If you are one of the (albeit few) regular-ish visitors to this blog then you may have noticed a distinct lack of ‘action’ over the past couple of months. You may have pondered the reasons behind this worrying paucity of gardening/booze based banter, features and fun.
Have there been fisticuffs, Gallagher-style, over who has grown the nobbliest carrot? Has someone’s liver exploded mid-cider tasting? Have they just not been arsed?
Well the answer is none* of the above. Whilst we fully admit to being ‘a bit too busy doing actual jobs that earn us actual money’, one of the overriding factors behind our lack of output has been the terrible loss of our allotment.
Last year the landowner of the ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEAR OLD Combe Down allotment site decided to end the lease to Bath council and evict ourselves and the other 63 plot holders, despite a sustained campaign to save it. The reason behind this mad decision has not been disclosed, but we’ve heard myriad planning rumours for this once hallowed ground: A car park for big expensive cars? A giant drive through Greggs**? Landfill site for nuclear waste? All will become clear in the coming months…
The loss of the allotment is a minor setback. We are still very much thirsty and still very much gardener-y, and will be updating this website with more booze and gardening shenanigans as we see fit/when we get round to it.
We’ve also recently ‘gotten into grape-based*** wines’, a booze that has always been slightly off our radar due to our outdated, parochial views of it being ‘elitist’ and ‘poncey’. Suffice to say, we already made fools of ourselves at an exclusive wine tasting event. Wine stuff will appear in a new section on this site, and you might just notice a slight increase in vinous misadventures on our Instagram account.
We hope you can join us for the next round.
Rich & Nick
NB. For our final, allotment-based hurrah, we gathered the biggest crop of cider apples we have ever had and stored them in the shed with the intention to turn them into a celebration cider. True to form, Rich left them a bit too long and, on opening the shed door, was greeted with crates rotting of apple pomace and rat shit. We pushed the shed**** over. It started to rain. And so ended our Combe Down allotment tenancy.
* Except for maybe a whiff of the last reason.
** Wishful thinking.
*** As opposed to DELICIOUS veggie and hedgerow-based wines. See Brew It Yourself for more details.
**** On a plus note we found a bottle of our vintage cider in the rotten shed timbers. All offers welcome. Starting price: 50p
