A bad evening at the allotment

[vivienz]

I decided to postpone the usual Sunday lottie session till the evening as it was very hot yesterday and thought I would expire before getting much done. So I got there yesterday evening, only to find our water system was broken, so we had no water, all the water troughs had been emptied and not much hope of it being fixed for a couple of days.
Anyhow, after a bit of impromptu weeding, I headed off with my haul of spuds & courgettes. I got up to the site gates (which we keep locked), my car in the middle of the narrow roadway, door open whilst I haul the gates open. Then a chap who was old enough to know much better, tries to barge his way through into the site and after realising he can't get past my car, harangues me for not driving through just one gate, saying I had loads of room to get through, blah, blah! I told him that I preferred to rely on my own judgement as to whether I could get through one gate or two since I would be the one to pay for damage to my car if I scraped it, and he should get some better manners. He then harangued me again saying his manners were fine(!) so I drove off and left him to it. I know that we get all sorts of people on allotments and that is part of its attraction, but this incident really did put me out of sorts, mainly due to its being entirely unprovoked. I'm sorely tempted to let his tyres down if I see his car again - let's see how long that takes him to sort out, the rude man!
Vivien

[Compo]

Vivienz as far as his physiology goes he will be pumping out lots of fatty acids and making his arteries hard. He will be persistently unhappy. You meanwhile should take a deep calming breath and say, your problem old fellow not mine and keep the following mantra in your head........everything will pass...You don't, after all want to end up like him.....


THEN KICK HIS CAR, LET HIS TYRES DOWN AND DIG UP HIS PLANTS (JOKE!!!!)

cOmPo

[lizzie]

I wouldn't worry about people like that Vivienne. Ignor him.

If you really want to get some revenge then simply outlive the barsteward......that'll annoy him

[Chantal]

Alternatively, if you jam a matchstick in each tyre valve, you can run away whilst they go down. So I'm told

[lizzie]

Hi Vivien

Here are some t-shirts from www.farcanal.biz which I thought you could wear to the allotment







And one for the man himself



It might'nt make the bugger think but you'd have a good laugh at the expression on his face

[richard p]

it does seem to be something a lot of elderly men develope, especially if they live alone and dont get out much, they get so used to doing things their way when they want to. They get wound up when somebody does something differently or interferes with their schedule, even though they've got all day, and especially if the "offending " person is young or female...

[Primrose]

If you come across him again say "I'm not surprised your wife divorced you".
If he responds "She hasn't"
Smile back sweetly and reply "Well, I don't think you're supposed to know yet !!

[John]

Hello Vivienz
I'd say that as you had got out of your car and opened the gates you had the right of way.
Don't put up with this sort of arrogant and bad-tempered c--p. I would report this incident to your managing committee in writing, mentioning also that you were on your own and you felt threatened. They will have to consider it and should let you know what action they propose to take. Don't write anonymously as they will then not do anything.
Even if nothing is done this time, if another incident ever occurs again with this person you will be in a very strong position to get some action.

John

[Weed]

Richard...

with respect there are a lot more young people with serious 'attitude and aggression'problems out there too..

we old fogies just get grumpy from time to time ..most of us are harmless

[Compo]

With respect there are bad uns at the young, middle and older end of the spectrum...........I don't think it is an ageist thing, we have a man at the swimming pool where i go before work, he is 70.

He moans about everything, he is racist, faccist, arrogant, miserable and rude, and divorced and on his own, no wonder!!!

CoMpO

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Vivien, maybe you were just in a bad mood because the water was not working.

[vivienz]

Thanks for all the comment, everyone. I haven't encountered the ignoramus again and our site, fortunately, is large enough that I probably won't for a long time. I am sure that I'll have some choice words for him if I do!
OH - I'm never grumpy if I can get out of watering duty! Mind you, there's certainly no need of that this week - chucked down yesterday and more of the same this week. Ho hum.
Vivien

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Vivien, i must admit, i can't imagine you ever being grumpy.

Glad to hear you are going to give him as good as you get, i hate bullies.

[glallotments]

We have a similar Mr. Grumpy.
having finally managed to get some decent gates to keep out vandals and thieves and by majority decision deciding that we wanted them locking at all times he just refuses. Some nights he leaves the gates wide open when he is last to leave the site at night leaving us open to anyone. He only uses his plot to keep pigoens which are safely locked in his loft so he has nothing to lose. If anyone tackles him he just used foul and abusive language or threatens to thump them.

Consensus is that if we had asked him to leave them wide open he would have locked them.

We have a 5mph speed limit around the site so he has to whizz along faster. He's a liability but our council allotments officer refuses to do anything about him.

[Geoff]

What you need to do is sneak up when he is engrossed in his pigeon loft and use so good binder twine to tie his car to his loft.
Idea comes from camping 40 years ago. We were perhaps not as quiet as we might have been when we came back from the pub. The big frame tent camper nearby came to remonstrate with us while we were eating breakfast and he was setting off for the day. I really think he should have disconnected his lighting system from his car battery first!