That manure's rubbish.

The road back to the allotment site, over the railway bridge.


I’m beginning to think I’ve become part of a surreal soap opera down at the allotments, and keep looking out for the cameras.

“Where you going with that barrow”? Old John called out to Mary, who was heading towards the gateway out of the allotment site. She retraced her steps, back to us.

“I’m going to that house for some horse manure”, she said gesturing towards the village, where a man has bags of it for sale on his front drive, marked up for a £1. I think he must have a paddock round the back.

By the way, the allotments are a good 600 yards outside of the village, and the walk there and back entails going over a fairly steep railway bridge (shown in the photo), so no mean feat for a lady of her years pushing a wheelbarrow. She doesn't drive you see

“I thought you went for some the other day” said John.

“I did…….” she replied, lowering her voice almost to a whisper, “but it was all rubbish”.

My curiosity now raised, because I had been thinking of getting some myself, I asked her why it was, and if so why was she going back for more ?

“You’re not going to believe this, it could only happen to a silly old fool like me”, she said, self deprecatingly, and the story duly unfolded.

She had trudged all the way to the house with the wheelbarrow and knocked on the door, the man took the money for two bags, told her to help herself and closed the door. At this, she went to where the bags were and spotted the only two lots that were conveniently in tied black bin liners, the others all being in open topped old compost bags. Thinking they would be the easiest to handle on the barrow without spilling the contents, she took these and trudged all the way back to the site again. You may be guessing where this is going by now.

“Well, when I got back and opened them….”she said, red faced, “ they were both literally full of rubbish !”

She had only picked up two bags of household waste destined for the bin man, hadn’t she.