
Nettle jungle
Dad is right about the blackcurrant bushes.
I slash through the nettle jungle that is our allotment with a bill hook, a vicious looking scimitar that cost £4 from the local tool shop. My hands tingle and throb despite gardening gloves – even my stings have stings.
Dad and Mr Mandy Sutter look on. ‘Four quid for that?’ says Dad. ‘Ridiculous. I wouldn’t give ninety-nine pence for it.’
Something sets a cock off on a neighbouring plot and he starts crowing fit to bust. To this soundtrack, Dad tells us how, following his own visit to the tool shop and the price shock it gave him, he started making his own rake by hammering some spare 4 inch nails into a piece of wood and attaching it to an old broom handle.
Mr Mandy Sutter is clearly awestruck at the very idea of anyone having spare 4 inch nails lying around in the first place, let alone doing anything with them.
But Dad is perhaps the most resourceful man on the planet. When a front incisor fell out recently, he decided not to consult the dentist, but the local stationer. He bought a pack of erasers, took a scalpel and cut a new, rubber, tooth to slot between his remaining ones. He soaked it in tea and red wine every night for a week to get the colour right.
It is strictly for best, of course. At tea with Mr MS and me, he removes it with a flourish and places it beside his plate before eating. But it has appeared in public once or twice. When some old family friends called at his flat for tea, for example.
‘Do you think I got away with it?’ he beamed, when they’d gone. ‘Do you think they suspected anything?’
It didn’t matter to him that he hadn’t been able to eat all afternoon, and had only pretended to sip at his cup of tea, for fear of the tooth falling in.
‘I thought Brian had guessed for a minute there,’ he went on. ‘But he didn’t say anything.’
‘No, Dad,’ I said. ‘Well, I don’t suppose he would.’
Back on the allotment, while I go on hacking at weeds, Dad and Mr MS are surveying the two saplings at the back of the plot, near the fence.
‘I could get those down in ten minutes if I could get hold of a good bow saw,’ says Dad.
‘You’ve not seen how much hire tools cost,’ I shout.
Even I think the price is ridiculous. And that’s despite the fact that the plot opposite razed their own overgrowth to the ground with a petrol strimmer, fruit bushes and all, in just one afternoon.
But all talk of tools is suddenly abandoned. All talk of past glories and future triumphs is put aside as the last sentinel ring of nettles falls and a whole fragrant-leaved thicket of fruit-bearing plants is revealed: blackcurrant bushes and blackberry brambles (which we recognise) and redcurrant bushes (which we identify later).
And there are berries. Later, a knowledgeable friend will tell me that the berry-to-bush ratio is pitifully small and the bushes will need a drastic pruning if they’re to justify their huge footprint on our veg-productive soil. But for the moment, we all just turn to each other and grin. It’s like finding frogspawn in the garden pond when you’re a child.

Fragrant-leaved thicket
‘Wow!’ says Mr MS.
‘Blackcurrant jam!’ I say. ‘Jars and jars of it.’
‘Stewed fruit,’ says Dad. ‘Ah, there’s nothing like a bowl of stewed fruit with a dollop of Cornish ice cream on top. Nice and soft.’
Mr MS slides me a look. I know what he’s thinking. That stewed blackcurrants and ice cream might be the one thing Dad can eat with his rubber tooth.
My mum used to make raspberry and redcurrant pie. Yum. Try it.Has your Dad made a little stock of spare rubber teeth?. Jo xx
Tee-hee! xxx
Sounds like you have nearly all the ingredients for a perfect summer pudding…
I think you call it a cock -erel. Your Dad ought to market his rubber teeth, I can just see them in packets on the shelf at Boots next to those little wire brushe – I offended my hygienist by remarking that they were like miniature loo-brushes. Thank you for such an entertaining second instalment, and the photos are perfect. Don’t blackcurrants – and nettles have a funny smell? Come over for a cuppa (or glass of) and watch the new allotment near my house burst into action at weekends. You can spot the field a mile off because it has bright red rain-water barrels dotted all over it. Someone from the allotment further up made a quick killing selling them at £7 each…
I’ve jotted the eraser tooth idea in my “ideas to consult at a later date” notebook.
I’m already in love with your dad.
Wouldn’t it be fine
if we all had erasers for teeth
and every snipeful bite
we took of one another
could be wiped away
like a good night’s sleep
at cock crow?
PS… don’t forget, the tender leaves of young nettles can be used like spinach and nettle tea can prevent scurvy – or at least scurvy knaves.
Another stunner, Mandy!
PS… Nettles are also good for pranks. I do think you might leave ’em and tell everyone your taking up herbal medicine. Oh… wait… you’ve already cut them. Dear me. Best eat currents and tell no one til the next installment.
Greatly looking forward to hearing about gardens that actually grow.
Teeth hee!
Although
Blimey gel, I can’t beleive you got rid of a perfectly good crop of nettle! What about nettle soup? It’s got a wonderful, buttery taste and can be frozen… a bleedin gold mine down the tubes. Don’t tell your Dad!
I before e as well.
Thanks for all the ideas about homegrown grub, chicas! And yes, I think Dad should definitely set up in cut-price cosmetic dentistry. He has been looking at different coloured woods, to see if he can find a more durable material…
Thanks for entertaining me! Still waiting for the baby to come…. a few days late already. And I loved the poem about (not) doing up the house – have you got a helpful Buddha for the veg plot yet?!?
Crumble – that’s the best – my Dad in his late 70’s used to take delivery of ALL our
gooseberries / raspberries / blackberries / black & red currants & make THE best crumbles ever – kept him busy & gave him a purpose – he had false teeth( proper ones mind …. ) but it’s amazing how soggy things can become with a bit of custard
Hilarious story x
Sooo funny! Me own Yorkshire dad is just the same!!! Love mr MS v much for lack of DIY enthusiasm! Xxx
Hey Mandy – great installment, esp the rubber tooth. Are all Dads made in the same mould? It could be MY Dad that’s talking!! C x
I am embarassed to think of the wide array of gardening tools I have, but I did make a hoe handle out of a hickory sapling. Please encourage him to get the tooth replaced. It is important for his general health.
Haaah, just loved your second instalment too, Mandy. Are you sure your Dad’s not some 10th-removed relative of my own? Dad was the very personification of ‘it might come IN one day’ and your story would undoubtedly have had him rummaging through some box of erasers left perishing from the dim and distant days of my GCEs. I put it all down to the war myself. Enjoy the fruits of your labours. Ouch.
Lovely Mandy, as always! x
Ha, very much enjoying reading everyone’s responses. It’s amazing how several British regional Dads seem to be inter-related!
Hi Mandy,
Two posts in a month! I’m enjoying these. Grahame and I lasted less than a year with our allotment, although long enough to create a glut of courgettes and squashes. We had them fried, roasted, boiled, mashed, curried…The tomatoes are looking promising this year though (we acquired an old greenhouse when we moved house last summer). Your Dad sounds like a character from a Marina Lewycka book.
Please tell Mr MS I have some four-inch nails. Perhaps we can meditate upon them together.
Loved the instalment Mandy. Maybe all Yorkshiremen are the same. I can remember one Bank Manager who kept a set of false teeth from one of his estates. No-one claimed them and they sat on top of a filing cabinet smiling down on everyone for years. Nobody claimed the teeth and the Manager asked a member of staff to take them round the local dentists to see if one of them would buy them!
There’s definitely scope here for a book of ‘Olde Yorkshiremen’s Tales’ – the tooth tale struck a funny bone with me having listened to my own dear dad’s idea this week (another veteran of improvisation at any cost). He is not a great coffee drinker but feels he could be converted by the aroma of roasting beans…Appalled by the price of conventional roasters, he is looking for some green beans that he can attack with his blow torch….feels it could ‘catch on’ if he can get the timing right for a rich roast. I am thinking that this could be the quintessential ‘incendiary idea’…but wonder if dad’s blow torch could be a rapid solution to your allotment clearance? I am sure he would waive the hire charge for a fellow entrepreneur…
Rock on. Jacqui
Oh! Ha ha! Am loving these tales of enterprising chaps and produce gluts!
Great read Mandy – I’ve enjoyed the first two instalments and looking forward to the next! I hope there aren’t too many slugs or snails on the allotment; I planted some herbs in my garden last week but the slimy creatures devoured the thyme within 12 hours and then munched through the dill stalks the following day.
x
Just got your note – amazing that it spamified – but then, that’s art for ya. , I know I have arrived now, my poems are banned!
Clearly you have a following, girl!
Hilarious, Mandy …looking forward to meeting the allotment at some point this week…by the way, I LOVED Kathy’s poem…! Does your Dad know his ‘make do and mend’ inventiveness has inspired Poetry? Would he be appalled or delighted!? xx
I’ve been sitting here & beaming the whole way through this second instalment – thank you thank you Mandy for a lovely warm start to my day x
Once again, thanks everyone for reading the blog and taking the time to post such generous comments. I’m deeply chuffed.
Hi Mandy
Another great episode. I do like the way ordinary life is transformed into something touching and funny in a seemingly effortless way. I am a bit worried about the rubber tooth though….suppose it fell out and went down the wrong way??
If only I could transport the 1st class horse poo that we are provided with for free in New Zealand to your dad’s allotment in Ilkley…..Virtual fertiliser.
Look forward to reading the next part.
Wow, what a lovely ending. I love the picture at the end.
I will go onto Day 15 – buried treasure?
Lots of love, Diane
Oh, I wish I had your Dad right now to make me some hand-made tools. Someone has gone off with my tools – two small forks,one with a long handle,and my trowel. No funds to replace them but have found an old steel trowel minus handle so will have to see what I can too. In the meantime I will be restricted to pulling up weeds -oh, for more rain to soften the soil, and making planting holes like the squirrel does when he is looking for his buried hazelnuts (usually in the wrong place). Your Dad is not daft, soaking his rubber tooth in wine – who needs tea when such a tooth is in your mouth?
Hi there Marion, always nice to hear from you. Sorry to hear about your tools being pinched. No rain yet, in your neck of the woods, then? We are luckier up here – everything got a good soaking a few nights ago. In fact it’s raining right now (it started just after I left the allotment, having stood with the hose pipe for a good hour…)