The Good Life: ultra-spaf Felicity Kendal and bumbling middle class peasant Richard Briers.

This little challenge of ours seems to be taking a rummage through my subconscious because once again I’ve ended up drinking in an unusual place and realising the day after that I was outdoors. I’m like Ray Mears answering the call of the wild, only without a fishing rod and with strong ale.

Last evening I went to my allotment after work to drag some timber around, hoik spadefuls of earth from one patch to another and strenuously do whatever I could do to banish the soul-haunting misery of office life. For eight hours a day I have a window to the entire world right in front of me but I’ve never seen anything that compares to a single moment in the breeze, sun falling over the back of your neck, waist deep in piles and piles of horse shite and mud.

Earlier in the day I’d spent an awkward amount of time stood in the beer aisle of Morrisons weighing up whether to take a bottle down to the allotment. It crossed the two minute barrier in which I’ve normally just picked four bottles at random, and forced me to move to the wine section for a look even though I’d no intention at all of buying wine. I just felt a bit daft staring at beer for more than two minutes without picking anything up. After a moment I circled for a brief disinterested look at the lagers and then back to the beers for strike two. The problem was that the social rules of allotment drinking are as hazy and undefined as whether you’re allowed to jokingly whistle in appreciation of your cousin when she turns up at a party looking the bee’s knees. Is it okay? Does everyone get that your whistle is platonic and not a mating call, or does her husband still feel a flicker of competitiveness kick in? Nobody knows.

Thus it came to pass that I stood for quite some time in that aisle pondering whether cracking open an ale among the turnips would be perfectly fine or if I’d be ostracized like a man who’d battered a sheep to death. There was no definitive moment that swung it either way and made me pick one up – I just started feeling really daft for still being in that aisle and needed to get out of there. A bottle of Holt’s Humdinger was on offer and sounded like the right kind of beer to go with a bit of graft. You know the kind of image I was getting – me, sweating on the farm, earning an honest day’s crust and quenching the thirst of graft with a bottle of beer, and then oh, what’s that on the horizon, is that the farmer’s daughter? She looks pleased to see me, out here in these lonely fields, far from prying eyes…

I came to in the tinned vegetable section and realised if I am ever to have children, I must stop romanticising a world where I am a Victorian farm-hand bit-of-rough to a well-spoken English rose.

Science fact: fresh mint is little-known as a stimulant more potent than amphetamine * caffeine * Kris Akabusi.

Later, down on the allotment, I felt that weight of social expectation in action. It seemed as if I’d smuggled some dangerous contraband on to the plot that I could not reveal. Eventually, after sitting for a while surveying the scene, I took the bottle from the bag, opened it and left it on the floor for a little while. Nothing much happened, but I could feel the eyes on me already. They were all looking at me, weren’t they? The inner dialogue kicked in. “You’ve broken the rules, Richard. You’ve left the pack.”

Shaking my head to wake me from the grip of this silly fear, I took a spade and went to work. I felt as close to a Victorian farm-hand as Michael Winner does but hey, isn’t that what fantasies are for? Every so often when the aches began to kick in I’d stop, have a drink and put the bottle back down, conveniently out of view next to the shed. No point attracting unnecessary attention, surely.

Drinking on the allotment is possible, but I wouldn’t call it something I felt comfortable doing. This forces me to question where I really stand in terms of going along with the group and playing by the social rules that dominate everything we do. Truth be told, I work by exactly the same principles as everyone who has the normal functioning social senses – I pick up what will be frowned upon and decide whether what I want to do is really worth the hassle of dealing with that disapproval from the group. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t – that’s all it boils down to for me rather than needing some character analysis. Having a beer on the allotment was worth it to me, so I went for it, but I wouldn’t start drinking at a festival at 9am while everyone else is having tea – I’d feel uncomfortable.

This leads me nicely back to my old favourite, pubs. I think they work because the social rules expect you to drink in there – everything is understood implicitly so the serious English business of this socialising malarky can begin without hinderence or fear of any awkwardness. And so, I conclude, next time I fancy a Humdinger I’ll finish up at the allotment first and wander over to the pub.

The day: 11.
The drink: Holt’s Humdinger.
The place: my allotment.
Positives: renewed my faith in the great English public house; moved a good amount of earth.
Negatives: forced to confront my value system; beer was barely noticeable; missed the sociable atmosphere of a pub.
Conclusion: drinking while farming will not find me a wife.

allotment · farming · Humdinger · Joseph Holt · peer pressure · social drinking · vegetables · Witton