Update

I have been struggling for the past few days to get into my blogging account after such a long time, and have only just succeeded.

Of course, we're half-way through the season, and I've not written a thing about how it's going. Where do I start? Maybe with a summary, or a bullet-point list of all the important new developments, which I can come back to later.

So:

• Water troughs! Hurrah, hurrah! The council has finally got round to installing the promised water trough on MY allotment! July 1st was Water Trough day, and when it was finally up and running, so many people tried to use it all at once that it was nearly emptied and they then complained that it wasn't filling up fast enough.



• Gli italiani. The wonderful brothers Joe and Angelo are proving excellent neighbours, and I have an open invitation to borrow Joe's zappa (italian hoe), which has made life so much easier. Angelo has promised to bring me one back from Italy in August, and Joe said that when someone asked who I was, he said I was his cousin.



• New arrivals. Two of note: Ken (opposite me, Plot 348), and Andy (a little further down on the other side, Plot 352a). Ken has a half-plot and plenty of family members to help him work it. He is very friendly and chatty and has taken early retirement from Royal Mail. He's on holiday in Scotland at the moment. Andy is from Glasgow and is a self-employed computer programmer. He is also very chatty and great fun. He has charmed Angelina, and even made her laugh (she usually moans about everything). He is thinking of retraining as a teacher. I think he'd make a good one. He knows nothing about gardening, but is making a good go of his half-plot, thanks to hard work and many donated plants.



• The family-from-hell are still causing problems. My neighbours the other side say they have a ladder which they use to get over the fence on to his shed roof and down via his picnic table, and that they have now stolen two old doors which he was using to hold his manure in place. They know this because their picnic table was broken and they saw white paint on top of the fence.



• Lots and lots of other things, but that's enough for now.

The pictures show what the Family-from-hell did to the lovely privet bush that was overhanging my shed. Big John actually saw him climb over the fence to cut it back on MY SIDE.