Size Doesn't Matter: Until Now

I have never been particularly competetive: never one of those boys who had to get their fastest, throw farthest, or get 'highest up the wall'. Perhaps that explains why I have never quite understood the desire to grow giant vegetables. It is usually men, who guard their gourds by night, or feed their leeks with secret mixtures. You wouldn't imagine that a horticultural show could be quite such a testosterone laced affair; but when one's wares are laid bare on the white cloth of a display table, the atmosphere crackles with tension and masculine swaggering, as flat capped adversaries let their onions do the talking.

This year Mrs C sprinkled a packet of mixed wild flower seeds over a flower bed at the rear of Croft Hall. One of the resultant surprise contents of the packet was a Great Mullein or Arron's Rod, as it is colloquially known. All summer we have watched as a tiny seedling errupted in spectacular vertical fashion into a giant spike of yellow flowers. This afternoon I wanted to know how big was my rod; applying my Stanley steel tape to its side I measured 2.8 metres - surely I have the biggest rod in Saddleworth, maybe even the world.

Don't listen to them; size matters; and mine is the biggest.