Growing Concern

Neglect.

I am a perpetrator of neglect. Of the vegetable kind.

You'll all remember the childish enthusiasm of a year and a bit ago when I gleefully acquired my allotment. Well. What can I say. If there were social workers attached to the care of veggie patches, my little scrap of land would be on an At Risk register and I'd be the subject of a case conference of the carroty kind right about now.

Of course, it's all down to the growing of another kind I was doing last year. That of the Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe, aka, Baby Oub. Foolishly I thought once she arrived I'd be free to mind my little green children. But Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe demands TOTAL devotion and if I were to leave her side for just one moment, I would have been disappeared, never to be seen again. (Her secret police are ruthless).

That said, we have had a breakthrough. Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe is currently locked up in the Hague awaiting trail for Crimes Against Her Mammy, (Or maybe it's not the Hague, it could be her bedroom I'm thinking of.)

(And just in case any social workers are reading this, she's not really locked up. Yes, there are bars. But that's just on her cot.)

I've been sneaking out to the allotment. Sadly someone stole it in the middle of the night and replaced it with a wild uninhabitable wilderness. A wild uninhabitable wilderness that has been on growth hormones. And wants to be in the Guinness Book of Records for the its wildness. It wears a leather jacket, rides a motor bike and menaces old ladies. It drinks too much and has piercings. And by jove, it just doesn't care.

I was considering faking my own death to escape it. But, you know, that's not what a good mother would do. Of course, as we all know, I'm nothing like a good mother, so the faked death is still an option. But. But. Maybe it's redemption I'm after. A chance to show the world, that I can, that I will! There will be beetroot! That can be courgettes! There shall be shallots!!

Come to me my little leafy offspring.

Grow my xylem and phloem children.

Crank up your transpiration stream and osmos the love to your little chlorophyll hearts.

Mama is back and she's got fertilizer!

Growing Concern

Neglect.

I am a perpetrator of neglect. Of the vegetable kind.

You'll all remember the childish enthusiasm of a year and a bit ago when I gleefully acquired my allotment. Well. What can I say. If there were social workers attached to the care of veggie patches, my little scrap of land would be on an At Risk register and I'd be the subject of a case conference of the carroty kind right about now.

Of course, it's all down to the growing of another kind I was doing last year. That of the Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe, aka, Baby Oub. Foolishly I thought once she arrived I'd be free to mind my little green children. But Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe demands TOTAL devotion and if I were to leave her side for just one moment, I would have been disappeared, never to be seen again. (Her secret police are ruthless).

That said, we have had a breakthrough. Supreme Diva and Overlord of the Universe is currently locked up in the Hague awaiting trail for Crimes Against Her Mammy, (Or maybe it's not the Hague, it could be her bedroom I'm thinking of.)

(And just in case any social workers are reading this, she's not really locked up. Yes, there are bars. But that's just on her cot.)

I've been sneaking out to the allotment. Sadly someone stole it in the middle of the night and replaced it with a wild uninhabitable wilderness. A wild uninhabitable wilderness that has been on growth hormones. And wants to be in the Guinness Book of Records for the its wildness. It wears a leather jacket, rides a motor bike and menaces old ladies. It drinks too much and has piercings. And by jove, it just doesn't care.

I was considering faking my own death to escape it. But, you know, that's not what a good mother would do. Of course, as we all know, I'm nothing like a good mother, so the faked death is still an option. But. But. Maybe it's redemption I'm after. A chance to show the world, that I can, that I will! There will be beetroot! That can be courgettes! There shall be shallots!!

Come to me my little leafy offspring.

Grow my xylem and phloem children.

Crank up your transpiration stream and osmos the love to your little chlorophyll hearts.

Mama is back and she's got fertilizer!

Food Glorious Food

I've nothing useful to say for myself.

Really.

But hey, just so you know I'm not dead, here's a poem I wrote as I waited in line at Weight Watchers feeling fat, bolshy and proud.

(It's not really finished, and doesn't really know where it's going. But it's not exactly Heaney, so I don't think anyone will mind...)

Food Glorious Food

We weight our turn
chain gang slumping
getting to the top of the q
mumbles of how our week was.
Rumbled tumbles
Grumbled tummies
Patronised by the middle aged
skinny matron who, she simpers,
was once like us.

Like us fat. Rotund. Chubby
Flabby, flubby, big boned
Big bummed, big untoned dummies.
Cakes ingesters, chocolate investors
Sweetie, treatie, yummy infesters.
coffee slice assassins
cupcake connivers
lowfat survivors
sugar muggers
hydrogenated huggers
sluggish metabolisms inherited from our mothers.
cadbury addicted
haribo afflicted
willing to risk it, for just one more biscuit
Happy to scoffy a bountiful banofee
inhale whole, those divine profiterole
tirismsu? How do you do!

But don't forget our slavery to
our other pal savoury
mash potato, cream
lustful dreams
of rashers and lashers of
buttery yum.
filling our greedy tums with
pasta, chips, crisps
curly fries
in quantities unwise
if its carbohydrate, I can't wait
I really, really like to clear my plate
A shamefaced calorific ingrate.

So, what is my fate, my destiny?
I think we all know it's unlikely to be skinny
Signing peace treaties with diabetes?
Not escaping sore thigh chaffing?
High cholesterol that says it all...
Plus Plus size, no surprise
oh the sugary butterly lies!


So, in summation,
To tell the truth
I think I'll always indulge my
sweety tooth
I'll always choose those chocolate eclairs
even if it means employing a sherpa
for the second floor stairs
Or shame of shame
having to buy two of those Ryanair chairs.

Food Glorious Food

I've nothing useful to say for myself.

Really.

But hey, just so you know I'm not dead, here's a poem I wrote as I waited in line at Weight Watchers feeling fat, bolshy and proud.

(It's not really finished, and doesn't really know where it's going. But it's not exactly Heaney, so I don't think anyone will mind...)

Food Glorious Food

We weight our turn
chain gang slumping
getting to the top of the q
mumbles of how our week was.
Rumbled tumbles
Grumbled tummies
Patronised by the middle aged
skinny matron who, she simpers,
was once like us.

Like us fat. Rotund. Chubby
Flabby, flubby, big boned
Big bummed, big untoned dummies.
Cakes ingesters, chocolate investors
Sweetie, treatie, yummy infesters.
coffee slice assassins
cupcake connivers
lowfat survivors
sugar muggers
hydrogenated huggers
sluggish metabolisms inherited from our mothers.
cadbury addicted
haribo afflicted
willing to risk it, for just one more biscuit
Happy to scoffy a bountiful banofee
inhale whole, those divine profiterole
tirismsu? How do you do!

But don't forget our slavery to
our other pal savoury
mash potato, cream
lustful dreams
of rashers and lashers of
buttery yum.
filling our greedy tums with
pasta, chips, crisps
curly fries
in quantities unwise
if its carbohydrate, I can't wait
I really, really like to clear my plate
A shamefaced calorific ingrate.

So, what is my fate, my destiny?
I think we all know it's unlikely to be skinny
Signing peace treaties with diabetes?
Not escaping sore thigh chaffing?
High cholesterol that says it all...
Plus Plus size, no surprise
oh the sugary butterly lies!


So, in summation,
To tell the truth
I think I'll always indulge my
sweety tooth
I'll always choose those chocolate eclairs
even if it means employing a sherpa
for the second floor stairs
Or shame of shame
having to buy two of those Ryanair chairs.