We had our inaugural coffee morning up the allotment last Tuesday – well, we didn´t have coffee exactly, not me and Charlie Barrett at any rate, and it wasn´t in the morning either but it was a good turnout nevertheless. Charlie who is famous for his home brewed beer very kindly brought along some of his very own “Credit Crunch Dark Mild” for us to try (Lidl´s own brand) and I brought some of Elsie´s Parkin Pigs (leftover from bonfire night). Our chairman Alf Cattermole addressed the meeting from the top of his compost heap and told of how there had been some serious vandalism over on his plot. Some lettuce seeds had been left strewn across the floor of his potting shed and when he had complained to the bloke on the next plot, he was verbally abused and attacked with a slug pellet. We had previously decided on constructing a life size scarecrow as we have had problems with local cats digging up radishes and distributing them amongst their friends. When it was pointed out that cats aren´t generally scared of human beings, Ron Chivers suggested that we make the scarecrow more mean looking by giving it a beard and attaching a toy gun to its hand. This was agreed upon, but then proved impractical. We didn´t have much raw material from which to construct the thing, and had to make use of some of the recreational gear from our sheds, however, with a bit of imagination and help from an old 1978 “Why Don´t You...” annual, I think it´s far to say we made a decent fist of it. Well done everybody!