We have not been through this before

Awake at 4 in the morning, and there being no prospect of sleeping, I realised that there is a reason for disturbed sleep, in that our lives are disturbed and we are all probably anxious, even the children, because we haven't been this way before, and this is very serious.

I worry about the economy at the best of times, and now I can see only too clearly that business cannot easily recover from this awful stagnation, and that firms are going to have to downsize. My brother was on the phone and told me that when firms need to economize they fire managers - expensive people who add nothing to the bottom line. They don't tend to sack the people who bring in the revenue - those providing the service or making the product unless demand falls. But when the economy really shrinks there is less money and demand falls. And that's where we're headed. So I am having a big worry about that.

More acutely because closer at hand, I am worried about the compound to the allotment shop, because there is not much security and if you are quite nimble you can climb over the gate and help yourself to the items in the compound. These are large items - manure, compost, strulch. You would have to be quite strong to haul them over the gate but it wouldn't be impossible. Anyway, I think that's what's happening. I think about 15 bags of compost have gone missing. I imagine the culprit is one or two of the newer plot-holders, and they raid at night. We do have CCTV but we don't do anything with it. It's a deterrent only. We have always said that when we have a problem we shall review getting a monitor and making it work. Maybe it doesn't work at all?

I calculate a profit margin of about 30% on the goods we sell because there's a lot of wastage on time-limited items and some goods have to make up for those losses.  The price for this kind of compost has gone up, and at present there is practically no profit on it at all! 15 bags is a lot of profit to throw away.

Another worry is Mr M Law, who has written to the Trustees of the Charity protesting about the terms of the Lease, and you feel that he wouldn't do this unless he hated the allotments and everyone there. Although the Trustees have been very reasonable and accommodating to us, someone like ML can really turn things around, as he did before in a way that benefited the allotment association, now he is trying it the other way around. I can only assume he is the sort of person who likes poking sticks in ants' nests.

All this and COVID-19 too. The Prime Minister has got it now. There is no reason to suppose he will have it badly. But perhaps the news made me think of him and his pregnant girlfriend in Number Ten, and that's unprecedented too. He doesn't behave like a respectable man. I didn't trust him on the economy (because leaving the EU doesn't make economic sense) and now the economy will probably tank anyway, as the world economy will be so damaged. The kind of things that will damage us include that there won't be jobs for our young people, and unlike the Poles and Hungarians I used to teach, our young people tend not to be the kind that just go abroad, learn the language and make a new life. They tend to be weak and lazy and terribly dependent on their Mums and Dads.

Oh dear, I am feeling low. Maybe this is all because of ML being such a sod, and those 15 bags of compost!

On the Committee part 1

I was asked to be on the allotment committee and take the minutes by our Chairman, Marie. Marie comes from Ohio or somewhere like that, and is a very petite American lady with a patient, but energetic personality. When I was having a bonfire two days after the end of bonfire season she did come past my plot and tell me not to. I was rather surprised as I thought we had discussed, and passed, a motion to extend the bonfire season by a month, at the Annual General Meeting the previous week, but she said, no. I pondered the fact that it is very important to write things down that happen at meetings or nothing is remembered accurately.

Having agreed to be Minutes secretary, I was approached by the Treasurer of our organisation. He comes into the allotment shop on both Saturday and Sunday to pick up the takings. He is a very reliable man of advancing years. He told me that it is very important to hold meeting regularly and to stop our Chairman, Marie, from overspending, as we need to hold a reserve for fighting legal battles (from property developers). He noted that over the last year Marie had organised 3 expensive rubbish collections instead of the usual 2, and he felt that this had not been agreed by the committee. I agreed to try to get meetings organised and in diaries as soon as possible.

Marie suddenly called a meeting the following week. We had this meeting standing up in the allotment shop. All to the good in a way as nobody was tempted to linger. At the meeting one of our number, whom I will call Vera, volunteered to be the Plot Steward. Apparently she has long told Marie that Marie cannot be both Chairman and Plot Steward, and that she, Vera, is always at the allotments and would be able to take care of everything on a regular basis. Marie said that she had asked Busy Dee (who stocks the shop) to be Plot Steward, and that Busy Dee had agreed to do it. But Vera said that Dee was far too busy to be Plot Steward and put herself forward most vehemently.

After the meeting Marie told the rest of the committee that Vera cannot be Plot Steward because she has an uncontrollable temper and screams and shouts at people, and that she, Marie, cannot work with her. No. Under no circumstances. So Marie said she would get in touch with Busy Dee and tell her to say that she is Plot Steward and Volatile Vera can understudy her when she is not there.

This was very difficult to minute because I had minuted that Dee and Vera were to share the job but Marie did not want me to suggest that that had been agreed.

Then Marie got back to me, about the minutes, about the allegation that there had not been meetings last year, and said that all the meetings had indeed been held, and that she thinks Michael has forgotten that we did have meetings. She thinks he didn't attend/ has memory problems? I asked her to forward me the minutes of previous meetings. This she has not done and she seems to have gone away on a break.

At the weekend I was working in the shop with Busy Dee when Volatile Vera came in and told Busy Dee she wanted to be Plot Steward. The odd thing was that Busy Dee, who should have been primed to say clearly and emphatically, yes, I am the Plot Steward, did no such thing. She said neither yes nor no. It was all very difficult.