Why I feel like Joey in Friends …

with Phoebe as my guitar tutor. Plus, I take Teddy the reactive collie to a secure dog field… is this the solution to my knees feeling like jelly?

Lots of empty beds. My allotment feels like the Nightingale covid hospital...

The young man helping me tame the allotment has updated me: he has painted my shed, but it needs another coat. He plans to erect a trellis, and place lots of pots round it, gravel the area ready for a fire pit, and place flagstones ready for my as yet not purchased glass house. He has cleared more beds, but wants to replace the sleepers, as many are rotten, and make paths round each bed.

         Me: ‘Can I order seeds? Buy a dibber? How about I order some young fruit trees: apple, pear, plum?’

         Him: ‘Oh no. Not yet. We are not at the stage where we start planting.’

         So I am making weird crab shapes with my fingers.

         Teddy has been pottering in the allotment, but I am always on high alert for dogs. He was fine when I first got him, even walked off lead, but now if he even spots a dog in the distance he goes berserk, barking, trying to back out of his harness. So I have booked a secure dog field, at £10 for 50 minutes. You drive in, so no furtive head swivelling scanning the horizon. There is a 10-minute buffer zone between dogs.

         And wow, what a relief to let him off in a secure field. Nic my friend joined us with her beagle, Boris, who is an escape artist. For the first time since I got Teddy (aged about three, he came over in a bus from Romania), he did zoomies. I don’t think he ever played as a puppy, or owned any toys. It was a joy to see him having such a great time.