Recipe for a rubbish Sunday

Football on the radio and a bag full of Pentland Javelins

First, take the general malaise and existential vertigo that comes with the fag-end of a second day hangover. Allow to fester for a while. Next, fold in some seriously windy gusts of the polytunnel-wrecking variety. Finally, sprinkle liberally with an abject display from Newcastle United, listened to while down at the plot, against an apparently rejuvenated mackem side led by he of the dubious political leanings. If that's not enough to seriously piss on your chips then you're a stronger soul than me.

I noticed as I got up that there was a fair breeze about, but nothing too serious I thought. By the time I had breakfasted and left for the plot it was of the poly-bags-flying-overhead strength. "This'll be a good test for the polytunnel!" I thought, cheerily. Well, it turns out that the securing of said item into the ground that we did after putting it up last week was nowhere near sufficient, as when I got to our patch the fabric had ripped itself clear of the frame and was now flailing around in the wind, stuck on a neighbour's fence like a stricken... well like a stricken plastic sheet really. It was too windy to properly look at it so I just bunged the cover in the shed, but I think I saw a couple of fatal-looking rips. Bum. At least the metal frame wasn't buggered, so maybe we can get another cover. And this time, really secure the blighter. Bit galling that we never even managed to get a plant in there, but at least this didn't happen when it was full of perishables. Ho hum; lesson learned and all that.

Frame mercifully unscathed.

Football on the other hand is, on days like today, something I really wish I could stop caring about altogether but like some serious and lifelong narcotic habit, it's here for the long haul. 3-0 to that lot from down the road is a thoroughly ignominious outcome, and not one that I saw coming in my worst forebodings. I've said before that I quite enjoyed listening to the mackem game down at the allotment, not least because my nerves can scarcely deal with watching it on TV. On that occasion we at least didn't get beat. Today, the fact I was planting seed potatoes as the goals went in did little, if anything, to undarken my mood.

Given the way the day was unfolding it seemed folly to try and plant anything, as no doubt whatever I committed to the soil would be jinxed. Just in the nick of time I reminded myself that there are no such things as jinxes, and that it was safe to go ahead. Phew! In went four rows of "Pentland Javelin" first earlies, which hadn't chitted anything like as much as the "Rocket" we put in a couple of weeks ago, but were still good to go.

I gave the leeks, broad beans, rhubarb, berry bushes, chard and sorrell we have in the ground a good water - the ground really is quite dusty and desiccated - and then, casting round for some sort of feel-good story before I left, noted that a couple of the crocuses we planted in the autumn have finally flowered. I think I'd have rather had a thumping win the the Toon, but sometimes you've got to take what you can.