The day the Circus came to town...

I was at home minding my own business - actually wondering what to do with another harvest of tomatoes, apples and pears - when my phone rang. On the other end was a guy call Luke and he ran a circus which had pitched in Chestnuts Field which is next to our allotments. His circus was part of our beloved Council's Year of Culture: Waltham Forest is London's first Borough of Culture and the circus was going to be around for a couple of weeks. The trouble was the Council hadn't provided the circus with a water supply. The Council, which has a huge fountain in front of the Town Hall only yards away from Chestnuts Field, had the bright idea of giving Luke my name. They had cleverly worked out that as we were an allotment we'd have water! Shame they hadn't used that  same creativity in providing Luke with water.

Anyway Luke asked if we could help. I didn't think we had free standing taps so I checked with our on site "do it all man" Greg. Nope, we have water tanks scattered around the site but not taps - deliberately so otherwise people would hook up a hose pipe and run up a massive water bill. If, however, they had a pump Luke could take the water from the tanks. That, however, wouldn't work since they needed clean water and tank water wasn't. I said sorry and ended the conversation.

Luke phoned early the next morning. He'd been in touch with Thames Water and been sent a map which showed where a  tap could be attached. It wasn't too clear from the map as it looked as it could be situated at the corner of our site or in the adjacent car park which belonged to the local fitness centre.  I agreed to meet Luke at  10:30 at the allotment entrance and we'd have a look.

The map pointed to a very overgrown part of our allotment right by a small brook which ran along the border of our allotment site. Luke had brought along the circus's plumber - no, I didn't know they had them - and he waded into the long grass looking for said tap spot. At the same time one of the allotmenteers was having a new shed delivered and a couple of other plot holders turned up. So soon we had a team hunting down the tap spot.

The fitness centre has a large swimming pool. I suggested to Luke that maybe they had a few taps going spare and as I knew the manager we might try our luck with him. Unfortunately neither he nor his deputy was on site but a very nice women said she'd phone him and see if the circus could run a very long hose from the centre to the tent. They never got back.

Meanwhile, another allotment holder was with the plumber marching along the allotments to the far gate where he thought there might be a Thames Water inspection cover and a connection. One of our plot holder's house backed onto the allotments and I went round to see if he had an outside tap to which a hose could be attached - but he was out.

At the original "dig" a massive leak and a connection had been discovered - except it had been damaged, hence the leak, and was useless. I went to my allotment and then it struck me like a bolt of  lightning - I had a tap on my plot! I screamed, shouted, jumped up and down and waved my hands in the air before sensibly phoning Luke. "Yes" said the circus plumber "it'll do".

Then the allotmenteer who was having his new shed delivered came over and said "I think there's another tap over the other side of the allotment. Sure enough sitting in a neat shaded area was a tap with a hosepipe attachment in situ. To (big) top it all the circus was in the field no more than 20 metres away. In no time at all the circus had flowing water from our allotment.

I was so delighted with the outcome, despite my stupidity in forgetting I had a tap on my plot, that I gave the circus a load of....tomatoes to go with the green chillies another plot holder had given them.  In addition we've notified Thames water about the leak and they're coming to investigate.

All's well that ends well. And all because our Council couldn't be arsed.