Not a Quick Fix

We live in a culture where the immediate is if not all, then nearly so. Bands are world famous for two records, then join Lord Lucan. Politicians promise instant cures to complex problems clearly beyond them. Football managers cannot afford three losses in a row. It's good to take a step back and think about a year and more hence.

Yes, it's about wood chopping again. We had some major tree surgery done, and the wood chopped into manageable bits for me to split and stack (actually for my wife to stack in the main, she is far more careful than I). It took maybe six hours of work spread over several days, but we now have a store under cover, drying quietly for use in two years' time.There is enough for a whole winter, which is a pleasing thought, though the winter of 2015/16.

We can afford to wait that long as we dried a stock for use now two years back. There is more coming through for next year.

At 54 I rather like the idea of looking forward a couple of years. I'm at that age when it is far from a given that I will be here then - a good friend of similar age died this summer, no signs then a massive fatal heart attack. Maybe beneath the surface such actions anchoring one to the future are signs of confidence, or maybe of hope.

The care of the trees is an eco thing too. Two were lifted, the crowns now higher so more light can come through. Two had boughs removed to leave one healthy main trunk, again more light. And the big fir-tree that was shadowing our house and next door's (the tree oddly owned by both as it is in the hedge) has been lopped to bring daytime brightness to my study, which is both cheering and economic (no electric light on now as it would have been a month back). We hope the extra rays will help perk up our kitchen garden crops next year, especially the smaller fruit trees we have planted. And I hope that I will one day, preferably before my late seventies, see the walnut tree produce a sackful.

Cheaper than Physio, Better than Drugs

Every now and then I get back ache, and thus end up in a pre-emptive visit to my local physio, Martha, who is brilliant. Physio, however, is not cheap, whereas owning an allotment is. A non sequitur? No, as the more digging and weeding and picking and barrowing I do the fewer problems I have with my back. Yesterday we cleared space for optimistic late-August plantings (lettuce, endive, beet, chard, rocket...), weeded Hamburg parsley and celeriac beds, and generally tidied up at summer's end. Today I feel like a 20-year-old (something my wife would frown on).

Our annual allotment rental is the price of two sessions of physio. Not a complaint about Martha's pricing, which is very reasonable, but a comment on how cheap even after several price rises our allotment is for what it gives in return.

There are of course several other elements to that health boost. In terms of emotional well-being the sight of beds full of delicious veg can only be good. And as regards the inner man, when your daily diet includes lettuce, fresh herbs, courgettes, sweetcorn, spuds, kohl rabi, turnip, beetroot and carrot all picked or dug that day there is no need for vitamin pills (supposedly bad for you anyway), supplements, or any resort to those disgusting penances of wholewheat pasta, brown rice or bran-flakes.