The Keeper

An Allotment of Friendship

Dear D

In my free time, I love to garden. When I'm working in the garden, I don't know where the time goes. I'm never happier than when I've been planting out seedlings, picking vegetables, or even weeding. Joan (my neighbour who owns the allotment) makes a flask of tea and we sit with our backs to the shed, our faces to the garden, and we talk. Mostly about the plants, but sometimes about the world and politics and so on. She must be in her 80s (whenever I ask her age, she says she is a hundred years old). She met her future husband when she was my age, married him at twenty-one, and he died when she was in her forties. They never had children (I don't know why and don't want to ask, in case she couldn't). I asked why she didn't marry again and she said other men couldn't compare to her husband, that they would fall "so short she couldn't see them any more". Now she says she is happy being on her own. Most of her friends her age have lost their husbands. The others spend too much time moaning about the ones they still have. She knows all sorts of people around here and goes out a lot to clubs, meetings and outings. She has a better social life than any of us! I wish she would come out for a night with me. She would be more fun than the school crowd.

Yes, I draw in my spare time (cheeky question!). I nearly always have a sketchbook with me to draw what's around me. Travelling abroad would give me more to draw and improve my art, I guess. The furthest I've been is France, and it was so cool to be in a different country where they speak a different language and have different food. Mind you, I wasn't that keen on snails!

I don't really know what the 'kids' are listening to these days, as I like to listen to other music, like records I find in Dad's collection. He has loads of great albums from the 1970s. I think that was the best decade for music and that the 1980s was the worst. Let's hope the 1990s get better. I use Dad's records and ones that I've bought from charity shops to make mix tapes. I love Bread and The Carpenters, and James Taylor has the most amazing voice.

1. What do you like doing in your free time?

2. What music do you listen to?

3. Do you play an instrument?

Martha