Seed

Friday 5 May:

My runner beans began to poke through the compost today. I reckon each bean makes a plant that gives around 80 pods - say 8 beans to the pod = enough to make 640 plants next year. Or let's say 320 if we eat half and sow the rest. Pretty good going, either way. Soon be enough to plant an acre... then 320 acres the next year and so on and on. The whole world could live on the damn things in no time.

The electrician came today, too, to mend the hot water system. He's about 40 and last time he came I discovered that I knew his father from when we were kids - he was apprenticed to my Grandad as a plumber. Quite a big coincidence - this was back in the City and what must be the odds against us both moving out here and running into each other?

Now then... my great grandfather, a factory hand, had 3 sons in around 1880. He made them all learn a trade.. one a printer, one a painter and decorator and the other, (my grandfather), a plumber. They all prospered and founded their own businesses. I've often thought about how much I owe to the old geezer's foresight because I've benefitted from the attitudes, and money, that came down through the generations to me. He sowed a kind of a seed. And if he hadn't, even the electrician who came to me today may well not have had the chance to learn the trade he's doing now, more than a century later.

It must be some kind of natural law. Probably what the miracle of the loaves and fishes is getting at. Things just multiply. So be good.