You say bananas and I say banahnahs

It’s another rainy day in Baltica – the rain’s outside, to be fair – and we’re discussing greengrocers, and how they’ve almost disappeared.

'When I were a lass,’ says Cycle Girl, ‘there were greengrocers everywhere. They had little signs stuck into the fruit which said ‘apples’ or ‘bananas’ for their slower customers.’

Born and Bred Boy says, ‘I remember before The Flood, when Bills was just a large scruffy greengrocers.’

‘The Flood starring Noah?’ asks Absent-Minded Girl, the sort of person who would benefit from those ‘apples’ signs.

‘Greengrocers used to bag up your fruit themselves,’ says Aging Lad. ‘None of this self-service malarkey.’ Lad, as his full name suggests, is getting on a bit. Probably used to date Mrs Noah back in the day.

‘The greengrocers at the top end of town still bags up your fruit,’ says Grange Girl.

‘Where?’ asks Absent-Minded Girl.

We all point up the road.

'You mean up at St. Annes,’ says Sweary Mary.

‘St Annes is just the church.’

‘No, it’s the whole blinkin’ area.’

‘I call it that bit where the butchers is,’ says Cycle Girl.

‘I call it Western Road, ’ says Aging Lad.

‘But that’ll never catch on, Lad,’ I say. ‘Because there’s a school called Western Road that isn’t in Western Road. So if you say you’re going to Western Road, no-one knows if you mean the school or the top end of town.’

‘To be honest, no-one cares where you’re going,’ says Aging Lad.

I hit him with one of Baltica’s fine painted teapots.

‘Born and Bred Boy should decide,’ says Grangey magnanimously. ‘After all, he does live up there.’

‘Top end of town,’ he says.

We huddle round a piece of paper to draw the boundaries. A small fight breaks out over whether it should begin at the Shelleys or Lewes Grammar, but after some rough work with the teapot we compromise on the bottleneck. It’s clearer where it finishes: at Morris Road Garage (which isn’t in Morris Road).

‘Not at the prison?’

‘The prison is in the next area along.’

‘Which is called?’

‘That bit with Baron’s Down Road in.’

‘That’s not a very slick name.’

‘You know what’s interesting about the top end of town?’ asks Grange Girl. ‘It’s small, but has everything a person needs. Pubs, churches, school. A greengrocers, chemists, butchers, takeaway, sandwich shop and an undertakers.’

‘And a paint-your-own-pottery place.’

‘Oh yes, that too.’

‘I’ve often thought I’d be fine if Lewes flooded again, but you know, much worse,’ says Born and Bred Boy. ‘I’d grab supplies from the shops and climb to the top of the Council tower. They’ve probably got water coolers, so I’d survive for weeks.’

We all think about that.

‘I wonder how I’d go if the Grange Road area flooded,’ says Cycle Girl.

‘That’s part of blimmin’ Southover,’ says Mary.

‘It’s clearly in Winterbourne,’ says Grange Girl.

‘You’d be stuffed, whatever you call it,’ says Born and Bred Boy happily, pouring another cup of tea.

Beth Miller, 16th Feb 2011. Published in VivaLewes.com and in Viva Lewes magazine, April 2011. Photo by Alex Leith

November has tied me to an old dead tree

Man of the House harvests our November crop: six wizened red apples. They seem smaller than they were two months ago. Meanwhile the Halloween pumpkins silently decompose on the doorstep, dead fireworks litter the herbaceous borders, and the shed falls down.

Winter gardens are no places for wimps, and I’m a wimp. I avert my eyes as I pass Wyevales so as not to see their banner exhorting me to ‘Tidy up ready for Winter!’ They have a Spring banner too, featuring an Easter chick chiselling out of an egg and the slogan, ‘Time to get cracking!’ That one also makes me feel guilty.

Now is doubtless the right time to plant tulip bulbs, scatter forget-me-not seeds, shove old tomato plants into the compost and pick up the pink plastic doll that has been lying across the lawn since July, limbs lewdly akimbo. Every year I convince myself that very soon I will stomp outside wearing waterproofs and a hearty smile, clearing and pruning and generally showing the garden who’s boss. In this mental image I am whistling ‘Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go,’ and waving a rake about smugly.

But it’s always raining when I look outside, or something more interesting is going on. And so every year the garden realises exactly who’s boss and takes advantage, sending underground forces of bindweed to annexe new territories, encouraging strawberry suckers to grow up the washing line, and marshalling battalions of evil slugs to slither about orange-ly.

If only I had the courage to embrace not tidying the garden. I wish I had the balls of the ESCC gardeners, who put up little signs around the Council grounds which say ‘designated biodiversity area’ wherever they can’t be bothered to clear. I might get some of those signs. ‘Do you think we could have some nice daffs here?’ ‘Sorry luv, can’t be done: that’s a designated biodiversity area.’ I only wish I’d thought of it first.

This is the list of actual garden chores I do in November:

1. Wait till it’s not cold or raining and there’s nothing on telly.
2. Run outside wearing coat over pyjamas.
3. Slip on orange slug, fall and bash bottom on plastic doll.
4. Grab bird feeder and run back into house.
5. Make tea and reward self with biccy.
6. Recoil in horror at disgusting state of bird feeder. Shake fist at birds and ask how could they let it go to seed like this, ah ha ha, have they no respect?
7. Clean bird feeder with Marigolds and industrial bleach. Then clean bleach off obsessively to avoid avian poisoning.
8. Refill feeder with fancy selection of seeds.
9. Notice it’s raining and resolve to put feeder out later.
10. Remember bird feeder in April.

I try one of the wrinkly apples. Delicious. Perhaps next year I’ll plant some raspberries. Or maybe I’ll just put in a few more bindweed plants – they always seem to do well.

Beth Miller, 17th November 2010. Published in VivaLewes.com. Photo by Alex Leith