Here in Holt, the last village in Wales, where snitching on your neighbour with unfounded allegations is deemed fair game but something that cannot be discussed openly, a bright sun shines this Tuesday morning revealing another night of, modest, frost. So far this frost season the blossom on the fruit trees has survived and peas and beans planted a few weeks ago, grow unaffected.
Last night’s frost was a mild one and on the top field at 7 AM the grass is already once again green, Jack has gone away. None the less, the terror of the Frost sees me procrastinate on planting the next raft of vegetables lead by 18 chilli and pepper plants and a long row of potatoes. At some stage later this week I will just have to take the plunge on the latter and put the former out under some form of improvised cloches.
The 100 lavender (lafant in Welsh) bushes which I planted as seedlings alongside the wall which runs down the small road to the Welsh Hovel and in an arc around the rhubarb bushes at the top of the lane have not all survived. 16 have gone West and so yesterday I injected another stack of cash into the local economy, here in snitcher-on-Dee, buying replacements which will go in at the weekend when, I gather the frosts will abate.
Talking of that lane, I guess the snitchers need to get ready to report me again because the old dry stone wall that separates my highly attractive vegetable garden, formerly known as the jungle with asbestos sheds and piles of discarded glass and scrap iron in the middle, from the lane is slowly collapsing. One small chunk of, what the Welsh would term a Clawdd, did indeed fall down a couple of weeks ago which saw me struggling to move blocks of sandstone to clear the lane.
Enough is enough. One day a chunk will fall down on an actual car and cause real damage. My immediate neighbours – non snitchers – have been warned of temporary lane blockages. We will all shift car parking and manage. I will pump another five grand into the local economy, restore another thing of beauty which has suffered years of neglect and make the village safer.
What a bastard incomer. Typically bloody English. Oh he says he identifies as Irish. Well he sounds fecking English to me. Bring back the good old days when foreigners did not live in snitching-on-Dee and let the wall fall down. And what’s wrong with leaving piles of asbestos lying around anyway? Now what’s the number at the Council to report the lane blockages which won’t affect me at all? Bloody Irish/English/anyone who has not lived here all their life after generations of inbreeding. Bastards. I must go and complain on the village facebook page too. Bloody foreigners.