Full First Team

This was the most exciting and productive session so far. It was the first time all four of us managed to get to plot to work and we gave it several hours. It has to be said, it was bloody hot, the hottest day of the year so far in fact. Not the best choice of days to be grafting on the allotment to quite the extent that was necessary.

Our objectives for today were to dismantle the shed, move and set up the watering system and, well, clear some weeds of course.

Progress was slow, we had plentiful "helpful advice" from our plot buddy, from here on to be referred to as "chicken girl" in that she keeps chickens. We ended up manually lifting the shed, getting it on a flatbed trolley, taking it off the flatbed trolley, attempting to slide it on fire doors, and eventually, parting it from the very heavy base, move the base and rehouse the shed on the floor, we were "advised" on many occasions to put it on a pile of bricks to help reduce the risk of rats! This we didn't end up doing cos, to be fair, it was too bloody hard, we had already spent three hours on the damn shed, and lets face it, its pretty dilapidated as it is.

Once the shed was moved we cracked on with clearing some weeds. Beneath the shed was a concrete square that we think had previously housed a greenhouse. So, bed number one was born! So much so that Matt was even able to start digging.

Louise, Tammy and I continued with the weeding until the sun finally had us beat. We were frazzled! Tammy is as red faced as I have ever seen here and her ears are pretty much burnt, Louise has achieved a first of some form of "tan" on her arms and nose (you can refer to red as "tan" can't you?), Matt, under the insistence of Louise, smothered his head in suncream to protect himself and began to look like a member from the Blue Man Troupe and I am a wonderful colour all over my arms and face but have a chest the colour of a well ripened tomato!

Needless to say, we managed most of our objectives, but not all, the water collection system is gonna have to wait, its all a bit more complex than we thought, this one is gonna be Tammy's baby!