Wet Weather Blues

 If there was ever a week keen to make you swear off gardening and take up stamp collecting instead, last week was it.

Honestly, I’ve seen wet before — and I’m not talking about a polite half-day drizzle you can shake off before lunch — but last week was like living inside a washing machine. Rain every single day. Sheets of it. The kind that doesn’t just dampen your boots but seeps right into your bones and leaves you questioning all your life choices. It was that wet. If there were medals for rain, Britain would’ve bagged them all. The allotment went from patch of soil to boggy marsh faster than you could say wellies.

And now, just to add insult to injury, Storm Chandra has hit. Yes, really — they’ve named it. It sounds like someone I once knew after i left school who could always drink you under the table, and judging by this last storm I reckon it’d beat you at gardening too. 

Last week the slabs arrived — finally! A long-awaited delivery I’d been watching like a hawk. I’d planned to spend a good chunk of the weekend wrestling the mud, levelling, and laying them out in proper British tradition: firm, neat, and built to last.

Ha. That was the plan.

The reality? Not a single slab saw the light of day under my hands. They’re now stacked neatly up against the shed, all ready and waiting, like obedient little soldiers lined up for inspection — and about as useful as a chocolate teapot in this weather. You put slabs down in ground like this at your peril. The soil’s more like treacle than earth. Every time I thought I’d get a spare half-hour to start, bam, another downpour rolled in.

So there they sit, clean, dry, and full of promise, while the ground around them resembles something best left to water buffalo.

A Weekend Quick Trip — Soaked Before You Set Foot Out

Come Saturday, the forecast gave a whisper of a break in the rain. “Two dry hours at best,” Sam said. Iris grabbed her wellies. We loaded up the barrow, full of half-hearted optimism — the kind only allotment gardeners know.

Three hundred feet down the road, we were wetter than if we’d fallen in a canal. Every step toward the shed squelched like we were walking on damp sponges. You know that special squelch-pop sound wellies make when they’re full of water? That was us. Soul-destroying stuff.

The veg beds looked like they were auditioning to be rice paddies. Rows of sprouts that’d been standing proud just last week were now bowing under the weight of constant rain. I reckon they were contemplating emigrating to somewhere drier.

Rat Attack: Nobody Wins

But the real whammy — the moment that truly put the laugh in “laughter through the pain” — was the rat situation.

You know, I always thought rodents at the allotment were more of a summer nuisance — cheeky little blighters that pinch a carrot or two, chase the odd slug away, maybe make you swear under your breath — not outright demolition experts.

Not last weekend.

I wander into the shed, soaked, mud-spattered, half expecting to find the spade staring back at me accusatorily — and what do I see? A full-on siege. The rats had targeted the tub of chicken manure pellets. Chewed straight through the plastic like it was a stale biscuit. No respect for containers or back-saving shelf storage, I tell you. They climbed up, broke in, and left the place looking like it had been hit by a tiny rodent rave.

Now, I’ve faced down bindweed that tries to swallow the plot whole, aphids that feast like they invented buffet style, and the coldest of January frosts — but I’ve never seen rats chew through plastic like that. That tub wasn’t just a tub — it was strategy, forward planning. Gone. Just damaged goods strewn on the floor, like they’d left little food-pellet calling cards.

To add insult to injury, one of the little pests had also taken a bite out of my sprayer — the one I use religiously to treat veg for bugs. Just nibbled the end clean off. Like it was a tasty carrot stick. Honestly, I didn’t know whether to laugh or storm off in a huff.

So there I was, down in the shed, rain dripping off my nose, staring at plastic guts and rat footprints, thinking: Really? At my shed?

Yep. Rats 1, Simon (and family) 0.

Plans, Patches, and Getting Back in the Game

But if there’s one thing all this sog, rodents, and spanner-in-the-works weather has taught me over the years  — it’s this: you don’t lose your love for the land just because the weather’s rotten and a few rats are nibbling on your kit.

No, what you do is shrug, mutter something about typical British winter, and start planning your next move.

I’ve already got a list:

• Rescue the slabs — once the ground firms up enough that I’m not trying to lay a greenhouse base in quicksand.

• Rebuild the sprayer nozzle — or get a replacement before the next bug assault hits.

• Rat-proof storage — because clearly that bucket on a shelf isn’t good enough.

And between you and me? There’s something almost heartening about trudging out there again after a soaking, knowing that despite it all, I’m still itching to get stuck back in. Sam and Iris both had a good laugh at the rat chew marks — in that wry, half-desperate sort of way only allotmenteers can — and by the time we got back to the house we were already talking about what we might do next weekend — weather permitting.

That, to me, is what this allotment life is all about. Not just the perfect beds or timely weather. But doggedly showing up, come rain, wind or a rat with a set of chompers made of steel.

So bring on the Storms. I’ll have a brew, watch it rage, and when it’s done, I’ll be out there with a spade in one hand, a plan in the other, and that stubborn love of growing that just won’t quit.