"No legislation has been passed to outlaw traditional units for allotments"

It seems that Whitehall bullies are trying to get allotment committees to switch to metric measurements. Presumably they're doing this at the behest of the EU. But the British Weights and Measures Association is writing to local newspapers to inform people that...

"We want to assure councils and allotment holders that Mr Johnson is wrong. No legislation has been passed to outlaw traditional units for allotments. When drafting metric regulations in the mid-1990s, the government exempted ‘transactions by specification’, of which allotment contracts are an example. Rods, poles, perches, yards and lugs have existed for hundreds of years in Britain, and we hope that councils and allotment holders continue to use them for centuries to come." — JOHN GARDNER Director, British Weights and Measures Association.

Gone to pot

Well well... Hartshill is in the news today for 'allotment' gardening, although of a very dodgy kind: "Police seize more than £20k worth of cannabis after raiding Hartshill business". I quite often walk up through Hartshill Park to flex the hip, do a bit of shopping at the Tesco mini-store there and post some letters, and I'd noticed the partial re-emergence of the very dodgy looking spare-tires and supposed car-repair place, which looked rather out-of-place. As I walked past it I once or twice got some hard stares from the guys who seemed to be running it, though usually there was no-one to be seen out at the front of the car entrance. Now I see the possible reason for their wariness.

Penkhull Wassail 2015: two new photo galleries

Andy White followed the procession and performances for the inaugural Penkhull Wassail 2015 thoughout, with his camera, and now has two excellent sets of photos (one and two) online at Facebook.

Wassail at the Honeywall: video

My little video of last night's Wassail, at the Honeywall and Beehive pub section of the procession, very near the allotments...

Penkhull New Year Wassail

Pictures from the Penkhull New Year Wassail, with the Domesday Morris processing a crowd down from Penkhull to the Beehive and the White Lion pubs, on the Honeywall, where they performed in the pub yards...