I write to you this week of agriculture and horticulture – well, more tractors and veteran gardeners, really. I raised the subject of tractors in the Barmaid’s Bosom this week.
On my way to Droitwich for grandson duty last week, I got stuck behind a tractor and trailer, for about six miles, and if you know the winding road from Holt Heath via Ombersley to the Salt City, it’s impossible to get past. The man concerned did not move over, yet I counted 20 vehicles stuck in a slow crawl.
Now, as my farming pals in the Barmaids pointed out they’ve got to get from A to B as well as me, but there were at least three pull-ins that my man ignored.
On the other hand, I was delighted to follow a tractor and trailer along the leafy lanes of Worcestershire the other day as it was loaded with hops.
Not many picked round here now, but it took me back to my youth, when our village was invaded by what we called Brummies but were in fact Black Country folk –and they are not the same, trust me.
As a lad, I remember trying to talk to some of the pickers and thinking they must be from some foreign country as I hadn’t a clue what they were on about, but they were just Black Country folk talking in their own tongue.
On Tuesday, I was at the awards for gardeners and allotment holders in Worcester at Huntingdon Hall.
Very well done to all those that won awards – especially Mr London, aged 88! A fascinating man, fit as a fiddle and with an astonishing memory, he served in the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic during the Second World War when the Graf Spee was sunk in the Battle of the River Plate.
Rugby on Saturday – Saracens at Sixways – and then I’m at the Malvern Table Tennis League event in the evening.
Now, table tennis is one of the many games I’ve tried to play but never mastered. For a very short while – two games in fact – I played for a team one of my mates was running, and all I can recall was we played a game against a team out in the country, in a barn that had been cleared out. No tractors, though.
l Dave Bradley is the BBC Hereford & Worcester sports correspondent.