I've come out because it's just so beautiful. How often do you get to see the allotment
looking like this? My house backs onto the allotment and I'm just looking out my bathroom
window this morning. I thought I just got to go over there. There's nothing to do over
here, apart from make footprints on the ground, but it's just so amazingly peaceful. It's
like it's not just quiet down here because there's nobody here, but it's like the whole
place has been muffled, like somebody's put a carpet down in an empty room. And the smell
of the allotment as well. Normally it's so green smelling or wood smoke smelling, depending
on who's doing what down here. It just smells cold and crisp. I don't actually have an allotment,
but quite a few of my friends do. They'll bring me their surpluses at key times of the
year, so we have benefited from that respect. I think it's just we've quite densely built
area in Clarendon Park. It's always busy, a lot of traffic about, and then you just
come down, just turn a corner and you're in this whole different world. It's like you
could be out in the countryside miles from anywhere. And particularly now when it's got
this blanket of snow over it. It's almost, almost magical place. Considering we live
in a city, we're less than a couple of miles away from the very middle of the city, to
have a place like this right on our doorsteps is a real privilege for all of us, I think.
Well in the winter when it's covered in snow, you're sick of staring at four walls at home.
You just want to come out, get a breath of air, and come somewhere where it's quiet and
it looks absolutely gorgeous. There's nobody around, it's quiet, you can just potter about,
check that everything's okay. And I just love the place when it's like that, when it's quiet,
when there's nobody around, it's magical really. I love the snow and I love to come and take
photographs in the snow and now I've got here, it's just so beautiful. I came over here the
other day and I saw a green woodpecker, just so amazing against the snow and I've never
seen one here before. I shall have to keep my eyes open for that and see if I can see
any others today. It's just such a wonderful day for photographs. It's so different to other
times of the year. All the ugly bits are covered up and smoothed over. It's hard to believe
that in a few months time everything's going to be growing again. We'll start again on
the growing journey. We'll all be getting our seeds out. We'll all be down here together.
And that's what's so great about this allotment, it changes all the time. The allotments look
particularly wonderful in the snow. It usually comes after the autumn when it's been rather
desolate and it always looks a little bit unloved and uncared for. And then it's covered
with this hush of snow, which you can still see wildlife, you can see footprints, you
can see where the foxes have been, bird prints. It's absolutely incredible to think that just
in a few weeks time, catkins will appear in on the hazel trees and the herbs suddenly
look very, very green and bulbs start to come up. And you know that the weather is changing
slowly, unpredictably, but soon this place is going to be absolutely teeming again with
plants. The main thing for me when I come here in the wintertime is the sheer tranquility
of the place. It's got this carpet of snow, there's bits and bobs on the trees, but it
feels wonderful. I've been coming down here for about seven years now, and before that
I hardly knew the place was here. It's a ten minute walk from my house, it's a hidden of
tranquility. I had no idea there were all these rambling plots, just a few moments to walk
from my house. And if you'd said to me fifteen years ago, oh Ted's got an allotment, I would
laugh. It would be a joke, because I just don't do plants. My wife makes plants live,
I make the weeds die, and I love it though. I'm not down here for maybe three, four hours,
I get fantastic exercise, and it's ten minutes from the house. It's just wonderful.
I just come down here to let the fowls out, I did. But not now. I just come down here
when it was, it had been up watered down, I just do its fowls and then put them in some
hot water to pour the ice, you know, the ice. I feed them, I feed them, you just have to
stop in the up, you have to come down and feed them. Then you have to come in and let
them out and put them in it, and do that. You have to still do that. It's nice and peaceful
up here. Nice and peaceful up here. It's when you visit the place, it's good to see the
different generations here. You can see the people who've had allotments for years and
years, and then you can see families with younger children, they're all working together
on their allotments, and they're the younger people getting an interest in gardening, in
growing fruit, growing vegetables. So it will continue into the future this way.
