I sowed my first tomato seeds of the year this week, and as well as being a cause for celebration (I do love tomatoes), it also gave me pause for thought. Consider this a brief interlude, if you will, before more tales and photos of nuclear fallout shelter style sheds… The history of the humble tomato was not a smooth one, nor was it full of love and mouthfuls of pasta sauce. Oh no. Most Northern Europeans and a fair few North Americans wouldn’t go near the fat red fruit until the late Victorian era.

Think about it - that’s several hundred years without bolognaise or salsa. It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it? And why, I hear you cry, did our cuddly and funnily dressed ancestors shy away from such a tasty delight? That’s a very good question. Unfortunately, it has a very stupid answer. Tomatoes, they believed, were not only poisonous, but attractive to werewolves. Eating one could indeed turn you into a hairy beast with a penchant for a full moon.

Say what now? The tomato (yes, it is a fruit, so stop arguing and pay attention) is part of the nightshade family, which includes tobacco, belladonna and mandrake… so you can see where the fear of poisoning part came in. It took Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson to declare that he’d eat a bushel-full on September 26th, 1830 before Americans would go near the Aztec import.

As for the werewolf part… the Lycopersicon esculentum in yer actual Latin, or Edible Wolf Peach in German set up all sorts of fears of lycanthropy, or werewolf to toi et moi. I have a rather natty bag made of recycled tomato juice cartons which proudly bears the legend Naturally has Lycopene which never fails to raise a smile. So, enjoy your tomatoes this summer but watch out for the full moon, and don’t stray off the path… I used to be a werewolf but I’m alright nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!!!

Let It Be (A Spool) - Naked

Remember those wooden cable spools I talked about a few posts ago? They’d been sitting around in various places in the garden, gathering dust, rain and wood lice. It seemed a shame to leave them there to rot, so I hauled them indoors and let them dry out ready for painting - my plan was to paint them in various shades of green and then assemble them as a display unit in our shop.

Some time ago, we managed to get two cardboard boxes full of sample tins of paint and half-empty pots from a lovely chap on Freecycle, and this has proved to be a veritable treasure chest for us. It’s amazing how much brighter everything can look with a lick of fresh paint, especially when it’s in such gorgeous colours. Several days and cups of tea later - we now have this rather fab display unit!

Many moons ago at Uni, my dear friend Pascal had a leather jacket which was more second skin than outer wear or fashion accessory. He was so attached to it that over the course of four years we only ever saw him out of it once. It was like seeing someone shortly after a limb amputation. Come rain or shine, sleet or snow, he was in that jacket. We suspected that he slept in it, too. Now one day it rained in a Biblical way - proper sheets of the stuff and everyone resembled a drowned rat in about five seconds, including Pascal and his beloved leather skin.

We pointed out that he could buy some rather marvellous leather conditioner and sealant, which would not only preserve his lovely jacket, but make it stop smelling like wet dog in the future. And stop him looking like an abandoned chamois leather that had been lost down a sewer pipe. He scuttled off with a smile on his face and we went back to drinking tea and doing the crossword puzzle. Days later, he re-emereged with an even bigger smile on his face, and suspiciously dark and somewhat blotchy patches on his jacket.

“Pascal,” my equally dear friend Russell asked. “You did let the jacket dry out before you put the sealant on… didn’t you?” This is the world I’ve been occupying for the last couple of weeks. After the rains and the snows of late December through January, the shed took a battering and ended up as something of a soggy, waterlogged mess. I still can’t do anything with the floor as it hasn’t quite dried out yet. But finally at the start of last week, the rest of the shed was dry enough that I could make my first move, and with Satan the Spider as my companion, I got to work with a brush and a pot of magnolia-coloured paint from our donated haul.

“Isn’t it a bit premature for paint?” I hear you cry. I’m trying to get as many waterproof layers between me, my cup of tea, and the outside elements, is why. So, in true time-honoured nuclear fallout shelter style I’m making the inside gleam with a snowy glow to give the first coat, along with some sealant everywhere I can see daylight peeking through the woodwork. I had to build up the edges of the floor as well where the rain had made it collapse a little bit, but it’s looking good and tight now.

So I have sealed and painted and dusted and nailed. Next up is the pool lining, so it’s onwards with the staple gun! Phase Two awaits!