing, for goodness sakes?" I snarled as the snow flurries increased and my patience took a hike. "No, no, we have to cover it!" gibbered my male. Eventually, he composed himself enough to explain that as he lifted the last sack, a greenish brown face with a very groggy expression looked up at him and he realised that he had uncovered a hibernating toad.

Poor Mr Toad! On the one day it snowed in Somerset, we had to go and uncover him from his cosy toad hole. Hopefully Kim covered the toad up quickly enough that he didn't get too cold as we would both love to think that he will live in our little garden and eat all the slugs and snails in the warmer months. Fingers crossed. The only disappointing thing was that I didn't actually get to see the toad. Ah well.

This bout of gardening and my insistence on watching Gardeners World on a Friday evening has been rubbing off on Kim. Formerly a man who couldn't tell a rose from a raspberry, he's become quite interested in the garden and despite digging up lots of my flowers from the front path thinking they were weeds, he's a keen student. With this in mind, he happened to mention to Blue, our local Sherif and village worthy, that he'd love to have an allotment. Blue, being the main man around here, happens to be in charge of allotments and was happy to offer either a full or half allotment to my beloved, there and then.

Ok, so here we are, the new Monty Don and his trusty side-kick, the Shepton Witch, with all the gardening prowess of a jug of agent orange. I'm dying to see the allotment so we can decide if we can manage a full plot - but I'm not up to going yet as I have some strange bug raging through my system. Every lymph node in my body is swollen and doing battle with some invading bug and I'm as weak as a kitten. Typing this has sapped me. Still, once I am recovered, I shall go at it with great enthusiasm as I want to grow herbs. I went to a wonderful Herb Talk on Wednesday at Dillington House and I shall write about that as soon as my arms (and the rest of me) stop aching!