Slow painting

Thursday 17 May 2012

A watched potato



A watched potato, like a kettle, never seems to boil (or in this case, chit).  I was late buying seed potatoes this year.  The seed catalogues had all sold out, and I was resigning myself to a year without potatoes.  But I came across boxes of them, several desirable varieties, in that wonderful emporium A&I Supplies in Elgin.  The A must stand for 'agricultural', and the I 'industrial'.  Chicken coops, gigantic rakes and hay forks, protective clothing of every sort, steel toe-capped boots, mucking out boots, vast bags of dog food, bird seed....

My goodness they took a long time to sprout.  But here they are just before planting, spread out on the sports pages of the newspaper, which are the section no-one in our household reads unless it's a report of a Scotland rugby match (husband) or rowing or cross-country skiing during the Olympics (me).  The cricket report above is written in a strange foreign language of trajectories and spin and bounce.  I haven't a clue who the footballer below is.



However the potatoes are now safely in the ground - Duke of York and Charlotte.  No growth showing yet, and I don't blame them.  Temperatures here are bumping along at 8 or 9 degrees.  The ground is cold.  Trees are struggling to come into leaf.  I'm not even thinking of sowing seeds outside.  I go to work wearing my down-filled winter coat and gloves, so the thought of pushing seeds into stone-cold earth is not attractive, either for them or me.