Toolboxes in the ditch

At the weekend had a walk around the plots and had a talk with Maria-lenna. She is a big woman and was the one who gave me the "lucky clover" She is having problems with her house. The roof leaks there is drainage problems and some rooms smell of mould. She would like to sell it, but does not want to until her two years are up, so she does not need to pay any tax on the sale.



She is 60 years old and makes a thousand pairs of woolen socks a year. (hold on that is three pairs of socks per day... perhaps she said hundreds) Her specialty is a special kind of Finnish glove which is very warm in the winter. I think she called it "Luovilappasset". Anyway she was selling them for 25€

Here is a picture of my neighbour from Irak with sons or grandsons. He has done alot of work on his plot and worked in a lot of humus in the form of horse manure. His ground looks good. The earth is fluffy and friable. Mine's is hard as concrete.



We walked together to an area at the bottom of the allotments. It was a small encampment where the Arab gardeners brew tea and sometimes BBQ. All of their equipment and tool boxes had been thrown into the ditch. There was a group of men milling around the site. Some of them were angry. Others just sat on their hunkers and looked downcast. Apparently it happens every year. Friday night comes along and people get drunk and go and smash up the allotments. I here the word "racist" mentioned and the word "police" spat out with contempt. I have a camera in my hand and want to record the destruction, but it does not seem right. I walk away to talk to Sami.

What a comparison. Gardeners quietly and patiently working with the earth. Planting seeds, watering the ground, tending and caring for the emerging plants, and then you have drunks who for the fun of things go on the rampage and smash things up and destroy any order that people try to put in their lives. Apparently the police do nothing about it. They are only foreigners and refugees after all.

Sami from Cambodia smiled a twisted smile and said he needed to get a plot of land away from people. Somewhere in the middle of a forest.