Goodbye to a little bit of England: handing back my allotment

Today is a little sad for me but possibly also the start of new things too. I've decided to give up my allotment after eight years. It's been a rather drawn out decision starting way before Christmas and I have been very reluctant to formally acknowledge that I'm handing back my little plot. Many happy memories have grown from the earth of this tiny piece of England, from picking our first Brussels sprouts on a Christmas morning, to a rather disastrous experiment in growing woad for a home dye (who knew that it would be so successful at self seeding?), from toasting marshmallows on a bonfire to battling endlessly each year with couch grass and bind weed.

 But the truth is that I'm finding it increasingly harder to spend the time needed. My busy life is catching up on me and it would be unfair of me to not allow someone else to have a go. I won't be giving up on growing my own food and will be concentrating more on our garden, especially now that we have finished some major building work.

It will be a change and I can't deny that there will be some afternoons that I will really long for the smell of freshly dug earth, or summer evenings spent watching the sun set with a cold beer and sore muscles. I hope that the next 'caretaker' allows the walnut tree to grow and that maybe in twenty years time a family will wonder of the history of the tree that provides them with a bumper harvest of beautiful nuts.  So long, little plot, it's been a tumultuous love affair and you'll be missed.