50 Shades of Shed.

I recently repainted the allotment shed, and with these new wood treatments now being available in such a range of bright colours, gone are the days of painting your shed in either dark or light creosote. The world is now your rainbow, and you can be as flamboyant as you wish. But what does your choice of shed colour possibly say about you?

There's 54 actually.

Quite a few of these colours, from a big company's ‘Shades’ range, I think would match  some of the characters down at the allotment site.

For instance there’s :-

OLD ENGLISH GREEN  - A nice chap who’s getting on a bit, with a well to do accent and likes cricket.

SOMERSET GREEN - Re-cycles his many empty plastic cider bottles as miniature cloches.

WILLOW - Always borrowing something or other, and never brings it back.

WILD THYME - She’s the life and soul of the annual on-site barbecue.

PURPLE PANSY -  Not afraid to show his feminine side.

MUTED CLAY -  Keeps himself to himself, and never seems to move much from his deckchair.

BARLEY WOOD  - Would she? Can you introduce me please.

FRESH ROSEMARY - Has a bit of a personal hygiene problem.

SEA GRASS - Will smoke it.

FOREST MUSHROOM - A friend of Sea Grass.

FORGET ME NOT -  Seldom remembers to turn the site water tap off.

PALE JASMINE -  Doesn’t grow brassicas and should, because she’s obviously lacking iron in her diet.

HOLLY - Prickly old b*gger with red pimples on his nose.

COASTAL MIST - Can be seen to drift in and out a few times around early summer, then you don’t see him for the rest of the year.

JUNGLE LAGOON - Has what was once an ornamental pond, that’s now covered in blanket weed .

DEEP RUSSET - Forever hoisting his baggy trousers up. Oh sorry! I thought it said gusset.

“And what about Tom Netall, what has he picked ?", you may be wondering.

Well it’s SEASONED OAK for me (that’s Dark Brown by the way) - Stoic and not one for showiness, but obviously a tight old sod, as that was the one reduced down at the local DIY store!

Flippin' eck !

I’m loathe to use swear words on this blog, in fact apart from the odd ’bloody’, I think you would struggle to bloody find one. The main reason being, that you never know who might be reading it, and I wouldn’t want any member of the Royal Family to be offended now would I.

Well I can assure you dear readers reader, that I am not the saint this makes me out to be. I can use ‘pit language’, as my mother used to call it, with the best of them. In fact at times, I find it an essential part of my vocabulary, such as when I’m driving or watching politicians on television.

Down at the allotment site, we have one particular character who has perfected the art of swearing to such an extent, that he not only swears every second word, but every third and fourth as well. I’ve mentioned him before, Effing Phil. We nicknamed him that to indicate his particular favourite.

My dear departed brother also had a favourite swear word, ‘chuffin’, and did enough ‘chuffin’ to have had a memorial plate erected in his honour at the York Railway Museum. I always thought the word quite benign, as he would use it in front of anyone he met, but I recently googled it (with its attendant letter g) and got quite a shock. I now wonder if he knew all along, and just didn’t give a damn.

I don’t have any favourites as such, as I like to keep my options open and tailor them to the situation. So, for instance, a dunked biscuit that decides to go for a swim in my tea may get a ‘b*gger’, whereas the tea spilt on to my lap, would definitely get a mumbled ‘f**k’.

I’m also known to use the word ‘b**tard’  quite a lot as well, but in an anthropomorphous way, whereby I give life to inanimate objects. So for instance, if Mrs N hears me shouting “come here you little b**tard”, from the garage, she knows I’m not swearing at one the grandkids, but at a dropped screw that has rolled as far under a cupboard as it’s possible to do.

I reserve my strongest outbursts however , with words strung together on a bejewelled necklace of profanity , for situations where I get  physically injured.

So, in keeping with my blogger policy, I can only leave it to your imaginations to fill in what I said when I recently did this down at the plot.

Thumbnail of a thumbnail.

 

Leeks and Leaks.

I was dispatched to the plot a couple of weeks back by Mrs N, to see if there were any leeks ready yet, to make her delicious leek and potato soup.

To my delight, there were some big enough, and I'd just started to lift them when it started to rain. Not just any old rain, but M&S rain, the type that marinates and saturates you to the skin.

The leeks, on a sunny day.

It was ok though, as I have a shed, not just any old shed, but a B&Q shed, from that place where you buy something then have to queue for ages to pay for it!

In the shed is a folding canvas chair, not just any old...........no I won’t do it again, I promise........so I decided to sit it out. But I hadn’t noticed the chair was wet, from one of a few leaks that have recently appeared  in the shed roof, that I haven't got round to fixing.

All was well for while, and I entertained myself  watching others scurrying around the site, who haven’t got sheds, get thoroughly soaked. They are cheap enough at B&Q  after all, so it serves them right, skinflints!

Then slowly an awareness of dampness crept in down below, as the wetness from the chair infused the three layers of clothing I had on, right through to underpants. I’d given up going commando a while ago, after the thistle incident, but that’s another story.

For a moment I seriously thought I’d reached that age we all dread, until I realised what had happened, and with a sigh of relief ventured out, seeing as the rain was stopping, to carry on what I was doing.

Very soon however,  the increasing discomfort  forced me to pack in and head home before a testicular form of trenchfoot set in, trenchcrutch I think it’s called.

“Have you got any leeks then ?”, she asked, as I entered the kitchen, walking like the geriatric incontinent I thought I’d become earlier.

“Leeks? Oh I’ve got leaks alright”, I said, “ Loads of ‘em, in that bloody shed roof !”.

P.S.
I was reminded of this incident the other day, when I spotted these in the local supermarket. Don't know how you would use them, but it's enough to bring tears to a man's eyes just thinking about it !

Away with the fairies.

That last post reminded me of a time in my life, as a young man, when I dabbled with religion. I was a latecomer, mentored by the local vicar right up to being fully confirmed, an adult yearner you could say.

My wife and I got to know the vicar quite well, and as our house was on his way to the church, he would often call for a sandwich and a cup of tea after work. I well remember one particular Sunday night, when as he was sat munching away, there was a knock at the door. It was a couple of policemen, enquiring about a local crime, so I invited them in for a cuppa as well. We all sat there, looking like a scene from Midsummer Murders, but I digress.

It didn’t last long however, this conversion. A growing despair at world suffering, the many hypocrisies of the Church and the need to constantly beg forgiveness from something that couldn't be seen or heard, eventually took its toll on my belief.

It left a hole, I must admit, and I sometimes envy those who have a belief system on which to hang their life, and ‘show them the way’,  but I’m now an ardent empiricist.  I can only believe information proven by observation or experimentation, and I’ve never observed or experienced anything to make me believe in any religious deity.

I came close once, in my early twenties. One very dark night, sat with a mate on a local beach discussing such things as you do, and with a few empty beer cans around us, we asked God for a sign to prove his existence. Lo and behold, there was a sudden flash of light out to sea in the night sky. We were dumbstruck at this manifestation, half expecting the next one to strike us dead for testing him. It was only after the second and third  recurrent flashes at regular intervals, that we realised it was the distant lighthouse of Flamborough head.

I'd like to live here.

The only other experience I have of anything approaching the supernatural, was when as a child, I saw a fairy, in the old sense of the term I must add. You may laugh, but it seemed very real at the time, and I can still remember every detail of the diminutive figure, sat in that blackcurrant bush.

Not a blackcurrant fairy, but near enough.

Of course, the figure had disappeared when I eventually persuaded my mother to come and have a look, but at least she could now justifiably say I was away with the fairies, which she often did.

Over the years I’ve reluctantly had to accept that it was a just figment of my childhood imagination, with the same disappointment that I discovered Father Christmas didn't exist. But you know what, more than five decades on from that day, I still look with expectation in every blackcurrant bush I see, just in case!