Full steam ahead. Flasks of hot coffee steaming in the wind. Gloves on, boots on—we’re going to crack this.
Wasteland into an allotment. Our own food. A shared goal, a shared vision.
Rotavator powered. Wheelbarrows ready. Shovels and forks going.
Three, two, one—let’s go.
We lift, we move. Pull out brambles. Clear shit from the 80s embedded in the ground. Inch by inch the soil appears.
Rotavator on. One pushing, vibrating away, followed by two more. Large stones out. Roots out. Into wheelbarrows.
A team of five reclaiming a space lost to nature.
Corroded metal. Old logs. Fallen branches. Plastic bags. Beer bottles. Corrugated iron.
STOP.
What the… hello there.
Fat, plump belly. Orange, little black dots. Silky olive skin. Eyes closed, playing dead—startled by the commotion.
We hold her. Not him. Google gives us answers.
As she warms in our hand, beautiful, shocking golden eyes open. Full of fear. Motionless, but alive.
Oh—there’s more here.
We huddle. Our find in hand, and under a log—another, and another. Four, five, six, seven… twelve, eighteen—we lose track.
A colony. All sizes. Boys, girls, babies. Sharing the warmth of a log.
We put her down. Replace the log.
Change of plan. Change of place.
And now we move differently. More cautious. One lifts, one checks. We carry on.
The allotment takes shape—but not as we planned.
Not a big empty space.
A ring of growing, with wild in the middle.
Newt island.