Monday 1 June 2020

The allotments

Every day from the age of around 6 to age 11 I walked twice a day through the allotments to home. It was the quickest way to get to school. I'd forgotten all about it but remembered with my desire for allotments (and some green space which hasn't been colonised by joggers.)

It must be still there!

I never thought much about them when I was walking to school. We were deeply unimpressed back in the day. We weren't really interested in plants or gardening, and there was always an unromantic aroma of cabbage.

But fast forward 40 years and I love plants! I love greenhouses. My MA final project was based on them. I love the patchwork of people's different plots, the structures (teepees and cold frames and old sheds), the idea of growing food locally, and the way that gardening sorts out your mental health.

So I went on a walk down memory lane. It was beautiful, and a revelation.


























































Sunday 31 May 2020

Adventures in lockdown - allotments

In my last housemove, I had to find somewhere in a hurry and ended up randomly in the suburb where I grew up, the fancy, leafier end with big houses and gardens.













It is pretty around here, in the middle of a garden suburb laid out in the twenties, and between two beautiful if rundown parks which had formerly been grand country house estates.













I gave the parks up on the daily walk (mainly because of unavoidable joggers) and stuck to the back streets, admiring the grand houses and the way the streets are planted up with flowers, trees and bushes on the verge, so between the blossoming front gardens and the verge it's almost like you're walking in a country lane.























Some of my friends have allotments and I would like my own plot to grow flowers, fruit & veges. I looked on the Enfield website and found one very nearby - it was on the route of the daily walk, in a triangle of streets, but seemed like the Bermuda Triangle.













No matter how I walked around, I couldn't see the entrance. It seemed like it might be behind the houses, behind people's back gardens. It got so I wished I was a cat and could jump blithely over their back fences with no one able to challenge me.

Eventually I found it on Google Earth - the entrance was on the main road, right opposite one of the park entrances in fact. How clever of those twenties planners, they've put the allotment right in the middle of the houses.













Lucky people with that green space on their doorstep, they can even access it from their back gardens.













I wish I could wander in - the gates are locked, I feel like Alice in Wonderland when she peeps in the tiny door at the Queen's gardens.  I've signed up to the waiting list but imagine that by the time I get a plot I won't be living here anymore.




A tantalising path I can't walk down
Coming next - I find an allotment that I can walk through!