Filthy, diiiiirrty creatures.....

So a couple of months ago, our bicycling-mad neighbour comes up with an offer.... He and the Missus are planning on spending August 'in the saddle'.... there's a spare raised bed in the garden.... would Fereday be interested..... had I not come into the kitchen at that point, Fereday would have gotten away with it.... but I did, so I now have my very own 'starter allotment'.... I do feel a bit like a kid being granted a goldfish by a thoroughly unconvinced parent... after our neighbour left, I was treated to a 'little talk' of the kind I've not experienced since I was 5 and we got our first kittens..... "It'll be YOUR responsibility.... I'll be working, so you'll need to look after it"....... and, I am.... I've raised courgettes, beans and sweet peas from seed.... granted Fereday gave me a lift round to the neighbours in the family wagon last weekend when I wanted to plant in,.... but by the time he walked back round, most of the planting was done and I only needed his help to plant in the sweetpeas.... he's more delicate of touch than I am.... I've already decapitated a couple of carefully nurtured seedlings....So.... all going swimmingly, then... well, it was,.... I expected having my own mini-ment would give me a small (but perfectly formed) crop of veggies and some cut flowers.... I did not expect it would give me, what can only be described as 'A CAUSE'.... and, no, I don't mean I'm running around trying to convert everyone I know to veggie growing.... nope, nothing so benign.... I'm on a crusade against the neighbourhood moggies... filthy things.... nothing, and here I quote my dear Mother.... "NOTHING IS MEANER THAN CAT SHIT".... Shortly after planting, the b*ggers have already been in and buried a few toxic 'landmines'.... I don't know what the owners are feeding them... but this stuff is the colour of a MilkyBar????!!!!.... YUK.........Anyway.... stage one of the fight back... I've got some mothballs... made some little cloth bags and stapled them round the edge of the raised beds.... I refrained from using Cath Kidston fabric to make the little baggies, much as I was tempted - it would really have wound Fereday up....Now we wait.... if this doesn't work, maybe it's time for more moth balls, a few days off work, some camoflauge clothing and some kind of 'launching mechanism' akin to a pellet gun with a very accurate sight on it.... true, eventually some gas will build up and the wretched beast will 'blow' it out, but until then, my courgettes will be safe and undisturbed.....

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