As dry May ends the sun has transformed the allotment and
turned a blank canvas into a busy plot full of fresh early fruit and salad. The
plots are busy first and last thing each day with folk going back and forth to
the water troughs and giving their crops that vital element – water.
‘Can I have a drink please?’ Lottie asks, ignoring the bench
top and squeezing down under the shelter it provides.
‘Just a minute, I have the get the pot, ‘ I reply. The pots
are kept in my shed and are old big Yogurt pots which once cleaned out by
Lottie and washed are brought across to act as containers for some of the precious
food as it makes its journey home and to the plate. I must thank the likes of
Lidl in introducing us to those huge yogurt pots with proper lids. They truly
have many uses around the plot and Lottie’s water bowl is but one.
I hold the ballcock down and fill the tub with fresh water
which I present to Lottie and she laps up with great gusto. How dogs can lick
up liquid remains a mystery to me, but they do.
For the next hour I water mine and my neighbour’s plot. She
is in isolation, so I have two plots and lots to water. I soon will be competing
with Popeye for arm muscles! I then collect our dinner salad and fruit.
‘Before we go can you top up my pot?’ asks Lottie with those
pleading whippet eyes that no one can ignore.
‘Ok but you have loads of water still there in the pot,’ I
reply.
‘That’s not fresh,’ she answers with a look as if I had offered
her bad meat.
Lottie likes to see that water is fresh and always stands with
a fixed stare when you fill any of her bowls. She wants to ensure she is
getting ‘fresh’. She doesn’t care when its milk, but water has to be fresh.
I press the ballcock down in the trough, but nothing happens.
There is no water. I look puzzled and move to the next trough which is the
same. I then walk down to the trough in the other direction. The same.
‘What does a dog have to do to get a drink around here?’ I
hear from a pair of eyes fixed on me from under the bench.
I do not respond but slowly walk along all the troughs in
the direction of the water source and none are giving the slightest droplet. Finally,
on the bottom plots I see and hear the issue. The water has already been taken
and is being drawn upon as fast as it is filling. Most of the plot holders are queuing
up with two cans to take water, and those who are not queuing are busy watering
their plots.
So it may be nice to be up the hill but maybe not so nice when
water is in high demand.
I trudge back to Lottie and try my best to explain. ‘The
tanks are empty and busy filling up and with the water pressure it isn’t making
it up here.’
‘Water is on demand - you just have to turn the tap. You
must think I am an idiot,’ declares Lottie with a look of disbelief and frustration.
‘I am not drinking stale water and I am going tell Annie when we get home you
didn’t give me my water.’
I realise it is time to go as this debate is going nowhere.
I wave to the other plot holders and say goodbye and as I walk to the gate, I
start to think how to avoid a repeat tomorrow. I could get here earlier but
that does not guarantee success. I could get here later but the same applies.
Is there a way I can siphon off the main pipe and get water to the trough
before others? I soon realise this is a wasted thought and resign myself to
having to accept the tank will be full when I arrive and may not refill itself
while I am there.
Water is vital. Many of us have butts some even fancy water
irrigation systems, but when it does not rain these soon all run dry. Some allotments
do not even have water and we have a friend how has to fill big bottles and
take them by car to the plot each trip.
Having arrived home and fed Lottie and given her some ‘fresh’
water, dinner soon awaits on the balcony in the glorious evening sunshine.
Fresh green and red salad, rocket, spring onions, baby beetroot leaves, cucumber, the first
basil mixed with herbs from the balcony pots all accompanied by chicken and
bread and followed by fresh rhubarb, yogurt topped with our first raspberries. Tomorrow
we should have more strawberries and the first of our cherries.
You realise that the sunshine, heat and recent good weather
has delivered a bounty of fresh produce with more to come. Watering the allotment
may be testing and frustrating for Lottie, but there are many fresh rewards.
