Allotment Widow, Goodbye Sam

Dad is really really happy today. The weather has been dry a week now and it is all warm and mild, so he's finally been able to head up to the alloment with his trusty spade. We got left behind and walked later, but I understand from M+H that we do get to spend quite a lot of the summer mooching about up there. Much nuzzling and rootling in the compost heaps, says Meggie, for mice, rats and hedgehogs (If you're lucky!)

But Dad didn't want me up there because of my current yen to "help" dig the holes. He is well behind, he says, on his digging, because it's basically rained solidly since November (well, OK, slight exaggeration, but he's not been able to get the Autumn digging done because the soil is too wet, and every time it's not he's held up on something else.). "We" still have spuds in the ground and quite a few plots still have the old trash and weeds left on them from the last year crop

But now he's happy. He can get up there and start turning areas over and making it all look tidy, sweet and productive again

Then (and only then) did we all get a lovely walk round through the boat yard and back in through town. So many people.

Sadly we learned today that old collie Sam, Meg's forst ever boyfriend and whom she used to play with on the Rec when she was a pup, had to be put down recently. We had wondered - we'd seen him in the vet's looking very old and grey around the muzzle, and not seen him at all in the Rec. Now the windowsill overlooking the road, where he used to lie and look out, and Meggie couldn't pass the house without looking up at the window to see if her friend was there (be still, my beating heart), sports a very smart big pot plant.

So we had wondered, and today in town we met Sam's "Mum" and she told us, and made a big fuss of Meggie. Meggie was sniffing all around wondering where the Sam smells had gone. Sam apparently had a huge stroke and was beyond cure. Poor Sam (Poor family too) - Bless Him. We'll all miss him and Meggie will probably wonder where he is for the rest of her natural.

Have a greta weekend
Deefer