Picture if you will a vertical verge from a open field (part of a closed cemetery) that drops down to the road with a couple of drains set neatly into it with backing stonework to protect them from the twice yearly grass cutting. So that’s the view from my front window – give or take a busy road and two bus stops.

Some ten days ago it rained heavily (add in thunder for fun) and of course the drains were covered in grass not cleared after the winter cut in November. So the water settled into the hollow which is two bus lengths long, covered half the road and we had one of our miniature floods. The sort of flood that rises three feet in the air if a bus drives through it.

So along comes a team of blokes in big wellies who stood in said flood to discover the drains, clean the debris off, let the water drain down and pressure clean the sludge on the road away. Into the drains of course.

Two days later, along comes two large and muscular council grass cutters with their great big strimmers to give the verge its summer haircut.

Over the weekend, the rains return with gusto and wash much of the cut grass down onto the drains. Come Saturday there is another flood causing similar problems to the last one. Come Sunday along comes a council team with shovels to clear off the drains to allow the latest flood to subside.

This afternoon along comes the big yellow council drain cleaner to apply suction to said drains in order to remove sludge and debris from within the drains in the hopes of further flood prevention. There’s been a stink hovering over the washing hanging out in the front yards of the houses here – aroma de blocked street drains for our laundry then. That’s one smell that you can’t buy in the Co-op down the road. 

I’d say that the cure will work till the next time that the verge is cut and the rain washes debris down to cover the drains again. Oh – any time between November and January then.

Nope not the pop song, the weather. I haven’t seen the sun since I left Edinburgh at teatime on Friday.

Apparently it rained all Friday afternoon and evening here at home (well good for the allotment I suppose but bad if you had washing to hang out).

Yesterday the fog lingered all morning and turned into low cloud and humid grey mist after lunch – but without the rain.

This morning there was rain in the fog when I woke up. The Tyne which flows at the bottom of the hill is usually visible out of the bedroom window but not so today.

So it looks to be another humid day with fog and drizzle. I think that I’ll put off clipping the hedges on the allotment for one more day at least. Clearing up wet privet doesn’t appeal at all. The trouble is that all the days when I can get down to the plot this week seem to have an equally miserable forecast – the day that is the exception is already booked as a day out and an evening meeting.

What is it with June weather? It seems that anything can happen in June despite it being classified as summer which is a bit sad really as most gardeners look to be in full production at this time of the year. It’s not as if it’s worth going out for the day when it’s foggy, damp and miserable unless you have urgent reason to visit a shopping centre.

We’ve certainly had our share of wet evenings and Saturday downpours recently so fog is just a change of miserable weather. Come in sunny summer please.

Considering that last summer the Kielder Reservoir up the road was 99% full at the height of summer last year and that we had summer monsoons the year before, I’m beginning to wonder if my memories of long hot summers are just figments of my imagination.

It’s a great thing this free bus pass. It lets me loose in all sorts of strange places where I would not normally go.

Today I went into Hexham and took the bus up into the hills to Allendale and Allenheads - very obscure villages in the hills miles from anywhere but a good bus ride (and free on the pass of course). I knew that these places exist because there is always news in the local papers about them. Today I went to see for myself.

I shall go back in the next couple of weeks and stop off to take pictures but today was just a ride out there and back on the same bus to see what it was like and whether it was worth going for a proper visit.

I've also made plans to go for the very rural bus ride from Hexham to Bellingham which is also the middle of nowhere but is also grand ride. I like to go up about once a year just to see that it hasn't moved.

I would like to get into Hexham early in order to ride the AD122 Hadrian’s Wall Bus to Carlisle which is a very pleasant run through different villages to the usual route taken by the service bus 685 from Hexham to Carlisle. But that may have to be the week after next as I seem to be very busy with this and that next week.

Because these rural service buses have to collect passengers, they go to all sorts of little villages that you would otherwise not see. If you go by car, well you go the direct route and miss lots of interesting little detours.

Little free outings that just mean that I go down to the allotment in the evenings as it is still light till late. I have just come back from watering the strawberries and lettuces, doing some weeding, filling up the water butts and generally keeping the place tidy. Oh and bringing stuff home to eat.

Tomorrow it’s a day in Edinburgh courtesy of a family member who has to go there to work and who has a free seat in the car. I hear I have to be awake and dressed by 6am but that’s not the end of the world. I probably shan’t get down to the plot tomorrow but it is well in order and will manage without my attentions for one day I’m sure.

It was hot and the thundery showers never arrived. The sun shone out of a clear blue sky all day. There was a steady light breeze. Now how about that for sunburn weather? But it was summer.

I arrived at the plot after a day off to find that a nice neighbour had left me two large sacks of grass and two small bags of light beech hedge trimmings. I do love unexpected goodies for the compost heap.

I willingly added it all to the compost heap along with the last of the daughter’s cardboard that she delivered from the kitchen fitting job and suddenly realised that I have garnered nearly as much compost heap material so far this as I did in the whole of last year. 

That set me thinking as I sat in the hot sun taking a breather. 2007 was a good year for compost making material. 2008 was decidedly a bad year despite all my best efforts. 2009 looks to be a good year. As there is not a lot to come off the allotment itself in the way of compostable material all offerings are a pleasure to receive.

I remember thinking last autumn that the long line of runner beans and millions of huge nasturtiums would make a big amount of compost but the resulting heap is tiny in comparison to what went onto it. I suspect that the charges bought in for the garden waste bins this spring have made people more willing to add things to my compost heap (and to those of other allotment holders I’ll bet).

There were squillions of strawberries to collect – I was very popular with the grandson as it was the turn of the family to get the strawberries. Mind I did eat the first two raspberries straight off the canes so those went nowhere but into me she says laughing. There was also the last of the rhubarb and plenty of salad to take home. Oh this allotment holding lark can be good for the stomach when there is food to take home.

Are these places you haven’t seen for a while at home? Well not having a freezer I’m not likely to ever see the bottom of it.

I’ve recently seen the back and the bottom of the fridge if that counts. Back of the cupboard? Any one in particular that you would like to inspect? Nope you can’t see that one because I’ve not got that far yet.

That won’t be the “airing cupboard” that was but which hasn’t had a boiler these many years and certainly not in the time I’ve lived here. That won’t be the back of the wardrobe as I’ve not tidied it yet either – nor the back of the food cupboard.

You’ll never get to the back of the cupboard that contains the gas meter though you might see the back of the cupboard under the sink but it’s a bit doubtful as the broken shelf is lodged at the back.

But I did get to the back of three shelves in the display unit in the sitting room yesterday! I even dusted the unit whilst I was at it. But it’s only a little unit!

Now could someone come round and sort out two book cases as I only want to end up with one?

I’m sure that “stuff” comes visiting and decides to stay here for it certainly never came with me when I moved in and I can’t explain how it arrived here. Could be the fairies I suppose.

That’s what it felt like mid afternoon yesterday on the allotment. Light showers said the weather forecast. The reality was more of a monsoon season which lasted into the early evening and quite spoilt the show that was taking place in the little village over the bridge at the bottom of the hill.

I ended up sitting in the shed at regular intervals staring at the rapidly developing puddles and the wheelbarrow that became more than half full of water. In the end I was very wet indeed clearing up the last job that I had started.

Three jobs were listed for the afternoon. The first was to start a new compost heap with the cardboard from the daughter’s kitchen installation and the collection of “stuff” that was already available. This was completed before the monsoons started properly but it was still gently damp whilst I worked.

The second job was to stack tidily the spare black plastic sheeting, bags of rubbish for a future trip to the tip by which time it was beginning to be seriously monsoon type weather.

However with the compost heap still uncovered I started the third job was to clear the wild flowers that were basically green manures from under the fruit trees to allow a space for planting out the red lettuce from the pots in the next few days. This should have been an easy job as it was mostly just pulling up and then lightly turning the top of the soil with the spade to loosen it. However the clover had run amok in addition to being full of slugs and snails. It was worth continuing in the rain for a time as one of the pigeon keepers came along with a bag of droppings from clearing out his loft to add to the compost heap. So it’s a very well balanced pile with a good mixture of green and brown material, and not too dry.

Eventually it was just to wet to continue, I was dripping from coat and trousers and there were standing puddles on all the paths. So I moved what I could to the compost heap and covered it with the last sheet of black plastic. I sat in the shed for a short period to rip up the final cardboard which is now in a bag for future use. I was of course incredibly dirty – good thing the bus driver didn’t throw me off the bus coming back up the hill to come home. There were two machine loads of washing to be done from what I was wearing – it’s a good thing that so far the weather forecast for today is wrong and that it is sunny enough to dry both the new washing and the washing that was on the line that had to be rewashed as it was so wet – oh and not as clean as when it went out. Never believe that rain is clean even in a country area!

And when I shampooed my hair it was totally disgusting despite only being 24 hours on from the last wash. Obviously dirty rain!

It’s that time of year again when I can start eating fresh vegetables grown on the allotment. This year it’s a little of a lot of different things rather than having a glut of runner beans and lettuce with not a lot of variety elsewhere.

It looks as if the crop of the year could be parsnips – a lot of the seeds seem to have germinated, more by luck than anything else I’m sure. Parsnips are supposed to be fickle about actually germinating and many people to to extreme lengths to ensure that they have seeds which have sprouted before planting out. But I just happily threw the seeds into good compost in tubs in a sunny place, kept them watered and have now a good crop showing.

At the moment it is definitely mostly salad and herb crops though the carrots are now on stream. There will soon be potatoes as well and peas – lovely fresh peas straight from the pod.

I’ve just bought home the last spring cabbage which is enormous and will keep me in meals for ages. There’s also a bag of salad things to go along to the local family who are still installing the kitchen. When I looked in today there was a cooker working and a sink. The fridge and dishwasher were almost in place and just needed to have the fancy doors attached to the front. Hey ho – it will be a working kitchen by tomorrow night but the installation will still have a long way to go to be complete.  But I will be able to take them fruit and vegetables from the allotment to cook as from tomorrow evening which will be nice.

The nicest part of this time of the year is being able to go down to the plot almost daily to pick food for the rest of the day. Sometimes it can be a little wet going and collecting but I don’t rust and I do dry out when I come home.

I skipped round to the daughter's house this morning with some goodies from the allotment, apologised for eating all the strawberries and had the 16 year old grandson giggling.

Parents are in the middle of installing a new kitchen, most of it to be done by themselves. They decided to get a real plasterer in to redo the ceiling after they had demolished it and to redo a lot of the walls after they had stripped the wallpaper, removed the radiator and redone the electrics as necessary.  So they have actually done an awful lot of work and lived without a kitchen for a couple of weeks. Of course the place is total chaos as you’d expect (good thing that the freezer and washing machine live down in the cellar!).

But suddenly they have decided to go for grown up colours and the place is being painted a delicate shade of mushroom rather than any of their normal choice of vibrant colours (fire engine red, vigorous yellows, blues, greens and purples). Of course it was too good to miss – hmm, not sure about that colour of paint, I’d have gone for a green cooker rather than the black one, you know this kitchen isn’t very big is it, bit of a mess in here isn’t it? I was packed off out of the door after about five minutes (well was going to catch a bus to the garden centre anyway) and told to come back in a few days when the place was back in order.

Daughter declared that she was not wound up even though grandson thought differently. Dad was out getting parts or I wouldn’t have got anywhere with the teasing.

To tell the truth anything has to be better than the dire cooker, decrepit cupboard units, paint stained sink, broken dishwasher and worn out fridge that has been in place these many years. But we aren’t going to tell them that yet. Older sister (step daughter) had seen the cupboard units in the showroom and told daughter not to want to buy those because she thought that the distressed paintwork on them was a fault not a proper design!

All this new kitchen business is the result of deciding not to sell their house (because someone else had bought the one they wanted before they had a sale in place) but to do a lot of improving. So this year there is no posh holiday (camping at a sailing event for a week – dead cheap) so that they can spend loadsa money on a top of the range kitchen, cooker, fridge, dishwasher, sink, cupboards ….

Nope I haven’t got a job all of a sudden. The new Gardeners Association Hut has shelves constructed now and slowly but surely these are being filled with things that members might just want to buy. Things are appearing from dusty corners, old cupboards and ancient shelves in the old, leaky shed. And a few new lines are being added to see how they go.

It’s beginning to work well in the fact that those who do come along can see what there is to buy – with any luck sales will continue to rise.

I’ve been writing prices on boxes and bags and containers for a period now as well as carefully flattening old boxes and wrapping so that there is no rubbish left lying around the shop to trip people up. I have carefully sorted out the cardboard and the result has been a nice large sack which will be handy for the compost heap to go in amongst the green hedge clippings and to start the bonfire that I want to have. You see – there is always an ulterior motive when it comes to me being very neat and tidy! But had I not cleared up this particular selection of rubbish and taken it away for reuse it would only have been taken to the local community tip for disposal, leaving me to hunt for cardboard to start the required fire.

It’s a good thing meantime that all the twiggy branches that need to be burnt are under black plastic and being kept nicely dry on the allotment. The weather for the last few days seems to be very Wimbledon – long and heavy, thundery showers but nicely warm with lots of strawberries ripening.

But I’m not really a person to allow free and useful things that have an immediate use to take themselves off to the tip. To have a fire will clear out a corner that can then be used to stack oddments or maybe to start another compost heap when the present one gets too large. It isn’t really a corner where things will grow surrounded as it is on two sides by high hedges and on a third by the shed.

Five years we have survived each other come teatime today. Yes the sparkling door is one of the improvements made over the years.

The old one was a boring wooden, brown one – well half brown wooden and half safety glass. It was extremely ugly though it did let a lot more light into the flat.

Oh and there is now a matching, sparkly green wooden door on the side entry too now. The other one was just as boring and it let in the weather and cold a treat.

But there’s no such thing as a front garden – just a concrete yard like everyone else in this part of the terrace has. At least there is no competition from better gardens then.

At least we can cheer the place up with flower pots – and even a couple of tomato plants in my case just for the fun of it. Some of the neighbours have park benches in the front garden so that they can sit outside with a cup of tea and watch the buses go by. I’m not feeling that extravagant this year but perhaps next year a stone bench would add to the character of the place. All depends on how well I go about saving up for it. No don’t ask about what you can see from the front door looking the other way – unromantic wheelie bins for rubbish. They have to go somewhere but it doesn’t do any good if you wanted to enter the yard for the landlord’s patio and container gardening competition – no marks for wheelie bins.

I’ve been here five years on Friday and it seems to have been an ongoing steady drip to sort things out. Fair enough, in that time both the external doors have been replaced with double glazed units which has made the place warmer but also darker. The kitchen floor joists have been mended too – you don’t go on going down hill when you come in the front door now. The front doorstep is now longer bowed and cracked either – hurrah.

All it would take now to improve life by 33% is getting new kitchen units. Now that’s a game and a half that I’ve been arguing the toss about for the last two years. But apparently though the doors are regularly screwed back into place, bits glued on again and the shelf under the sink being so bowed it stops you using the bottom shelf and doesn’t fit into place anyway – the drawers aren’t falling out. So there are more urgent replacements in the planned maintenance programme. Good heavens – this is social housing otherwise known as council housing. There must be some properties in a terrible state – either all the previous installation of kitchens was done by Bodgit and Scarper or the tenants have been a disgrace to the name of humans.

Maybe I will really have to pay part of the cost to have it replaced then if things are so bad elsewhere. Ho hum. But a new kitchen there must be.

Another 33% improvement would be decorating the bedroom. However that is dependent on getting the guttering problems sort out finally so that there is no more wet access from outside. After that there is some plastering work to be done. Neither of those are my bills. That’s nice. Once sorted well I can call in the decorator and have the walls lined with wallpaper and then painted. Will hide a multitude of leaks from previous years will that. Do the ceiling and woodwork at the same time.

But the final 34% is sorting out the gable end which leaks like a sieve on a wet day despite all the work that has been done on it. And I doubt if that will happen this side of never.  Ah the pleasures of renting an elderly property that wasn’t built to the normal standards for council housing. Just don’t ask how it came to be social housing stock. There’s a long story there for a winter’s night by the fire.

We’ve all been through the cycle of the latest “in” thing haven’t we?

Buy organic. Have an organic fruit and vegetable box delivered. At the moment it costs more to go organic and the fashion is dropping off a cliff as people are budgeting fiercely.

Go on a raw food diet. Now here is a subject that causes great debate – one on from being vegetarian or vegan let me tell you. But it’s a fashion that comes and goes.

Live on £1 a day. Remember the teacher who decided to live on £1 a day after a drunken bet? Not really what happened as she had already paid bills such as rent and rates for the year before she started. It only took into account food and travel. Well it takes more than £1 a day unless you are living on the streets or somewhere very obscure where you can provide all your own food, heating, clothes and have no housing costs. But an interesting fad though I don’t think that she had many copycats!

There is the good old basically British idea of car boot sales which run alongside charity shops to buy cheaply. Of course these will be going out of fashion as people finish emptying their lofts and houses of items that they no longer need or use to raise a bit of extra cash.

Another turn of fashion is to get an allotment and grow cheap vegetables. Unless you know what you are doing an allotment is not exactly a cheap occupation until you have run it for two or three years, obtained all the tools, learned your trade and bought it into productive state. I wonder how many people will give up after one season without realising that it’s the time spent working on the plot that is the cash saver. Time is an expensive commodity if you have to fill it up with something to do.

Of course the latest one is being frugal. You know the thinking. All the employed could lose their jobs. We will have to be taxed to the hilt to pay back the budget deficit in the future so have less money to spend. There are no jobs to be had. So let’s pay off our debts and all be frugal whilst we do it. Good heavens some of us have been living within our budgets for years and it hasn’t been one bit fashionable. We’ve just been regarded as the unfashionable poor. Welcome to our world the rest of you. Mind you - there is a difference between being frugal and being cheap!

Doesn’t help that the government thinks its our patriotic duty to go shopping to keep the economy turning. No matter what the situation and whether we can afford it or not. Think of the number of pensioners using a credit card to pay their bills and the fact that the Citizens Advice Bureau says that there are people who will never be able to pay their debts off … It makes you wonder what on earth the government knows of real life out here on the streets.

Ah well rant over for the day – what do you think that the next fad will be? Certainly won’t be frugal I’ll bet you.

Last year I threw a couple of packets of wild flowers under the fruit trees down the allotment for the encouragement of the wild life. Some of them went to seed and have returned. Two of them I genuinely can’t name at the moment but my goodness me, the bees love them along with the clover, aquilegia, sage and rosemary.

These have followed on from an excellent display of blossom on the fruit trees earlier on in the season.

So the allotment has been buzzing with the sound of bees for a couple of months now. It’s good to see as it was quiet last year – I put it down to my campaign to lessen the number of dandelions after the glorious display during my first spring on the allotment. It’s not that I have anything particular against dandelions except that they make cultivation of crops difficult when they start to take over the whole world. As the dandelion will do given a chance.

The weather is definitely March – just as all the crops on allotments get going. It seems that we are not destined to get summers at the moment.

After the last two years when summers have been washed out, this one is just going the way of being cold and miserable after ten days of proper sunny weather at the end of a very dry spring at this end of the country.

It makes for going out to do the necessary jobs rather than going down to gossip, sit in the sun and enjoy the plot as well as doing the work.

yes I went off down to the allotment yesterday afternoon late on and did the weeding. Well enough of it to make sure that it looks as if someone does care for the allotment.

The first little signs of the fennel have appeared. The cucumbers on the compost heap haven’t taken a sulk at the change of weather so far but that might be different by the time I arrive there this evening. Unless the sun comes out.

There is now plenty of lettuce on the allotment to bring home and enough spring onions. There’s a new batch of radish doing well, the strawberries are ripening and the peas are in flower. The calabrese is thriving so with any luck we shall soon be able to pick some of that. There are plenty of herbs though the parsley has bolted with the hot weather – will have to buy a new plant for next season no doubt.

There are red cabbages coming along too in little pots and these will have to be planted out in a couple of weeks time. Now I have no idea where these are going to go at the moment but I suspect that they will end up amongst the wild flowers – well a red cabbage gives colour to the place!

The potatoes are coming along and look as if they are starting to flower so soon there should be a potato crop. A new sowing of wild rocket is just showing and the older one looks as if it is going to soon come good. If not, it will be space for red cabbages. The runner beans are just starting to show in their pots – a bit late but better late than never. Must be able to find a place for a wigwam in some corner.

The marrows are late but with the cooler weather I am hoping that they will romp away and catch up with themselves – it has been so hot that even the sturdy courgette plants are taking a breather.

I’ve been given some outdoor tomato plants that are spares which may or may not do any good. I potted them on another pot size yesterday as 7 out of the 8 looked quite happy with themselves. Whether they will actually produce tomatoes is another matter as they are very late due to being left uncared for.

The person who gave them to me has no idea what sort they are as the grower got all of his mixed up and had no idea what he was giving away. But you don’t turn down free offers if they look as if there is a chance that you can make something of them. Obviously the grower had too many to use at home so was sharing out amongst anyone who would give them a try – the worst that can happen is that they end up on the compost heap.

I have a tray of very small onions from the same source – am wondering whether to find a space to plant them out late on today as they have now perked up with a few days out in the open air – they were kept far to long in a greenhouse. Or shall I just use them as spring onions? Questions, questions. Oh and there is the question of where shall I put them!

I have even managed to catch up with all the pot washing that needed doing. The daughter says that the sweet pepper plant that she took home off my window ledge is doing well in her porch but there is some doubt as to how well the chilli pepper will do.

I bought a few extra sweet pepper plants at the community allotment plant sale along with some chilli peppers hoping that the weather would stay well enough for these to go out in the yard. Two of the chilli peppers are very frail and may come to nothing but at 20p each no problem eh? Two of the chilli peppers were doing well outside till the sun went away and the weather has cooled down. They have come inside onto the window ledge until the weather changes again – if the hot summer returns that is. The tiny sweet peppers have doubled in size since the weekend. Most of the ones that I grew from seed were frizzled in the hot window and would have been better outside earlier in the sunny weather. Another lesson learned for next year (along with planting leeks straight into the ground, growing red cabbages in a seed tray and potting on till large enough to plant out, putting sunflowers straight into the soil in which they are going to grow and that the flat is a bit dark for growing things in). They say that a gardener never stops learning. It’s been a steep learning curve this year.

A cone fairy? Well you know that cones round road works appear overnight so it must be the fairies that put them out.

Anyhow there’s a length of pavement being replaced down the main street five minutes from here and the cone fairy was in charge of the traffic lights whilst the little digger was ripping up the tarmac and all the strange things underneath.

Hmm – so they switched off the main traffic lights at the cross roads where all routes through town meet and installed manual, moveable ones that only arrive whilst the digger is on site. Exit the pedestrian crossings which are integrated into the traffic lights. So those of us who live at this end of the road are cut off from the shops unless we want to take our life in our hands whilst the pavement is being dug up. So much for shopping local.

Oh and the job started two days late, will be interrupted if the team is needed on something “more important” and will take longer than the two weeks stated on the signs. Now the length of pavement to be replaced fronts on a bridal shop, a hairdressers, an NHS dentist, the nearest chemist to the doctor’s surgery down the road, the Barclays Bank branch and the social housing association (council housing then to most of us). And it won’t help those who want to come up the street to the only post office in town.

Can’t you just hear all the moans, whinges and whines from the shoppers and the shop owners? There are already complaints that this is a ghost town without any more reasons for lack of passing trade.

Not that it’s easy to shop in town. Even allowing for the bus fare to the Metro Centre and Newcastle, it’s possible to get your hair trimmed far more cheaply than by walking down the main street. And to get the length of shoe lace that I wanted cost me £1.25 at the local cobbler’s shop whereas had there been the right length as there usually is in the expensive supermarket which is undergoing yet another refit I would have paid 79p. Sigh – pavements up and the supermarket being refitted.

I turned out early to litter pick a local walkway behind a line of terraced houses otherwise known as a cut here.

Now you’d think that if someone could be bothered to cut the outside of the hedge around the garden, he or she could be bothered to pick up the litter in the hedge. Wouldn’t you? Now some of the litter must have been there three years as one of the carrier bags came from a shop that shut that long ago. If you do it regularly then the job is nothing difficult.

But no – the people backing onto the cut asked the town ground force to come along and do the job. As it’s not a job for a full team (think 10 minutes for 6 people), I’ve volunteered to take responsibility for the job. So far I’ve filled a large sized wheelie bin and it’s not taken me very long – including walking to and from the job. Sure there’s a final sweep needed to make it totally perfect – small bits of stuff left over which will hardly fill a bag but which will have to wait till the dustman has been. I’ve actually put some rubbish in the bin of the flat upstairs which was partly empty.

Isn’t it a good thing that I’ve very careful with my rubbish and barely filled a carrier bag this week?

But people seem to have neither civic pride (they drop the litter) nor civic responsibility (there should be almost no litter and people should be responsible for their own small area).