Ponds and posts

Never one to miss out on a chance to get Matt working on the allotment, Nick and Matt put in yet more posts, this time for the cage at the top of 51 to hopefully keep the flying rats of the cabbages.

They then moved onto the strawberry patch which was totally overgrown with weeds.




While they were busy at this Brian and Marlene magically produced a hole in the ground which was exactly the size and shape of the pond that we had aquired from Barry. The original pond we had bought from the tip for £2 but decided that it was too small. We were chatting one day and Barry mentioned that he had a pond which was too big, so in true allotment fashion we swapped. The reason I say, magic is that Rebecca and I popped to Morrisons and when we got back, there it was. We weren't gone long enough for it to have been dug by conventional methods, so I am very suspicious.




A bit of soil sifting later, it fit perfectly giving the ducks a larger pond when they are out of the compound. They also love the fact that there is lovely soft mud all the way round the pond in which they can dig their beaks and get loads of slugs and grubs. Yummy!


The twins especially love it and rush around like a couple of teenagers diving in at the deepend and swimming lengths. They haven't yet worked out that there is a shallow end so make a lot of splashing and wing waving trying to get out of the deep end, but I am sure they will learn.






The reason why we went to Morrisons was to get refreshments for the workers and we decided that it would be easier to BBQ. We had a BBQ sitting in the shed but it took two to put it together.


All was prepared and cooking started when we noticed a huge black cloud heading our way. Matt fixed a tarpaulin over one end of the duck compound and we hastily moved in. A bit smelly but as long as you didn't look down at what you were standing in, all was OK, except the BBQ really didn't want to light. Guess who was a boy scout!