A helper

Today we had help down on the farm, in the form of Alex. We started by planting the lavender he had bought Simon for his birthday, and he was very helpful in transplanting the seedlings into larger pots. We then watered them all in thoroughly (if slightly haphazardly). However, Alex's heart lies very firmly with digging. Wherever he was, Alex dug. His favourite digging spot was where Uncle Simon was digging trenches for the maris pipers, but unfortunately he also discovered that it was rather good fun to knock down the mounds of earth Si had piled up. After fashioning himself a small seat in one of them, he proceeded to dig the soil from the mounds back into the trenches. Si's exasperation apparently made this process even MORE good fun, and so the decision was made to leave the trenches until our next visit, and concentrate on chasing Simon up and down the walkways, which went down much better with all parties!

Alex's visit caused a lot of interest from the other residents, as there are not many children to be found on the allotments (in fact, there aren't generally many people under 40). We received many visitors throughout the day, some of whom Alex found more interesting than others. One lady was mid-sentence, asking him how his gardening was going, when he announced "Bye bye!" and walked away. (She took it rather well, as it happens.) On the whole, he appeared to find the residents slightly bemusing, which is pretty much in line with our assessment, so he is clearly a very perceptive child. 

After over 3 hours of digging, running, squealing, telling Simon off and running back and forth to the car to fetch things, Alex was fairly exhausted. Even a slight mishap with a watering can was met with indifference, so we packed up fairly quickly and headed back home, where we all collapsed in front of "Piglet's Big Movie" with a cup of tea.