Bountiful

Thursday August 26th

Day 127

I want to dedicate today’s entry to my lovely husband, who grew all the bounty bursting out of old carrier bags, that is now gracing our kitchen counter.

Early this morning while he sat on a train to Salisbury, I took my knife and walked to the allotment under glowering, rain filled clouds. This is what I culled from the black soil which he has nurtured these last years - growing a garden like a symphony, dropping a sweet unexpected music into our lives - each note another gift to savour.

Three cucumbers - bottoms swollen like gourds.

Nine tomatoes - striped orange and yellow like tiger skins.

Six peppers - snappy as green crocodile teeth.

Two aubergines - bulbous hearts, streaked white on purple.

A bag of borlotti beans - long, bumpy pods, pink paint splashed.

A handful of Swiss chard - crinkled green fans, springing from rainbow stems.

A lettuce - floppy wiggly edged leaves.

Two courgettes - one yellow, one pale green, like shiny fat fingers.

Two cabbages - pointy heads, heavy as stones.

A bunch of sweet peas - tendril entwined, luminous mauves, purples and pinks, throwing their perfume above the bed of neroli cabbage, clouded with white fly.

I leave them till last - the Victoria plums - which are bending their branches almost to the ground. I drag a moss stained plastic chair under the tree and reach up as far as I can, plucking each one from its stem. They are all ripe soft, saffron-gold, blushed with misty pink, smooth and heavy as Buddleigh pebbles, so large I can only hold three in my palm at a time. Not a wasp sting in sight.

I strip the whole tree clean - except for one clinging to the highest branch - like a glowing ruby star on a Christmas fir. I’m sure a blackbird will enjoy it - as will our friends and neighbours. I feel this bounty doesn’t belong to us anyway - such plump music was made to be shared. Thank you, sweet husband.