Another day, another deluge. Parts of the UK are under water... again.
The allotment beetroot's enjoying it, but I'm not. It's almost two years since we saw any proper sunshine.
After 40 years of this shit, I should be inured to it by now. Instead, I get more and more pissed off.
I pay my taxes, goddammit. Where's the bloody payback?!?
More deceptive weather, more deceptive growth. Any other time, and I'd welcome sprouting lilies. Now they seem like a bad joke; tonight we're getting sleet and snow.
I realise, of course, that this allotment blog is taking on a Cassandra-like character. All you get is moans and weather warnings. Like Jenna Jameson reading the shipping forecast.
All I can say is: if you're not whingeing, could you please start? If enough of us rant at the Almighty, He might deign to cancel winter.
He's clearly not getting the message from me.
Intellectually, I know March is a crap month. Always has been, always will be. Yet hope springs eternal - goddammit.
You see, it's not the despair. I can cope with the despair. It's the hope.
Anyway, the weather is so spectacularly appalling that indoor gardening is the only option. I've been potting up my celeriac and okra seedlings. Dull, dull, dull.
I'm fed up with pictures of pots. I want to be out on the allotment. You know, growing vegetables. Not poncing around with a camera like a horse's arse.
*Sighs heavily*
You'll gather from the above that the UK weather's been shit. And I mean, really shit. 'Gale' seems a trite word for such destructive power.
So while I'm stuck here, being a horse's arse (again), I thought I'd show you how the lily seedlings are coming on.
These are the cotyledon leaves, which grow from the seed case. The first true leaves should emerge any moment now.
And who knows? I may even do some bloody gardening one of these days.
All is not lost. I took this photo at the plot just after 7.30am today. Even a week ago, this would have been impossible.
For me, Spring arrives the day I can shower in the morning without the bathroom light. Tried it today and wished I hadn't. Stubbed my toe, fell on my arse twice and found myself trying to work up a lather with the soap dish.
The weather is crap... again. It's January, so I can't grow vegetables. And the UK is back under water, with more rain on the way.
Looks like that stuff about Britain freezing as the Gulf Stream slows down is all so much horse shit. Predictably, global warming works backwards here. While everyone else is getting a Baywatch sun tan, we'll be watching TV on a dinghy in the living room.
Great.
I have nothing positive to add, so I'll just post a flower picture. This is my standard response to crisis.
The weather's been atrocious this week. It's raining so hard today I didn't even want to get out of bed this morning.
No change there, come to think of it. But you take my point.
All I can do is look out of the window and mope. And admire my lovely cymbidium orchid, which has gone berserk this year. It's a cultivar called King's Lock, and I have three flower spikes. Outrageous.
Normal service resumes any time I can get out of the bloody front door. Which doesn't look like happening any time soon.
As you were.
Well, not quite. But it bloody well feels like it.
I hate it when the clocks go back. I can't go to the allotment after work and I get generally gloomy. It's like being a mole for five months.
Now that there's less happening at the plot, I shan't be posting so often. Which may come as a relief to anyone reading this. To kick off the winter 'shit time', here's a pic of me in June inspecting the delphiniums at Wisley. Just seeing those outrageous colours cheers me up:
