People at the plots

Dug 2x10M last night. The good weather is bringing people out to their plots. In the neighboring plot there is a young Japanese couple. They were there with their baby who was sleeping in a pushchair with a linen cloth over the hood to shade her.

A dark skinned man with a grey beard said Moi. I replied with a Hello Hello, I somehow wanted to say I was not a Finn, but he just made a clicking noise with the side of his mouth and moved on.

The Khajastan lady who I met on the first day and was wearing a hat like a Peruvian woman passed with her husband she bowed her head down and ignored me ever though I smiled and said hello.

A man from Pakistan came carrying two chairs to take to his plot, and later he lingered by the gate looking at a wheelbarrow and looking around to see if anyone was watching. This was the wheelbarrow I had borrowed to move the manure onto my plot. With one quick movement he turned it upright and ran off up the road with it. I just hoped to God it was his own barrow and that he was not stealing it. I had visions of planting up a glorious garden and then robbers coming in the middle of the night and stealing everything.

Fifteen minutes later he returned with a table on the wheelbarrow and took it to his plot, as he passed I remarked in English that he would soon have a living room on his plot. He smiled and nodded but did not reply. I suspect he does not know English. He then dutifully returned the barrow to its position and left.

Maija came down to the plot with Tulikki we walked around, and when you have somebody with you, you realize that the place is in a bit of a state. So much rubbish in the ditches. Old bottles and plastic bags and of course the rusting supermarket trolley. I think the site has been visited by vandals since many of the water pipes have been broken and peoples tool boxes have been overthrown and tumbled into the ditches.

I just hope that it is not related to racial prejudice. I am beginning to feel like a refugee. I suppose that is how a ghetto attitude develops. You get persecuted and you then form a group that sticks together just for your own comfort and safety.

A boy arrived on a bike. He had short cropped black hair. He looked like an Iranian or a Pakistani he had brought some wood for the dark man with the grey beard. He took the wood and threw it in a hole and lit a fire. The smoke smelt good. He then burned the dried up stalks of last years sun flowers. He was a tidy man. I wish I had a hole to burn my rubbish in.