21st February

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh. That sums up the feeling in my lower back. Yesterday I was spurred on to dig by 3 factors: my wife and sons would be out all day – no one home at lunchtime so no one to miss; an allotment plot that needed digging and weeding and I’d better do some before my Dad does more and shows me up as a lazy young-un; and the weather forecast passed on to me that it was going to rain quite a lot today. So with rake, fork, spade and boots I ventured off to the allotment yesterday lunchtime and dug. The 2 sections where I will be planting onions and leeks were edged and all of one and some of the other was weeded and raked. I went from there to my parents for lunch for a much needed hot meal that made me feel great again and ready for more work. My back felt a little bent over but nothing too bad. After work I returned to the allotment and did just over another hour with more weeding of the onion bed, and forking over the next section and weeding it. After just over an hour of that I was really feeling my back to be in a forwardly stooped position. I returned home to find the rest of my family still out, and set about making a cup of tea and doing some back stretching exercises. I don’t know if it was the overstrain I placed on my back by digging or that of the stretches, but after being home for 30 minutes I could feel the muscles of my lower back tighten, maybe they were in spasm. By the end of tea, my back was locked and yet it hurt like crazy when I moved. Later I tried a relaxing bath with special potions to ease sore muscles. It was agony to get in, of no effect or palliative use, and agony to get out. I remained stiff and in pain until bed time where at least I could lie and relax of sorts.

Today when I woke, the pain started where it left off last night, although I had had a fairly good nights’ sleep. I had to go to work because if I stayed at home I would just sit or lie and do nothing but hurt. Working would force movement and I figured that would be the best thing. After a shower where I could wash no lower than my knees, and my wife putting on my socks and sorting out my shoes for me, I ventured off to work armed with determination and anti-inflammatories (I guessed that would help the muscles to ease off if there was inflammation due to the strain). I don’t normally take pain killers so 2 aspirin (2/3rds of the maximum dose) was a big dose for me, and after about an hour I was feeling a definite limbering and easing of discomfort. I took another dose 4 hours later and the magic continued to work. I needed no further pills and by the afternoon I felt like going and doing a bit more digging. Don’t worry – I didn’t. If I had, and did the same damage again, it would be no sympathy for me on the home front and deservedly so. So today and tomorrow it is a case of moving gently and no silly bending or lifting.

What I did do was to go to our local multi-purpose shop and buy some garden (biodegradable) green string, 3 seed propagating trays and some horticultural fleece – wow, I really am getting keen. Up to now the limit of my attack on pests was organic slug pellets. The princely sum of £7.11 was charged to my credit card.

I have seen some quite harsh comments about gardeners and their unrelenting attack on poor defenceless slugs. Such gardeners are the new point of attack for eco warriors, but only the eco warriors who do not seem to live in and with the environment. The people who live with the ground and tend plants are, in my experience, a really green bunch (OK, not the ones who spray everything with chemicals). They were recycling years before it became trendy by means of the compost heap, and as for allotments, they are famous for being a display of purloined and recycled junk made into useful equipment rather than it become landfill. The issues with slug pellets is that they poison the slug which is eaten by a bird which itself is then poisoned – quite a problem. These new organic pellets are different, they only kill the slug. If you care for slugs, then obviously they are still a problem, but the birds live! An organic gardener will be someone who uses none of the myriad of chemicals that pollute the environment either directly in the locality or in the run off into our rivers that pollute the water, the sea, and our drinking water, they will be people who try to help the beneficial wildlife such as the lacewings, beetles, bees and ladybirds who are natural predators of pests and will be people who waste as little as possible and try to recycle and reuse as much as possible. Maybe all this effort accumulates to far more than a city dweller does simply by using a green car and buying organic vegetables from the supermarket and then spends much of their time railing against those people who are positively benefitting the environment who just happen to keep down a local slug population.

Next post: 26th Feb