Community 3: Losing the Plot

I found a community allotment called 'The Lost Plot' on the 'Action For Sustainable Living' website. They're in Chorlton and I thought what better way to find community and maybe get some free veg into the bargain. They said they were there every Sunday so the week before last I wandered over in search of the lost plot......
I could see it through the high spiky pallisade fencing surrounding the allotments and recognised it from the photos on the website but there was no one there. I shouted to a woman in a wooley hat who was on the next plot and she said she'd never heard of the lost plot but let me in so that I could have an ask around. It's a massive site and has central compost heaps where I found several hairy gardeners with wheelbarrows. They hadn't heard of the lost plot either but at the words 'community allotment' said 'Arrrhhhh,' in the manner of a Bristolian Pirate who's spent a lot of years in Yorkshire, 'You'll be meaning the TOIMEWASTERS!' and fell about chortling through their beards before pointing back to the way I'd come saying 'it's in the corner - the one with all the TOILETS' and went back to laughing.
I wandered back and the lady who had let me in said that she did know Josh and Helen who run it but didn't know it as the Lost Plot. I mooched around, took some photos of the cob oven and the toilets and went to fly my kite.
The next week I emailed them and got an enthusiastic reply from Helen so I took a break from homework on Sunday afternoon to try again. They were there this time with two more allotmenters - Clair and ermmm...bloke with a blue coat. All very nice. I helped out moving some clay (left over from the oven building) and clearing an area for a polytunnel they've got coming and took a wheelbarrow of weeds to the compost area. They all seemed very nice and I shall definitely be going back but not this Sunday as it's Chinese New Year.
On Monday the spokes http://www.ibikemcr.org.uk/spokes.htm reconvened after the christmas break for the first acrobalance session. I had two major breakthroughs - a split second of actually balancing on my hands in a handstand - I mean I actually felt that I was actually balanced for the first time ever, and after weeks of Owen telling us to isolate the part of our body we were trying to spin the hula hoop around I did - and it worked! (I should try this listening thing more often). Also we discovered that J-Dog can actually get up on my shoulders really easily but that we're still all really rubbish at rock and roll dancing.