(or Holidays, And The Cost Thereof)
We've been back from holiday for a week now, and I think we're just about on top of things again. We were in the Isle of Man visiting my sister and parents - thanks for the hospitality, folks - and left the place in the care of our lovely neighbours, the Smileys. Witchypoo left them a list of instructions - fairly detailed instructions, it has to be said - and to their credit, they didn't laugh when they read it. But exactly how much you can reasonably expect a neighbour to do?
Water in the polytunnel, check. Feed the Bleedin' Cats and Fish On A String, check. Open and close the chicken houses, check. But feed these chickens from this bag plus a scoopful of this as a snack, whereas those chickens get feed from this bag and no snacks at all, ever, but they get one of the old broccoli plants hung up in the run every few days - oh, and don't forget to fill their drinker up every other day...
Trying to itemize what we actually do around the Hollow on a daily basis is somewhat frightening. When it came to harvesting we decided to keep things very simple, and just told them what was ready.
But, aha - we'd forgotten the change in mindset that comes with growing your own. For instance, when we said "Please pick the peas", the Smileys naturally heard "There are some peas ready. If you fancy a few with your dinner, help yourselves" whereas we actually meant "Rejoice, for the peas are ready! Please pick them regularly and obsessively. Get down on your hands and knees and have a good furtle. Stick your head into the cane tunnel and make sure you get the ones you wouldn't see otherwise - for, lo, if you miss any the plants may decide that they have finished and then there will be no more peas. Woe unto you, for the peas are ready! Oh, and the runner beans are just starting too."
The peas and beans were soon sorted out when we got back, but the raspberries were a little trickier. There's a big wasp nest somewhere nearby - probably in Wingco's place - and the cool weather has sent them searching for sugar earlier than usual. They don't bother too much with intact fruit, but if anything goes slightly overripe they'll be crawling all over it like fashion models over a studio executive. Trouble is, once that starts you get less keen on harvesting the fruit that's actually ripe - and tomorrow the problem is ten times worse.
I've always been terrified of wasps, but I never knew why until I prepared to squeeze between the rows of waspy fruit. You see, the only hope of getting the wasp situation under control was to go into the fruit cage and remove all the rotting fruits, taking advantage of a sudden drop in temperature that made the wasps - already drunk from fermenting berries - sluggish and uninterested in me. I went in and to my credit refrained from waving my arms about like a demented conductor, but within two minutes I was scared and dripping with nervous sweat and then...
I'm six years old, and in shorts. I don't like short trousers any more, but since my mother does and she's the one that buys my clothes, I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt. It's warm, the sun is shining, and I'm terrified because I have to Do The Bins.
We're spending the summer in a caravan site (trailer park) on the coast, and every day or so the little plastic bin under the sink needs to be taken to the communal rubbish area. Some genius (presumably working in winter) has designed this as a long U-shaped concrete corral lined with regular waste bins - and in summer it's literally humming with wasps. The ones near the entrance fill first, and then overfill until the tops won't go on any more, so they're absolutely alive with busy yellow and black bodies, hyped to the max with sugary, tartrazine-laden 1970s junk food. If you even look at these guys funny, they'll go for you. I've been stung a few times already and I don't like it one bit.
I stand near the entrance to the corral, looking longingly through the wasp-drenched air at the empty bins at the far end. To get there I'll have to wait for a momentary lull in the air traffic and dive through, feeling the wasps bumping against my bare legs, and then I'll have to rip the lid off a bin, hoping that there isn't a wasp under the handle. The whole thing will be over in ten heartbeats, or at least it would be if my heart wasn't presently beating like a hummingbird's wings. I take a deep breath...
...and bat the drunken wasps off the raspberry canes with the ruined fruit, putting the sound stuff into my little cardboard punnet and finally bearing it back to the house in triumph. You'll be glad to know that two days later the fruit is 95% wasp-free - as good as it's likely to get with a nest next door - but the weather is still crap. If anyone has seen my summer lying around, can they please leave it where I'll find it?
