It is a fairly little-known fact that I am in possession of no less than three City & Guilds qualifications in Horticulture. Or, to put it another way, I have certificates in how to grow things. I acquired them when I left school at the delicate age of 16 with absolutely no direction or inclination about what I was going to do with myself other than get drunk, smoke fags, listen to heavy metal music and yank myself off every night.

And then a kindly man at the local Jobcentre suggested that I go on a Youth Opportunity Programme at Brooksby College where I would be taught all the finer things about Horticulture and gain said certificates. Well, it was better than sitting at home listening to Black Sabbath all day (marginally) and the princely sum of £25 a week would come in handy.

And no, £25 was not a lot of money back then, even in 1982.

But I figured it was a start in life so what the hey!

And I had fun working in Brooksby’s Horticultural Department. I made some good friends and had a few humorous mishaps for myself. It was my first proper job that involved me to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week. It gave me that sense of needing to drag my lazy arse out of bed every morning and go and earn my fiver a day.

After the initial one year on the course I sadly had to leave the department and find employment at other garden-based jobs, one of which was at a stately home where I had the time of my life blasting around 4 acres of lawn on a sit on mower every Friday. And yes, there’s a small element of what I used to do in Joe Wilkie’s Blessham adventures. Fortunately, unlike Joe, my employer was a rather kindly and dotty old lady, although some of her opinions on crime prevention mirrored those of Lady Stark-Raven. A harmless old girl though.

My career in Horticulture lasted until I was about 19 when I jumped ship for the food industry and I waved goodbye to my trowel and pruning knife for pastures new and greater fiscal rewards. Maybe it was a bit daft of me to take such a swift career curve and to forsake all I had learned; I don’t know. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I suppose, looking back, I made the wrong decision, especially when you see what a huge business gardening is these days.

I could have been the next Monty Don. Actually, if my man boobs are anything to go by I’m more Charlie Dimmock. But I digress.

Ah well. C’est la vie.

Over the years I’ve owned houses with differing levels of gardening required in them. Some with lawns and some without, some with trees and some with shrubs, some small and some not so small. The one thing that was the same was that I always enjoyed pottering about in them. Just pottering mind you, I was never a serious home gardener, despite my early leanings into that particular craft. And I now find myself at a place in life where I have a fabulous garden at home to go and sit in but someone else does all the hard work. Which is fine by me.

However…

Ange and I have very recently been given a raised bed at the local allotment. Not a huge great thing; approximately 1.5 metres across and 2 metres in length, but big enough to grow a bit of veg in. And I feel rather excited at the prospect let me tell you. The thought of munching on my own carrots, onions and cabbage really appeals to me.

And I’m hoping beyond hope that everything I learned in my salad days (pun intended) will come back to me. Will my fingers still be as vibrantly green as they were or will the passage of time have reduced them to a sickly, faded shade of baby-poo-yellow?

Time will tell.

The good thing about this raised bed is that it’s… well… raised! It stands at just under waist high to me which is perfect as I won’t be required to bend or kneel to work on it. It’s full of well worked and equally well fertilised soil and therefore won’t require a lot of physical effort to turn it. Quite the opposite in fact. It’ll be a breeze.

We’ve even invested in some hand tools and seeds. Yes, I know it’s a little late in the season for sowing but if we have a good Summer and a late Autumn we should be ok. And besides, we’ll have had the fun of trying.

Ange is just as keen to get cracking with it as I am and perhaps the best thing about the whole project is that there are benches and tables where yours truly can crash at if I find the old energy draining, which it inevitably will do.

I think the thing I’m most looking forward to is getting back to nature a little bit. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what kind of a crop we get, I shall enjoy getting dirt under my fingernails and feeling the soil on my hands. I shall enjoy the sight of the plants, the smell of the earth, the sound of birdsong as we spend time there and, hopefully, the taste of our own organically grown veg.

All five sense catered for!

The allotment itself is in a beautiful setting with some epic views in all directions and I’m looking forward also to just spending some quiet time there with Ange, taking it all in. After all, a bed of that size isn’t going to demand too much of our time and effort so we will have the opportunity to sit and admire the scenery. And you never know, wine might be involved as well.

So I’ll let you know how it goes. Will there be root veg a plenty later in the year or will it be slim pickings? We don’t really care at this stage; we just want to get on and have a go.

And as Lynn Anderson once sang – “I never promised you a rose garden.” So it’ll have to be veg!

Watch this space.

PS – I promised I’d write a blog this week and voila!