John mowed the path

Old John came out today to mow Big John's lawn and the paths. He looked terrible. His hair was long and awry. His clothes were scruffy - he was wearing an old pair of jogging bottoms - and he had ink from a ballpoint staining his breast pocket.

He has a splendid petrol mower, but he could barely hang on to it. He managed to do Big John's lawn, then set off down the path, the mower almost running away with him. It ground to a halt near the end of the path, and he stopped to empty the grass holder. I said I could use the grass on the allotment. I'd just been digging a particularly clayey, rock hard bit, and had only just been thinking it needed lots of organic matter in there.

I emptied the grass holder, but he couldn't start the mower again. He wore himself out pulling the string to start it. I didn't dare offer to help. I'd already offered to mow the paths but he said he didn't want anyone else using the mower because it was "temperamental". I'd also offered to move the table and chairs off the lawn, but he'd said he could manage, though I saw him struggling with the wooden table.

He came back up the path muttering that "it must be flooded", which saved me saying it. I had decided not to because women aren't supposed to know things like that and he would've felt insulted if he thought I thought I knew better than him what was wrong with it, just as he would've been insulted if I'd been able to start it and he hadn't or I'd been able to pick up the table and he hadn't. Such are the ridiculous considerations women have to make with old-fashioned men like John if they care about them and want to protect their pride. I wouldn't have bothered with anyone younger.

The mower stalled twice more, and each time John pushed it laboriously back into his garden by his door. He obviously didn't feel safe leaving it on the allotment, even though I was there to keep an eye on it. After the last time, he drove it back to his garden and disappeared. After a while I put the garden furniture back on Big John's lawn. Old John had said he had two more bags of grass he'd already mown from his own lawn, but I knew I wasn't going to get them today, nor the last hopper full of grass he'd mown from the path. The whole episode made me feel very young, strong and healthy. I forgot to ask after Joan. I'd better ask Big John first, I think.

Joan's flower garden

I started tidying up Joan's flower garden yesterday. It is the patch up the top of my Swindon allotment, and when John and Joan had the allotment, it was her flower garden, and looked lovely. However, now it is overgrown with couch grass, and not many flowers have survived. There is one rose bush, some large daisies (chrysanthemums?), bluebells, lily-of-the-valley, some bluey geranium-type flowers, and a rhubarb plant, plus the fruit bushes I put in recently. After I got the allotment last year, Big John reported that John had asked him repeatedly when I was going to clear Joan's flower garden. It is the piece of ground nearest to their immaculate lawn, so looks terrible from their window. But it is going to take a lot of work to clear all the couch from it.

A start at last

Last year was a terrible year because of the rain, and so far, this year hasn't been good because of the cold, but at last yesterday I made a start on one of my new allotments. On Pickards Field, I have moved from plot 59 to a smaller plot, no. 78. This was Old John's plot, but he is now too decrepit to work it, and Big John spent a lot of time last year keeping it up together for Old John. As Big John has two plots of his own, and has had umpteen heart attacks, he didn't want to have to do the same this year, so when he heard that I wanted to move from plot 59, he asked Old John if he'd consider handing the plot on to me. I got to know Old John well when I worked the Salvation Army plot, no. 77, and he knew that I'm a good gardener, so he agreed to let me inherit his plot. He said he would only give it up if I took it on. We went to the Council last year and signed all the papers. Since then, I'd only had time to transplant some raspberry canes and strawberry plants and sow some broad beans before winter set in, but someone rotovated about half of it for me in the autumn, and Nobby rotovated another quarter this week, so I've been able to start planting and sowing now without having to spend hours digging. Yesterday was just about the first nice day of the year, so I was able to put in a double row of spring-sown broad beans (Windsors), a row of Kelvedon Wonder peas (from saved seed), and a row of Jersey Royals (International Kidney) potatoes. I salvaged some compost from my old allotment (which no-one has taken on yet) to put in the potato trench and to put in the compost bin to get it going.

My other new plot is in Lechlade. The owner of the Antiques Centre, where I have a unit, owns the plot. It was cultivated by an old man who gave it up two years ago and died last year. Last year it was cultivated by an antiques dealer, who has since left the shop. It is in a sheltered, sunny spot and the soil is light and well-drained. Another of the antiques dealers has a rotovator and is going to rotovate the plot for me next week, so I'm feeling very lucky. His son helped me plant some strawberry plants on Friday, and I also transplanted a near-dead sage plant from my old allotment.

Exchange and the Gift economy

The concept of exchange is, of course, vital in Social Anthropology. The Gift economy is rife in allotment society.

Here's one example from yesterday alone:

Joan told me that Big John (No. 79) had done some work on their front door for them - the paint had peeled off or something, and Big John had touched it up for them, but wouldn't even accept any payment for the paint he had bought and used. They had bought him a litre of whisky for doing it. But John had done a lot of digging on Big John's allotment while the latter was away (partly because he's done all his winter digging and was at a loose end), so it seemed a fair exchange to me. However, in the spirit of Mauss's The Gift, the bottle of whisky represents the bigger gift topping the last one, which leaves the recipient happily indebted to the giver, and thus perpetuates the cycle of gift-giving. That's in Social Anthropological terms - in human terms, all it means is that John and Joan were more than grateful to Big John for his generosity, and wanted to show him their appreciation.