I Miss My Allotment. Thoughts About Rural Isolation.

We will have lived in Ireland  nineteen years next year.  I was thirty eight when we came over to live here.  So I suppose we have lived here half my life?  Well not half my real age of 55.  I was 38 when  we came here.  So that's  19 isn't  it..  Eh?

One thing that I really miss is watching live football, cricket, heavy rock concerts, public transport, pubs that sell real ales,  being able to buy English cans or bottled beer from the supermarkets, massive  car boot sales and also allotments.  That's ten things Dave.  I should have took off my socks and shoes and used my toes to count.

Allotment people are the salt of the earth.  They are friendly and share a common bond in cultivating the earth and growing vegetables and fruit.  They may even have a shed to escape from the missus, read their dog ears copies of "Big Girls Weekly"  or drink a few tins of beer or home brew?

I like having my own patch of Gods earth here in Ireland, especially my polytunnel.  But gosh it can be a twee bit quiet at times.  Allotments are places where you have a laugh and a joke , put the world to rights and tell people  how they are doing it all wrong.  Well they were twenty years  a go.

I wish I could paint a picture for you of a typical allotment that was next to mine: home made sheds made out of plywood, corrugated roofs with a rusty patina, lumps of concrete hold down the sheets, polytunnels made out of old plastic water pipe tubing and covered in polythene, supermarket trolleys with wheels that have a mind of their own and now the trolleys are full of drying onions, vegetables sown in lines like army regiments, an old front door for a gate..?

Rural isolation is peaceful and there are no rules or regulations or an allotment committee telling you what to do.  But there is a lot to be said for the camaraderie and mickey taking of an allotment.  Which would you prefer an allotment with other like minded gardening comrades or a patch of land of your own in the countryside where you are on your own?   Wouldn't  mind an pub like Wetherspoon's that serves real ales.  Suppose the grass is always greener on to'ther side  of  the fence?

When its rainy nearly every day and cold the rural isolation can get to you a little bit.  Thank goodness for television, radio, books, the internet and for blogs and country walks.  I have walked ten miles already this week.  The veg plot and the gardens are too wet to do anything at the moment.  Suppose one could find some potting on to do in the polytunnel?