Author Topic: The Uplands  (Read 2054 times)

The Uplands
« on: 13 July, 2008, 01:18:55 am »
This evening I had 3 hours to kill, bl00dy amateur orchestras with a 2-5pm rehearsal that finished an hour early, I could have spent the whole day doing any number of other things and have to decide whether the prestige of leading it for no reimbursement is worth all the effort.  Very nice bunch of people though.

Anyway I spent some of it cycling round Handsworth (where my grandparents lived up until 30 years ago) then through Winson Green to Bearwood, got an excellent supper for only £1.40 (nearly went back into the shop to hand some of the change back), but during my travels spied from afar an allotment area and honed in to investigate.  Signs restricted access to plotholders but nobody questioned me.  It was a huge area spreading over a hill so as you can imagine I was really interested to see how others were going about it and spent a good 45 mins walking slowly around.  People had rigged up branches rather than canes as support for climbers, saw the usual spuds and climbing beans, also several onion beds nearing harvest time, some fennel planted really close together and not thinned, and huge cabbages that made me gape, you forget how big they can grow compared to the shop ones.  Each plot seemed to have its own muck heap, often with piles of fruit and veg thrown in, I got the impression that veg for the local shops is grown here, large areas of the same stuff grown and harvested en masse - good luck to them.  But the place was a paradise of peace and calm - there were only a handful of people on their plots, a few parked cars but no traffic noises could be heard, you really get the same sense of isolation as walking over the moors with a rucksack on your back.

Then back to grind through a Freischutz overture with as much Gespensterlichkeit as slamming a car door outside the offie  :-\, a Haydn oboe concerto that never quite made it  :-X and a Beethoven VII that had as much sense of architecture as a Blacks Special at Glastonbury  :'(

Si

Re: The Uplands
« Reply #1 on: 13 July, 2008, 01:56:43 pm »
I always like the look of that one that you can see from the train between Five Ways and The Uni - all the plots seem to have mature hedges around them and gates to enter.  It was featured on TV a while back as one of Brum's historic sites.  Although a lot of the ground seems uncultivated there isa huge waiting list, probably because many people treat the plots as places to sit in the sun rather than grow stuff?

Any way, our site has just won a compertition: we are the most improved site in the area.  Which is nice.  But I have the feeling the judges were steered away rom my plot when they came round.