Badgered Sweetcorn

Thursday 2nd September

Day 134

At 8.30 this morning, on my way to the farmer’s market, I pass pavements of children in school uniform - grey and purple. Some of them look too small, too vulnerable, to be in the lions’ den of a classroom. The misty coolness of September haunts the air, like a beckoning ghost, even though the sun is warming up a blue sky. I never wanted to go back to school, always mourned the loss of the holidays, the end of summer and happiness.

I buy four sweetcorn cobs at my favourite vegetable stall. They look like tight rows of squeaky yellow pearls, nestling in their papery green coats, sprouting hairy tassels. I hope they will make up for the ones at the allotment. The ones the badgers destroyed. They raided in the night - thieves with claws and teeth stronger than a man’s - knocked down the stately canes, ripped off the new, nearly ripe cobs, peeled back their protection and chewed each one, leaving the bed trampled, corn spattered, broken.

“How is it at the allotment?” asks my husband on the phone from France.

“Oh, it’s been very hot here”, I say. “I’ve been watering the tomatoes in the greenhouse.”

I don’t want to tell him about the loss of the sweetcorn that he’s been nurturing all these months. I don’t want to spoil his happiness. Not yet anyway - even though it feels like I’m lying.