I have bad news – there’s been an invasion. After what can best be described as “minimal” help from the council, we still have a wall bordering woodland which is missing some essential elements. One of them is stones. The other 1000 or so are also stones.
This has meant that Bambi and his chums are free to wander into the allotment, where they find what must be akin to the M&S fruit and veg section of the deer world. Happily ignoring the rule book on what they supposedly eat, they’ve scoffed just about anything that grows, leaving me and my fellow allotmenteers counting the costs. And it’s been quite deer. (Sorry.)
This has led to an arms race of netting and poles, as everyone tries to divert the hungry masses away from their plot. We got the first strike in, and now half the plots are surrounded, leaving those working their patch looking like they’ve been caged. Passing birds must assume they’ve fluttered into some kind of human zoo. Ooh! Look at that one – it’s very brightly coloured! Look at how it scrabbles at the earth! Hee hee! Cute!
Unfortunately, the deer bring some teensy friends along to the party – ticks. These little gits can go for weeks on one feed... and they aren’t vegetarians. Like a microscopic cinema showing a tiny version of Alien in 3D, they burrow head-first into your skin, and leave their body and legs poking out, whilst they gorge themselves on your blood. Their cunning ploy is to be so tiny that you don’t notice them... until they’ve had time to get fat.
It would seem that I’m like a gigantic McDonalds as far as they’re concerned, as they’ve been popping by with alarming frequency for a McGrumpy and fries to (quite literally) eat in. They’re lovin’ it. Whilst I’m not aware of smelling like a particularly sexy tick, I guess it’s possible, hence their fascination with me. The more likely explanation is that, being a somewhat hirsute chap (steady, ladies) I’m like a Wacky Warehouse for the little tykes. Once they’re in the jungle, they might as well stop for lunch. It’d be rude not to.
To make matters worse, when you manage to extricate them (which isn’t easy) you wind up a day or two later with a nice red mark and a nasty case of the itchys. I’m sure some of my colleagues are finding increasing excuses not to come near me.
Allotments are dangerous places. Only last year my wife threatened to leave me after my 2 week courgette only diet (well, I couldn’t let them go to waste), and now tiny vampires are attempting to kill me, one infinitely small, annoyingly itchy, bite at a time.
Maybe I should take up a safer hobby. I hear blindfold naked knife juggling is fun.
Have a good, bite free, weekend.
If you can.
(This post first appeared in my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 1st June 2012. This is the unedited version - you can view the printed/online version here
This post had a bit of a troubled time getting into the paper. As I knew I was going to be away on holiday I submitted it a week early. Unfortunately this bit of cunning advanced planning seems to have confused the good people at the NWEM, as I received a phone call from the head of HR at my place of work on Thursday night saying the paper were trying to get hold of me...
Some lucky phone signal/wi-fi hotspot/Android tablet shenanigans later and I managed to resubmit it, although I have no idea what the paper's sub-editors decided to title it, as my copy of the paper has failed to materialise, so I haven't seen it in print. Complicated, huh?)
(Currently listening to "Innuendo Perform A Tribute To Queen". It's... how can I put this?... not great. I think I'll be consigning it to the charity shop bag.)
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