The Good Life Michele Hewitson
Neighbourhood relations suffer as a newcomer enters the running for best bean.
In the weeks before the Masterton A&P show, things got heated. Insults were flung across the sheep paddocks. Me: “I’m going to knock you off your bean pole, Queen Bean.”
Carolyn the Shepherdess, aka Queen Bean: “You’re never going to do anything with those vegetables.”
I was never going to admit it, but I feared she was right. I went into the vege patch and looked, gloomily, at the prospects. There weren’t any. The tomatoes weren’t ripe. The beans were as bent as a shepherd’s crook.
Competition beans have to be as straight as a soldier standing on parade. There must be a trick to this. Lead weights tied to the bottoms, suggested Miles the sheep farmer, who must have done something very bad in a previous life; he is Carolyn’s boss.
I did have flowers: zinnias and dahlias. To annoy Carolyn, I began signing my emails to her Miss Zinnia, 2018. Pah. I was getting ahead of myself. She was entering zinnias.
The morning of the day entries had to be delivered, an anonymous phone message was left (hello Miles!): Carolyn’s beans were rubbish; I should consider entering mine.
I had four straight-ish beans. Four tomatoes came ripe. No trusses, the entry form stated, sternly. The conditions for entry might have been penned by a headmistress in a Victorian boarding school for wayward girls – an institution that might have done Carolyn some good. They come in a stapled A4 leaflet. On the inside of the cover is an entire page of these instructions, many in BOLD. You have to be bold, if not foolhardy, to dare enter.
It doesn’t explicitly say anything about cheating, so I am unable to dob in a certain person who went out in the night hoping to pinch a particular bergamot for her herb arrangement. She didn’t actually filch the thing, but only because “you wouldn’t believe how many people are about at 9.30 at night”.
I was supposed to be entering Red, Miles’s kelpie, in Best Pet Dog, but we got the wobbles. She doesn’t like other dogs. I don’t think there is a prize for Best Dog Biting Another Dog. Also, she had a date with her new boyfriend, having arrived at what that Victorian headmistress might have called “an interesting condition”.
What a shame we didn’t have a terrier to enter in the terrier race. The terrier race is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. There is always at least one terrier that goes backwards. Last year, in the final, the dogs saw a rabbit and leapt the fence to tear after it. They were all disqualified, but protests were lodged. The end result was that they were all awarded a prize. I don’t know what happened to the rabbit.
Meanwhile, back at the Home Industries pavilion, a certain novice won. Ta-da! Three firsts: Best Climbing Beans, Best 3 Medium Zinnia,
Best Dahlia Under 115mm. She also got a second in Dahlia from 115-155mm and two third prizes in Tomatoes and Dahlia under 115mm. Not bad for a beginner.
There was a lot of strutting about in the pavilion, mostly by me. Oh, look, there’s Carolyn. We had never seen Carolyn with her hair done. It was a big day.
She may even have been wearing lipstick.
“Best zinnias! Best climbing beans!” I crowed. She had won best Dwarf Beans, again. She may also have won what she claimed was the “biggest trophy” – though it looked like a salad bowl to me – for Best Overall Fruit and Vege points. She seemed to think this trumped my wins. She emailed later: “Any fool can win the runner bean competition – they hang down and, of course, will grow straight. By comparison, growing straight dwarf beans is both an art and a science …”
In the interests of harmony in the sheep paddocks, I’m going to graciously call it even. But next year, I’m going to take that salad bowl off her. She’d better get growing.
There was a lot of strutting about in the pavilion, mostly by me.