I was enjoying Mystic Veg's musings on the horticultural horrors committed by celebrity gardeners, when he happened to mention being brought up on Fitton Hill estate in Oldham. Fitton Hill still sprawls across the east side of the town and, like many similar estates, struggles to shake the social ills that have plagued them since they were built in the sixties. Meant to be their panacea they have proved, in many cases, to be their exacerbation. I was born 100 yards from Fitton Hill's borders, round the corner on Honeywell Lane and it may be that I have a bit of Fitton Hill in my genes; for Mystic waxed lyrical about the garden sculpture of his youth that consisted of sundry car parts in the front gardens of council homes. Now, take a look at Mrs C's fabulously creative solution to the fact that we had used all our pots and planters when it came to this year's salad leaves:It's the wheel of a Renault Laguna that has been cluttering our garage for months and is now full of lovely nutty Rocket leaves. Of course I should never have expected our sons to see the true creativity, nor the ecologically sound recycling sense - Matt's reaction consisted of a consideration of wheel's worth on Ebay - but they weren't complaining when Mrs C dished up a salad with more Rocket than Cape Canaveral. Ah, the short sightedness of youth.
