Monday 8th February, 2016.

Recollections of a brief pause 

betwixt and between the polytunnel of love supreme.

Saturday 6th February. Above me only sky but what a sky; so menacing and brooding, presiding over a wind intent on wreaking havoc; ripping, flipping and pummelling 'the allotment garden of Nowhere in particular' into a site of disarray. The blusterous and mischievous child of the firmament had me running around the site trying to recover all sorts of aerial debris. I ran in a manner so hither and thither it was as if I was lost in a maze. How much longer could I leave the holes (unrepaired) in the membrane of 'the polytunnel of love supreme'? The holes were intricately wrought by the vulpine claws and jaws of the ghosts of 'the humming garden of vulpecula'. The wind would find the holes, enter and wreak chaos inside and out if I did not set to and get them sorted out. As soon as I got out of the mind blowing maze I made for the polytunnel and found the newly set stages of 'the hanging garden of Nowhere in particular' swaying ominously while the wind drummed on the weathered and thinning polythene cover. With nothing and nowhere else for it I started patching up the ragged holed 'polythin' there and then.

Of the many holes chewed into and from the polytunnel's milky membrane, the one pictured above was my favourite. The intricacies of the edges, random or not, caused me to pause. I fancied this hole was a map of a new land, the true allotment garden of Nowhere in particular, and, if I could just figure out how to read it, I might find myself there. Was I too big to read the map? If so, how small and in what form would I have to conjure myself to be able to enter the idyllic verdancy of the other side? Size of a.... Size of a....? Which one of the, One Thousand and One (Arabian) Nights, was I losing myself in? Alas I was not to be Aladdin the magic garden for an ominous and eerie whirl, Zoba'ah, an evil jinn, distant but fast approaching, brought me to my senses and I took a sharp knife and cut a plain rectangular border around the islet of poly- thin air and so dispensed with the magical possibilities of fox chewed holes.
A wind howled disapprovingly as I made the repairs, patching up the holes in an effort to get another year if not two out of the plastic, before having to re-cover the polytunnel (of love supreme).

Patching up the polytuunel - 6th February 2016.