The Allotment Holders

A conversation amongst vegetables.

Por Wordflow - Jo Carter | Cádiz | 15/06/2014

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I s’pose,” he grumbled, looking around him. To do so, he had to tip his head back painfully, away from his bent-over back.

“I think it’s a nice little plot,” John replied. “You don’t want it too big, after all. Too much work then.”

“Well, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not. If I want to put spuds in, I need plenty of room.”

“I’ve got potatoes, but just not too many. Earlies this year, nice for salads.”

“I don’t care for spuds cold in a salad. That’s not right as far as I see it. Taters should be steaming hot and swimming in butter. That’s how I always eat ‘em.”

"Well, you’ll see Stan. Shall we have a look in the shed?"

"S'pose so. Not that I’ve got many tools. Was a time when my boy would buy me a tool at Christmas time but of course that’s all done for now. I don’t know how I’m going to hoe in-between rows with that old thing Bert fobbed me off with..."

The two men made their way to the freshly-creosoted shed. John was quite pleased with how it had turned out. Stan stumbled frequently on the uneven slabs which did for a path.

"Well, it’ll do, I s'pose. Too much room though for what I’ve got."

"We’ve still got to fetch over the cans and the seed trays. They take up a lot of room. We’ll get started at the weekend, Stan."

The old man tutted and waved his stick slightly, emphasising his disgust.

The weekend! What’ll I be doing till the weekend? Nothing for me to do in that poky flat until the weekend except sit on my backside and watch the box."

"It’s only two more days, Stan. Meantime you can make a plan, what’s going where and so on. As much variety as possible, that’s the way, Stan. You don’t need too much of any one thing. Oh, and carrots don’t seem to do too well here so you might want to try something else."

"No carrots! That’s not right is it? I’ve never gone a year without carrots. I might as well not bother at all if I’m not to put in carrots! And it would be just as well, with my back playing me up night and day."

He stopped, tilting his head to one side, peering out from under his cap.

"What’s this? Rain coming I see..."

The younger man smiled.

"That’s come just perfect. Soften things up nicely. But we best be going on back. Come on Stan, best foot forward!"

The old man feebly pushed shut the door of the shed.

"With this soil, all that’s going to happen is that come the weekend, we won’t be doing nothing with a spade; we’ll be needing a JCB, more like!"

John smiled and said nothing. There wasn’t a lot you could say to Stan when he was having a bad day.

***

beggars can't be choosers - said when you recognize that you must accept an offer or a situation because it is the only one available to you

to fob someone off with something - to palm off something on someone - to misrepresent something - to mislead someone making out something is not what it appears to be. i.e. Bert gave Stan the hoe hoping that Stan wouldn’t realise that it was no good!

to watch the box - to watch the TV - to watch the telly - to watch the television.

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Jo Carter

Jo Carter is from England but has been living in Spain since 1999. Up till then she was a primary school teacher and enjoyed inspiring young children to love books. She has spent a lot of her life reading and writing (in between work, three children and lots of cups of tea) and intends to write a novel (one day!).

The idea behind the column is to highlight what is beautiful in the English language... Thus the column: idiomatic expressions in English woven into a short piece of creative writing.