Blackberry Rage

I nearly committed a murder last night. I came within a gnat's whisker of creating an Old Geezer sized hole next to the rhubarb patch at the allotment and filling it in with an Old Geezer.

The Old Geezer in question is the one who has an allotment opposite ours and who donated a rhubarb plant earlier in the season when I was in rhubarb crisis. In fact, it was probably only this neighbourly donation that saved his Old Geezer skin.

Andy and I went to the allotment yesterday evening to install the Big Drippa, do some watering, pick whatever crops needed picking (strawberries and radish) and do a bit of weeding.

I started on the strawberries because I am a girly; Andy started on the Big Drippa because he is a man. Old Geezer calls across 'How are your loganberries doing? Or are they tayberries?' He is gesticulating in the direction of our blackberry bush.

'They're blackberries,' I call back. 'And they're doing very well thank you.'
'Are you sure?' says Old Geezer. 'They look like tayberries to me.'

How he could tell I don't know, unless he had a telescope or bionic eyesight.

'No,' I say, ' they are definitely blackberries.'

Old Geezer is having none of it. He comes marching over with a look in his eye that says he intends on having his own way. What he doesn't realise is that I hold the Miss Stubborn Award for Most Stubborn Person in the Entire Universe and have done so since 1974 when I refused to believe that Michelle Lovell's drawing of a golden labrador deserved a higher place in the class drawing competition than my picture of an elephant with no ears.

Old Geezer examines the blackberries on the blackberry bush.
'They're tayberries,' he pronounces and then he LIGHTS a CIGARETTE and puffs it at me in a very defiant way.

WELL! I'm always going to try and win an argument if I am 100% sure I am right which in this case I was, but I am DEFINITELY going to win the argument when someone starts SMOKING ON MY PLOT!

'I'm sorry,' I say, 'but I am NOT backing down on this. It is definitely a blackberry bush with blackberries growing on it.' And I finish with a laugh that could be conceived as subtley menacing.

Subtlety is wasted on Old Geezers. He merely draws hard on his cigarette and then marches into our polytunnel to quiz Andy on the Big Drippa and to offer his infinite wisdom on how best to rig it up.

'What kind of tomatoes are these?' he calls out.
'Plum,' I shout back, when what I really want to do is yell, 'STOP SMOKING YOUR FILTHY CIGARETTE IN OUR POLYTUNNEL AND POISONING OUR PLANTS.'
'Roma?' he calls.
'Yes,' I shout.

There is a pause. 'You want to keeping pinching out the side shoots or they'll get too bushy,' he says.

I ignore him. I know this already. I defy him to examine the tomatoes and find a single side shoot anywhere.

I know about blackberries too. I grew up on a fruit farm, for heaven's sake. Blackberries, damsons, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, loganberries, red currants, black currants, even white currants, my grandparents grew them and I picked them. In 1973 I earned £4.50 picking blackberries for a month which gave me ample spending money for our holiday in Brixham in Devon. You could buy a lot of tat in 1973 for £4.50.

By now I am scrabbling under the blackberry bush trying to find the plant label. I want to wave it triumphantly in old geezers face and say 'HA! Blackberries!' But it has gone. I think that maybe I took it home and put it in my allotment record book, should I want to purchase further blackberry bushes to add to this one.

Old Geezer had left the polytunnel, gone back to his allotment and returned with a berry that looks nothing like our blackberries.

'Look,' he says. 'A tayberry.'
Hurrah, I think.
'Most blackberries are round,' he says. 'Yours are tapered like my tayberry.'
'Well,' I say, gripping onto my bowl of strawberries because the thought of crushing them wastefully whilst murdering an old geezer is just about holding me back. 'These are definitely blackberries.'

'Hmmm,' says the Old Geezer. 'Must be a variety I've never heard of before then,' and off he goes, taking his tayberry with him.

'Miracles do happen,' I mutter, when I am certain he is out of earshot.

I pick the half a dozen raspberries that have chosen to start ripening. I go into the polytunnel where Andy is suffering the ill-effects of cigarette smoke and unwanted advice. I hold out my hand containing the raspberries.

'Have a melon,' I say.