The seductive sprout .

It had been a nostalgic conversation  and an exasperated one too .

Why do people eat ready meals ? I had half a one to try and threw the rest in the bin , hungry as I was . It bore no resemblance to proper food . It was frankly nasty .

People will tell you they have no time to cook but they do seem to have time to watch endless television every night . Life style and choice of course .
Which brings me back to nostalgia . It was my cousin I was having the conversation with . We thought fondly of all meals cooked at home and were glad we still did the same .
Then we talked about the first new potatoes , small as marbles coming off the allotment and given a crown of a knob of butter or two and a pinch of salt .

This then led into how peas and runners you harvest yourself taste completely different to any other .

He then sang a hymn of praise to tiny early broad beans and I waxed lyrical about muffling up on Christmas eve to pick small nutty tasting sprouts to roast with bacon or chestnuts .

Our grandfather and father's all had extensive allotments and my cousin still has one . I gave mine up when time got short . I told him how I missed it and that now would be a good time to begin again .

Last Sunday the cousin , the saxophonist and I sat in convivial conversation over a pint . The conversation drifted here and there and in a quiet gap the cousin said he'd spoken to the site manager and it looked like I could have a plot soon . I told him " yes " but I wanted time to mull it over ( I thought this to myself  ).

Yesterday I walked out along the river and thought of my exasperation with people who wanted good food but would not cook it .

I sat in my sequestered nook - a hidden branch of a willow way out along the river . Just me and a few nearby water birds .
Then I grinned to myself and the ducks and coots . I had known it all along , I guess , deep down . You make time for whats important to you .
I knew then I had never really left the allotments of my childhood and later my own . I remembered that I sort of knew anyway it wasn't goodbye - just time out .

There is time now for me to dig and weed and plant . There will be that good tiredness of heavy limbs from productive labour .

And then , and then  there will be baskets of radishes and beetroot , buckets of potatoes and onions , trugs of lettuces and spring onions . I will be weary , muddy and in yet another sense home again .