Hello again (stranger you may say), but I have decided to retire. It will either be the end of March, or the end of July 2021. Whichever it is, the decision has been made for certain, and it will happen.
To that end, I have applied for an allotment again, in two towns (about 4 miles from each other). My home town (New Romney) and where I originally had my allotment (Lydd), which is from where I joined this group.
New Romney Town Council has informed me that there is at least a year waiting list, and I am 15th on the said list.
Lydd Town Council has said there is a waiting list, but have not said where I am currently positioned on the starting grid.
However, and personally knowing the chairmen of both allotments, each have said they can't understand why there is a waiting list, and today both showed me around both allotments, and showed me the vacant plots, of which there are at least a dozen on each site. My question is a very simple one: Why? Do the town councils actually keep a grip on what's happening in reality? Or do they just drive from a desk?
Sorry - pressed the wrong button and posted before I was finished!
I have learned a lot from this group, and from getting my first allotment. I went and saw that first plot I had some years ago today, and I nearly cried (when I download my phone photos onto the laptop I will send you a picture). It was despondent, derelict, and disgusting. The shed, which is now actually eight or nine years old, looks more like a thirty-year-old shed, with a great big fencing panel smashed against it. It is winter now, but the growth of weeds is unbelievable; chainsaw, axe, manchette springs to mind.
When I took that allotment on in the first place, in hindsight, it was very naïve and foolish of me. I wanted an allotment, and that was it. I didn't consider the implications of work. I was relatively young, tough and hard, and thought I could manage it, and that was my very basic mistake . . . I thought. I've never been any good at thinking.
I am led to believe, and I actually believe this, when you retire, you must always have a reason to get up in the morning. Obviously not for work (because you've retired), but for one reason or another. If you don't have that motivation to get up, you will, no doubt, turn into a vegetative state, and spend the day drinking beer (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way!)
When I retire, my work will be on "the farm". The difference being that I don't HAVE to get up at 5.30 in the morning, and I don't HAVE to wait until 5 in the evening before I go home. I don't HAVE schedules to keep, I don't HAVE monotonous meetings to attend, I am not answerable to anyone, and nobody is answerable to me.
I am not going to go into it like a lunatic (this time), instead, I am going to "go with the flow" as they say. We have had a lot of rain the past few weeks, and I can see the top of the water table from above ground - it is that bad! So, I obviously won't be digging and rooting about in that sort of weather. Instead, I might do some general maintenance.
I have plans . . . that is all.
I have had plans before . . . that is all as well.
Good luck and best wishes.
Love God . . . AKA Welsh Merf.
