Mutually Assured Destruction
I dug up a row of potatoes this week to make room for a double row of broad beans. I use The Sutton for overwintering as it is short and stands up well enough in our windy conditions. I also surround my double row with some plastic mesh that I liberated from a skip; this should protect them a little more.
I only planted a short row because I am the only member of my family who eats them. But I like them either hot, or better still, cold with olive oil. It just shows how my tastes have changed over time; when I was young, the only shop that stocked olive oil was the chemist; for pouring in your ear.
After that exertion I joined the chatterers in Jim's polytunnel. They were arguing about the North Korean bomb test and the opinion seemed to be that if a country didn't want to be regime changed then it had better get a bomb. And anyway, what right have we to dictate when we've got one thankyou very much. I told them the parable of The Whittling Neighbour.
There was once a man who peered over his garden wall and saw his neighbour whittling a large piece of wood, I believe treen is the technical term. "Hello neighbour, what are you making?" he said. "I'm making a club, neighbour, and when I have completed it I'm going to come round and hit you with it very hard,", replied the whittler. What is the man to do, for even if he is a convinced peacenik and paid up member of the Guardianista, he has his wife and helpless children to consider. After meditating he realised that he must immediately take his own club, ideally the one with the big nail through it, and smite his neighbour hip and thigh.
Jacob said that I could put my raspberry prunings on his growing bonfire heap if I liked. We are only allowed one bonfire a year and we wouldn't get that if it wasn't for a remote Catholic terrorist. We must all be thankful for small mercies. Jacob is an expert fire starter as he used to be a forestry worker, so I thanked him for his offer, which will save me from failing to get mine going like last year.