A good cook

To be a good grower you need to be a good cook

Flemish diagonal bond

 There is a building in Oxford, where I live, not a striking building, in any sense and nothing ever happens in connection with it. 

However the brickwork is a perfect example of Flemish diagonal bond and the pattern surrounding the roof is beautiful in an understated way.

Unlike, builders, we growers do not leave monuments to gaze at however when we grow flowers people will stop and wonder.....This makes it all worthwhile.  

God on the Allotment

It is because we are so busy, that we never see God among the plants in the garden.

Who needs a preacher in monks robes when you have an allotment.

What is Autumn

Autumn: the endless at arising and passing away of everything.

What does it mean.

It means do not hold on to anything.

Get up make your bed and get on with your life.

What is Autumn?

Autumn is, to my mind, a lovely time; for it has tenderness and melancholy..

All around lie the first small signs of change-the evening chill, the yellowing leaves, rodents looking around for their winter homes.

There is also a hesitation in the air, a sort of vulnerability. A sort of soft smile plays across the face of the moon...the peace and stillness of an early Autumn evening...with the deep acceptance of the coming winter.

It is good to site on the allotment and let the chile wind touch my cheek and not be afraid of what is to come.

The first leaf of Autumn

I sit with my back against an apple tree

Beside me the whispering slow moving Thames

Below me a carpet of gold

Into my palm a yellow leaf...the first of Autumn

My Shed

My shed is a home away from home. On my allotment I have two of them.

One is for my tools and gear and the other is where I like to sit.

The space between home and the world between the inside and the outside.

Where I watch the day turn into night, where i listen to the flies in summer and see the seasons pass.

A place where I belong.

You do not have to sit in a shed to feel this.

If your eyes are open then you belong wherever you are even if you go beyond the gate all the way away.

Do not complicate a thing.

Give and take from this world moment by moment by moment.

Then you are never separate from you true home.

Remember the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.