Mind the Gap

There isn't really any excuse for a three-month gap in posting, so I'm not going to offer one.

But the Plot is coming along nicely: there are spuds, giant broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries, and reams of beans. Nearly all of these have suffered some horrble setback near the beginning of their lives, as I start to learn about things like Pigeons, Rabbits, Bindweed, and other pests the like of which one never has to deal with an an ordinary garden.

One evening, round about the time of the London Riots, a hot spell here in Viking City broke into a specatacular rainstorm. The following day I found out that some of the local likelies, apparently having had their barbecue rudely interrupted by unwanted water, had picked up their fire and come and taken shelter in the shed on the Plot. The fire itself was in one of those large old-fashioned metal bread tins. The shed is always unlocked, so nothing has to be broken in order to get in. We have kept it that way ever since discovering, one morning, a twentysomething victim of the recession who had apparently needed it and who had had the decency, and the good sense, to leave it undamaged.

Unfortunately, the local likelies weren't quite so thoughtful. Not bothering to realise that a metal tin with a fire in it is hot on the outside as well as the inside, they set it down on the shed's wooden floor rather than put it up on bricks like a barbecue. And it burned right through, leaving a large, ragged hole.

I took it philosophically: at least a hole in the floor won't let the rain in. But other Plotters said I should tell the Police, so I did.

So there are now files, fingerprints, DNA samples, and a large metal bar plus lock which we have been given to put on the shed door. Rumours of a CCTV programme are floating around. In other words, a lot of extra work for everybody involved (including the likelies, who I presume will shortly find themselves on a Community Payback stint).

I'm fairly laid-back about people using things, as long as no malice is intended and no damage is done. We all do it. Anyone who eats food, or uses energy, is using their surroundings just like the people who used our shed.

The trick is not to burn holes in it, guys.