Sue (No. 81)

This is Sue and her children. When I arrived at the allotments the other day, Sue had just arrived too. She has very little time to spend down there on account of being a busy mum, but she helped me move some pieces of wood on to my allotment. The wood was some old fencing that had been taken down by the council workmen who were building a new fence around the bungalows adjacent to our allotments by the south gate. They had chopped the old fence into bite-sized portions ideal to make a compost bin out of, so I nabbed a few of them with Sue's help.

We had put them at the bottom of the Salvation Army allotment ready for me to transport them at my leisure down to the Cat allotment. But when I went back after the weekend, John came out of his house and told me how he had only just stopped someone carting them away in their 4 x 4. John and Joan had moved them further up the SA allotment so that it was clear they were mine.

Later, John helped me move one of them down to the Cat allotment. I was too knackered to move any more, having dug my regulation three rows of concrete soil, but John said, "Leave it to me. Joan and I will move them after you've gone home." I was aghast - they are both in their eighties and Joan must weigh all of six stone. But they did it, and lived to tell the tale.

The next day, when Big John was filling his raised beds with topsoil that he had bought for £125, I admired his carpentry and said jokingly, "When you've finished that, you can come and build my compost bin for me!" He said, "Okay then!" I think I blew it though when I asked him to cast an eye over my shed too!