Pauline's Progress

 

As can be seen in this photo Pauline has cleared the right side of her plot down to around the front of the shed. She only has beside the shed along to the apple tree to clear and she also wants to remove the apple tree.  

The Daleks are now no longer in the weeds and some membrane has been laid 

She is piling up the weeds and removed vegetation at the end of her plot as she will have to bag it and remove it or pay for someone to remove it as fires are not allowed on the allotment at all. 

 

Pauline's Progress

Pauline sent these photos over with a note that she had started at 7am but was back home just after 10 as it got too hot. The area cleared is within the collapsed fruit cage and it looks like she is having all the fruit out and going for a more of less blank canvas to carve up how she wants too. 

If she is going to continue sending me update photos I will share them here so that readers can also enjoy her journey.  

Moving Pauline II

A couple of weeks ago my sister-in-law Pauline came up from her new home in Horley by train to visit us for a spot of lunch and so that I can help her move some of her tools from her three sheds on plots 6 & 7 down to her new plot on the allotment that is behind her house. She has a T&P shed and and gardening shed, then there was the two old asbestos sheds on her second half plot that she inherited.  

Today her son-in-law and my son-in-law are moving the remainder of the items she wants to ship down to her new home and plot. It's a little bitter sweet as I helped her and Keith measure up and set out the plot when they took it over, and it was Keith that talked me into getting my plot on the same site. The idea was that we could meet up and have socials on the plot or Keith and I could graft and the girls could natter. That really never came to pass as the wife got ill and her mobility got bad so quickly that having a fall put her off coming over and helping me. 

Keith passed away a couple of years ago now, and Pauline has now moved nearer to her daughter who is due to make her a Nan soon. I miss Keith a great deal he was more like a Brother than a brother-In-law, and now there will be no coffee making and sharing with Pauline.

I arrived early to clear the plot 1 shed in order to fix a bookcase that was going to the tip to the back wall of the shed. 

Soon Andy and then Pauline & James turned up and we set to work filling first Andy's van and then finally just a few items in the back of my car.

We then made our way to Horsham to and I was driving down the M23 and about a mile away from the Peas Pottage when there was suddenly a noise like a rumble strip and I decided that pulling over would be a good idea. 

On jumping out of the car I was shocked to find that the tyre had exploded!  Pauline and I evacuated the car and I tried to ring the RAC. I have to say they now want everything logged on the internet. Now just because I have a smart phone does not mean I use it to surf the web. 

Andy pulled in as he had a warning triangle and more importantly two seats that he was taking to Pauline's new plot so jumped over the barrier, Pauline and I got the seats and we tucked into the packed lunches that Emma my daughter had made us.

Now what does really worry me is if I had broken down on the new four lane section of the motorway would I have been expected to drive my car on the inside lane to the emergency laybys that are at about mile centres?

The removal of the hard shoulder is such a bad thing and really has not been thought through !  

Finally after about and hour and a half the RAC arrived put on a transport wheel and then we went to the service station and they found a somewhere that could fit me a new tyre. I followed the RAC Van to their venue and I was in and out again in around 10 minutes! 

Pauline and Andy had gone on ahead in he van once the RAC had arrived, and I followed the sat-nav to Pauline's new home.  A cup of coffee later we all went to the allotment to drop off those items that needed to go straight to the plot, Andy and Pauline having already stored a lot of other stuff in her garage. 

View from the top right corner of the plot 

View from the top left corner of the plot with the weeds removed and covered in weed membrane and the weed thinned from the fruit bushes. 

Looking at the section of the plot between the fruit cage and the shed that needs clearing to give Pauline a clear run at organising getting her greenhouse in beside the shed and getting in the beds sorted for 2022. 

Thankfully the dive home was uneventful! 

Pauline's New Plot

 

I asked my sister in law if she had managed to do anything on her allotment bearing in mind the wet weather we have been having and she sent me these photos. The one above is taken from the path between plots just in front of her shed looking at the top of her plot. 

The bed at the end of the plot has a concrete kerb around it and now the paths have been cut and the weeds have been pulled and the bed covered with weed membrane it's looking very tidy. The strawberry bed in the middle is now also weed free. 

The paving slab path down the middle of the plot has now been exposed and thus the left side of the plot has been cleared, now the very overgrown right side with the overgrown collapsed fruit cage needs to be investigated and gradually worked into when Pauline actually get some dry weather.   

Moving Pauline

My sister-in-law Pauline came up from her new home in Horley by train to visit us for a spot of lunch and so that I can help her move some of her tools from her three sheds on plots 6 & 7 down to her new plot on the allotment that is behind her plot. 

I managed to get in her wheel barrow and all her digging tools plus her late husbands toolbox and a lawn mower and camping chair, bed covering membrane etc. in the back of the car.

Google Map view of Pauline's Allotment site and single half 125 square metre plot. the main paths are wide enough that cars can be taken into the site for dropping off and picking up purposes. 

Pauline standing at the path at the end of her plot. She has inherited a six by four foot shed. 

   

No woodchip paths on this allotment all paths are grass. A view from the corner of the plot with the two grass paths that are currently in need of some trimming. 

This is the opposite corner of the plot that has an apple tree, and we measured and there is just enough room for her to get her greenhouse in between the shed and the tree with perhaps a bed in front of the greenhouse. 

Side view into the side/ top end of the plot with the fruit cage. 

Side view into the bottom end of the plot. 

There is at least another one if not two trips needed to move everything Pauline wants to take to her new plot which will happen in a few weeks time.