Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Drama at the Allotment

Surely not, I hear you say.  Not at that haven of peace, the only sound the gentle drone of the bumble bee..  What could possibly go wrong there, beyond an outbreak of blight, rust, or caterpillars?

But today's events would have provided several episodes of plotlines for "The Archers", at least in its pre soap opera guise.

We went to our plot intending to establish our bean row, bringing with us our newly- purchased batch of bamboo poles.  As we reached our little shed, we noticed that the door was ajar and the pieces of bent wire which we use to secure the hasp were not in place.  But worse was to come: our fork was not in the shed.  Now, we had a spade disappear in similar circumstances some years ago.  On that occasion, the padlock was wrenched off the door, so we did not replace it.

We were annoyed, of course, because some blighter had helped himself to our fork, and we would have to buy another.  However...

When the chap on the next allotment arrived we realised that our fork had been the cause of some mystery to him, because it had appeared in his plot.  He had no idea whose it was, so there it remained.  The plot thickened.

Next to arrive was Peter, the head honcho at the allotments.  Had we had anything go missing, as Dave, another of the regulars had had his rotovator stolen: whoever took it had wrenched the padlock off the door.  Doubtless they "borrowed" our fork to use as a lever.  Mystery solved.

But you can't help feeling sorry for Dave.  Our new rotovator was an expensive item, many times the cost of a fork.  We do not keep it at the plot.

We were very happy to have our fork back.

2 comments:

Susan Smith said...

Oh dear, not the sort of thing you would normally think of happening at an allotment. Hope Dave eventually gets his rotavator back or at least compensated. I thought maybe your fork had been used for lifting lots of veg as somebody may have been hungry. Hope all goes well in the future for the holders. Take care.

knitski said...

oh NO! Just wish people would ask to borrow . . . not nice at all!