Sandy, Bedfordshire: The gulls had changed their behaviour, as if they had got wise to the futility of foraging
After the first frosts of autumn, the reek of onions: eau de Bedfordshire. Six weeks after the pert green tops wrinkled to withering shades of orange and sagged to the ground like a deflated fire hose, the stink was rising but the plants were no nearer being picked. Swollen beetroot-red bulbs half-heaved from the soil, tempting greedy fingers to cup and pluck them out of the earth. Nobody had come to hoik them out. Why the delay?
A farmer by eye only, without rights or responsibilities, I’d followed these crops all growing season long. The adjoining white onion field had been harvested in dry September, rural mudlarks stealing in at dawn to glean the aftermath, one brazen fellow pedalling off with a full carrier bag on each handlebar.
