Parsnips and the Russian Front

I have dug half of the bed in which my broad beans will eventually rest, should I ever get round to actually planting them in the toilet rolls currently making my bathroom look like the set from Blue Peter. When I say dug, I mean that I managed to hoik out some of the massed ranks of perennials, but like the bloody Russian front there's more of them than of me and it's winter. (Cue visions of fending off the red hordes with a pair of my mother's secateurs). Could not face returning on Sunday to do the rest of it. Covered stuff with black plastic and decided that what the eye can't see the mind will shortly be distracted from with visions of dancing juniper berries.

On the up side, my grandfather's three-legged table (it had four legs until I came into possession of it) is now languishing under the leggiest seedlings since the little-known Miss Six-Foot Swedish Seedling competition. The tomatoes aren't too bad, but the cauliflowers appear to have taken the story of Jack and the Cauliflower Stalk a little too much to heart (What? Prince Charles talks to his plants. So I have no life?). The basil, which I thought was hard to germinate, appears to be planning to take over the world, while the parsnips are sitting with their little seedy arms folded saying "I told you we wouldn't germinate, you and your daft newspaper pots".

I should get out more.

Just started new temping job which starts at some ungodly hour of the morning but, hurrah, finishes at five and apparently at four on Fridays. Which is almost like being given an extra day. The cunning plan is to leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a tightly coiled spring, bound onto my bicycle, pedal furiously to the plot and enjoy the lengthening evenings (oh, all right, afternoons).

But. (There's always a but). The new job is precisely 27 seconds walk from door to door from the home of a friend of mine, who also gets up early and finishes early and who has a penchant for the odd after-work gin and tonic. I've been good, I've tried to protect myself, I haven't answered his texts for ages and I haven't told him where I'm working, but you know what's going to happen. I will leap from my computer where I will have spent the day typing in the manner of a lethargic chimpanzee, bound onto my bicycle, fall off my bicycle, swear at my bicycle, realise said bicycle has two flat tyres (each of which has an inner tube of a different era so you need two separate pumps, neither of which I carry to work), one handlebar, and three gears of which only the top is deciding to function. Remember said bicycle also makes a noise like a wounded Spitfire. Think 'sod this, I'm covered in oil and wearing a brand new suit, where could I possibly wash my hands?'. This is not a plan, you understand, just a case of 'know thine enemy', which in my case is inevitably me.

And the damned parsnips, of course. Driving me to gin. Mutter mutter growl growl twitch.