Dave's blog

All in all it’s been a strange few days. Thursday started off normal enough, some bits of writing in the morning, then down the allotment in the afternoon to prepare for spring. I started digging out a fallow piece of land that the previous owner had his shed on. The more I dug, the more I crap I found, tin cans, corrugated iron, broken glass, plastic bottles and bags etc, etc –so, what was supposed to be a job for an afternoon I had to abandon to finish another day.

I came home tired and aching and thought I’d treat myself to a nice relaxing bath, I felt like I deserved a long hot soak. Half way through my watery meditation the phone rang, I didn’t move a muscle knowing that if it were important they would leave a message or call back.

An unknown number flashed on the screen, must be work I thought to myself.

‘Hi this is Astra from the BBC, we wondered if you wanted to come and talk about allotments on News 24 tonight?’

My heart started racing, ‘tonight!’, I thought to myself now panicking a little.

I called back and she informed me that I was to have a car turn up in 2 hours to take me up to BBC Bristol in Clifton.

I spent the next couple of hours nervously wandering about, swatting up on allotments. At one point I had to go to the local shop just to get some of the nervous energy out of my system.
Up to that point I’d been on – BBC Breakfast, ITV Weather, BBC Inside Out West, Radio 4’s Today Programme and Working Lunch not to mention countless local radio appearances. So this was to be my fourth live television appearance and yet I was still shitting it.

I was dropped off at BBC Clifton at about 8pm. The lights were off and the whole place looked closed for the night, I began to think the whole thing was a hoax and reached for my mobile phone. Thankfully, all was made clear after a couple of phone calls. I was told to head for the vehicle entrance and wait in the security office for a bloke called Peter. Forty minutes of shivering next to an open door in a semi-dark room Peter turned up with obligatory clipboard in hand. I think the only information on these clipboards is the guest’s name as the usual action, and Peter was no exception, is to nod and point to a page on the clipboard before uttering, ‘Dave Hamilton?’

Peter ushered me to the newsroom, which was empty save for one bloke working a few rows away. He sat me on a high stool and put a microphone on my collar and earpiece in my ear. I faced the camera checking my hair in the monitor; it looked like it always looks, messy despite brushing it before leaving the house. With no cameraman there was nothing human to engage with, just a remote controlled eye staring at me.

The time came for my piece and I felt myself freeze up for a second or two. Like the first dump after a couple of days of painful constipation the words suddenly began to flow (I’m sure other analogies could be better there!)

I looked in the monitor to see who was asking these idiotic questions but what showed on the screen bore no resemblance to the inane chatter in my ear.

‘My wife goes up the allotment for hours and never seems to return with anything!’

My interrogator utters.

My first thought was to joke that she was more likely having an affair than digging for carrots but I think better of this and return the chatter with something equally nonsensical. The next thing I know I’m telling the country to grow more potatoes and then I’m off air.

I pull out the air-piece feeling like I’ve just been in a car-crash and Peter directs my bewildered self out into the open air.

I wait for 20-30 minutes in the cold night air on my own for the car to take me home before realising it isn’t coming. I debate walking or getting the bus but it’s getting late now so I head into the security office again to see what’s happened to my car.

After leaving messages with Peter and Astra it becomes clear that their phones are off for the night and I have to call a taxi home.

A few years ago I used to work for an employment agency in Oxford called ‘Driver Hire’, I wasn’t a driver for hire but I did work for them as a drivers mate. I would be picked up outside the agency then dropped off in whatever logistics, delivery or removal company needed a drivers mate that day. It was a one-way deal however and regardless if the company was in Cowley, Didcot or a village in the middle of no-where I would have to find my own way home.

I never thought a television appearance would echo this but I guess that’s the glamorous life of a TV pundit!

The next day I went to do a volunteer day at Eastside Roots, a community garden scheme set up on an abandoned piece of land at Stapleton Road Station in Bristol. The co-ordinator, Nick Ward, asked how I’d been so I mentioned I’d been on TV the night before to which he replied, ‘oh I was on TV on Monday, what were you on?’

He’d been short listed as one of the RHS’s Peoples Gardener and had appeared on the Alan Titchmarsh show the Monday before. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for him as we could do with any extra support for the project we can get!

The following day it’s quite sunny so I head to the allotment again to finish digging out my mini landfill site. I arrive to find the plot below me teaming with people. That particular plot has been more or less empty since I got mine three years before so it came as quite a shock to see it swarming like this. Rather strangely it turns out that I know the allotment holder and I chat to her briefly as she heads home to get tea for her personal garden army.

I mention that I’ve been on TV to which she replies, ‘Oh me too, and I’m going to be on Gardener’s World Soon!’

I can’t believe it, is everyone on TV these days!!??

She’s part of an organization called Gro Fun and the plot is a community project to get people interested in gardening. Just like Nick it’s a worthy cause and I really can’t get jealous of her TV exposure!

This kind of puts things in perspective for me, my plot is for my own enjoyment rather than a community project. The closest I get to community work there is when I call up my video-making friend to free him from his editing suite or when my girlfriend pops by to do some weeding.

I finish the day feeling like an allotment holder rather than a minor-celebrity and whilst I pull out a vintage Old English Ginger Beer can from the soil I remind myself that I’m not doing this for the fame (and yes I do see the irony of writing that in a public blog!)

Last week I’d planned to put in a pond, build a shed, put in a path and erect some kind of greenhouse but my plans were dashed when down came the snow! I perhaps wouldn’t have managed all the tasks in hand, I tend to overload myself and then feel bad when I can’t do everything I planned! So at least chipping away at some of the tasks would have been good but the weather had just made it impossible; filling a pond only for it to freeze is perhaps counter productive at best.

So instead last Monday I decided to take myself off to Abergavenny to enjoy the snow in a nice hilly, country setting. It’s only an hour by train there from Bristol and it really feels like you’re out in the wilds. I’m working on a novel at the moment and some of this features snowy surroundings so if I couldn’t do practical work then a little research would perhaps be the next best thing.

I arrived in the picturesque town of Abergavenny to a near blizzard. Sensing walking could be dangerous in this weather I took myself to a nice little café to sit it out with a newspaper, a nice hot cup of tea and jacket potato.

After half and hour or so the snow seemed to calm a little and I took myself on a route out of town, over the canal, and up a hill through a line of trees. I was so taken by the beauty of the landscape enveloped in snow I found myself taking countless pictures.

Half way up the hill I stumbled across a farmer whose land I must have been walking on. I asked him, “if I carry on walking up this way, how long before I…”

He interrupted, “how long before you die?!”

I laughed a little but saw that he was really only half joking, I’m sure dealing with a frozen corpse on your land is not a job most farmers would wish for. He advised I walk up a little to a spot where he turns the sheep out and if the fog has really set in and I can’t see much it would be for the best that I turn round and come back down.

Now I remember once whilst walking in Scotland myself and two friends aimed to climb a mountain and come back down within a day. On the ascent we met a well-seasoned walker who told us the footpath was only on our side of the mountain and our route would take us through ‘just, deer tracks and heather’. Rather than follow his advice we completely ignored it and just walked up the route we’d planed. After spending 24 longer than intended, sleeping in a tent pitched in a bog, drinking boiled snow (we’d run out of water), starving as we only packed enough food for 1 day and 1 night and twisting my ankle on the deer tracks and heather I have since then taken the advice of people who know an area better than I do!

I walked up to the area he turned the sheep out and the fog had really set in, visibility was low and I could barely walk two paces without slipping. Still something in me wanted to get to the top of the hill, it’s almost as if I have some suicidal gene that wants me to get into trouble! However, I ignored my self-destructive internal dialogue and stared heading back down the hill. I’d made quite a lot of notes for the novel and taken a lot of pictures so I’d done what I set out to do and I wandered back down.

Not wanting to cut the walk to short I wandered up and down the canal for a bit and stumbled across some velvet shank (Flammulina velutipes) growing out of a dead standing tree. It really stood out in the frost and I couldn’t resist taking a bit home to eat and taking a few pics.

Velvet shank is quite easy to identify but it can look like Galerina marginata, a particularly nasty mushroom. The toxins in Galerina margina (or Galerina autumnalis) are known as amatoxins give you bloody diarrhea and make you vomit about a day after ingestion. Then after a little bit of time you start to feel better so most hospitals will discharge you. During this brief respite your organs collapse causing a certain and very painful death. Needless to say I made darn sure I had he right mushroom before I ate them. A spore print is essential; look at the mushroom expert for more details.

Velvet shank is a bit bland so I stir fried it up with, amongst other things, some chilli, black beans, ginger and had it with tofu, broccoli, home grown Jew’s ear fungus (or jelly ear) with some soba noodles. It was pretty tasty once I flavoured it but I wonder if it’s always worth risking death for such a bland mushroom!?

The week was a bit more sedate after Monday, I felt risking death twice in 24 hours was quite enough for one week. It may be perhaps as I’ve given up smoking that I still need to be dicing with death on a daily basis. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicotine I was addicted to but the fact I was ingesting a poison.

It’s funny how your allotment neighbours can have beautifully well tended plots that must take hours and hours to maintain; yet you never see them! I can go for three days straight working without seeing anyone on either side, yet neat rows of roots and leaves still taunt my tatty half rows. I work like a dog sometimes but the weeds still win at times and I feel I’m growing nothing more than a slug farm.

Just before Christmas, around the solstice, I wandered up to my little piece of land, dressed in my thermals to plant out my garlic. The old garden lore is to plant around the winter solstice and harvest around the summer one – plant on the shortest day harvest on the longest.

If you’re reading this as I’ve posted it (around February) don’t worry about missing the boat, garlic can also be planted in the spring.

With garlic in hand I arrived at my plot only to realise I should perhaps de-weed the area where I wanted to plant the garlic and clear the last of the now stringy looking broccoli.

I took my time, enjoying the feeling of being wrapped up warm in the winter air. The ground was quite cold and wet, so I tried not to disturb the soil too much as I pulled out the old broccoli stems. A bramble had somehow found its way in under the brassica net and I took a while untangling it, cutting my hand as I did so. I always get little nicks and scratches on the allotment and I’ve become so used to it, I don’t always notice if my whole arm is dripping with blood.

By the time the plot was cleared the sun was quickly beginning to set and if not for the moon it would have been completely dark. I broke up the bulbs carefully and started inserting the bulbs into the ground using my finger as a dibber.

Just over my head I heard the flutter of wings and felt a chill run down my spine. I looked up but couldn’t see what had made the noise. It was a little late for birds and it was quite a way to the train tunnel the local bats live in. I wasn’t used to being out in this light and everything had an eerie edge; the sound could have been anything, I reassured myself.

Half way through planting my first bulb I was pulled out of my daydreams by the sound of the shed next door being opened. The figure of a gaunt, pale man dressed almost totally in black emerged, holding a hoe in one hand and a wave in the other.

‘Hullo’ he muttered quietly.

I looked up and nodded.

He wandered over for a proper greeting.

‘You look like you’ve cut yourself’ he said smiling and moving his head towards my hand to investigate.

‘I know, I can barely see to plant all this garlic’, I said waving a bulb in front of his face.

He recoiled back and seemed to almost hiss as he did so.

‘Er, sorry, I’m really not a big fan of garlic’

I felt a little embarrassed by my actions, not everyone likes the smell of the stuff and I moved away from my plot to chat to him on his.

He told me he only came down to the plot at night, which is why I never saw him. He also informed me he actually had an allergy to all alliums, not just garlic. I felt even worse about my actions and thought I’d make it up to him by pulling up a couple of parsnips before I left.

We actually got on really well and even joked about the number of people who have worked the plot next to him and how it must be cursed. I remember talking to the allotment rep about the very same thing. People just seem to vanish without a trace from plot 33, no forwarding address, nothing, all very strange.

I dug up two of the biggest parsnips I could find and handed them to my new friend.

“Why thank you”, he grinned, “they still have a little of your blood on them”

I reached for the roots, “I’ll give them a little wash for you”.

He must have really wanted the parsnips as he clutched them to his chest at this remark, mumbling there really was no need, a little blood wouldn’t put him off some lovely fresh parsnips. He took a nibble at one of my offerings.

“Perhaps you should come at night again soon, I always like a little bite on the allotment”, he said grinning from ear to ear revealing a mouth full of bloody parsnip stuck to his protruding canines.

Radio 4 has just told me on yet another programme that people are unhappy if they are too materialistic! I can’t pick up a newspaper without it blurting out the same piece of advice; people who work less, spend more time with friends and family and buy less expensive things are generally happier.

WELL THAT SURE IS NEWS TO ME!!!

Jesus Christ, are we a nation of utter morons!? Do we really need to be told that spending £3000 on a fucking television isn’t going to make us happy! Does it really have to be spelled out that perhaps taking a month off to do the Camino de Santiago de Compostela or the Offas dyke path with a partner or good friend might just put a bit of a grin on our face!!???

One of the high points I can remember whilst writing out book was taking some time off and visiting Gloucester during the floods. It was shamefully voyeuristic and we were only there as flood tourists but, it was one of the only days out Andy and I had together during the writing of the book. The rest of the time was spent frantically writing and researching to reach our 150 000 word deadline (it’s a big book) or shouting at each other down the phone.

That day in Gloucester we took sometime out and it has remained a happy memory ever since. Can I remember the day I bought my laptop or the day I decided it was time I replaced my ailing Casio watch?