"...a change in the heart of things"

Skimmed  by the bulldozers - the site of the new Victoria Jubilee Allotments in 2004

The soil spread by the developer, when re-creating the space for growing things, is acknowledged problematic. Didn’t Susan Green from Douglas Road, other side of Handsworth Park, phone me the day the site opened for inspection by those who wanted allotments?
“No way am I taking up a plot, Simon! The ground's full of rubbish. There’s dry clay just below the topsoil.”
My enthusiasm overrode her carping, but she had a point. The site's in a wonderful place, a great green space under two miles from the centre of Birmingham, marching beside Handsworth Park, whose trees provide its skyline, backdrop and, when the wind blows, sounds that override the city's rumble. In some parts the topsoil, such as it was, got bulldozed back into place, over the heavy-plant-compacted ground of the builder’s work yard. Ralph’s dug down several feet on his plot, broken up the hard surface down there, and, with pick and shovel, removed a ton of hardcore so his plot can drain. Our plot, next to the Park fence, is out of that zone, but since I’ve been working it I’ve removed the remains of the previous gardeners’ equipment, fragments of brick and slab, parts of greenhouses  - frames and broken glass - wire, pipes, guttering and plastic bags – skimmed by the bulldozer into a stew of soil, wood and shattered sheds that sat like a dyke, a good 15 feet high, 80 yards long, squatting for nearly a decade behind the terrace houses along Holly Road. I saw it through a friend’s upstair’s window.
“One day” I assured him “there’ll be a cricket pitch there and beyond that allotments”
“I’ll believe it”

For years I peered through a barrier as the developer's workers dug over the site

Of that agreement, only the allotments have so far arrived. The ground for them was laid out by sifting out the trunks of a couple of ripped up sycamores, and bulldozing the pile back into place across the north west corner of the site – 80 plots divided by gravel and drained paths.

Then in 2008 the layout began

The surface was raked of its most obvious obstructions and allowed to sit and grow weeds for a couple more years...

Weeds were spreading and the site was still not open in 2009

... until in June 2010 the Victoria Jubilee Allotments went public. Lin and I chose our plot in an ideal spot, adjoining a tap, near the remaining hedge, a gently sloping aspect down to Handsworth Park for whose restoration we and many others had lobbied over many years. I couldn’t have been happier, enjoying the extra pleasure of knowing that these allotments might never have been but for the prolonged local campaign I’d led to gain a city negotiated Section 106 Agreement that had the developer, who’d wanted the whole site for building, passing two thirds of it back to the public domain for allotments and playing fields - the latter still to come, despite an agreement made in 2004. Thereafter the challenge has been mine. John Martin teased me gently “Simon! You’ve been excited by the idea of working an allotment”
By 2013 I was arriving back from a time away, reluctant even to go out to the plot. It’s not just that the soil left us by the developer was so intractable. Far from it.  A few gardeners on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments have been producing successful harvests since they started here. I am not one of them. I have struggled to turn the 'idea' that John spoke of into a properly worked garden producing food that Lin and I can cook and eat at home or pass around the family. There’s a sturdy shed with the tools I need. Paths. There are fruit trees, and of course Gill’s beehive has a home here. I’ve won a few crops – broad beans, runner beans, potatoes, spinach. But they’ve arrived in desultory ways.
"How can I prepare something with your veg unless you warn me?" Lin complains
Other enthusiastic applicants for plots have left after a brief struggle with the ground, with couch grass and the latest annual weeds. I have no intention of ‘giving up’. The 'idea' keeps me going. I’ve argued with Ziggi.
“I’m generations from the land. My ancestors were city people from the start of the industrial revolution. We don’t do ‘back to the land”
She disagrees. We were at Dukes in St.James. She said she was as removed from the land as I.
“It’s wanting to cook and eat things you’ve grown”
We're both right. You must know how to grow; know how and when to crop and store and you must know how to cook and enjoy the eating.
What matters is that perseverance and a decision to work harder on the soil last autumn has marked a change. I've abandoned - at least for now - the idea of cheap home grown veg and spent money that would be beyond imitating the ideal envisaged in the 1908 Allotments and Smallholdings Act*  passed to help a working man feed his family in the city from an 'allotted plot'.
I've invested in manure. I've bought top-soil. I've paid our helper from Handsworth Helping Hands - Taj - to concentrate on digging and weeding, digging and weeding, digging and weeding; adding in the manure as he goes and removing the larger stones, piling them at the back of the plot or using them to edge paths. I - no 'we' - are beginning to get some degree of farming on this 200 square metre piece of ground. Even far away from it, I dream about the plot. I imagine seeds germinating, saplings blossoming, seedlings, if they survive the pigeons, settling in to grow. While Gill waits to find another swarm, I've worked around the empty beehive and replaced John's slightly shaky net structure...

...and in the last few days of England planted and planted - potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, spinach, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts. I dragged furrows. Laid topsoil there and bedded my young plants and seeds in it, watered them in and added another thin layer of new topsoil, friable as a nursery play garden's, and then raked a small layer of the cruder earth over the top, chatting to them the while like an idiot, keeping an eye out for Oscar watching at the steel fence for passing dogs to growl at; bitches to pursue via one of the opening's in the fence I've failed to block.

In you go, darlin's

At Luton in the night we waited for a dawn flight to Greece. I'd slept on the coach to the airport missing tedious stops on the way and now we chatted and did dopey things to pass the time.

At last we're in the sky, reading, snoozing, snacking, in the compact spaces of budget flight until we're 'aware of the horizon beginning to strain at the rim of the world: aware of islands coming out of the darkness to meet us... '

Karaburun Peninsula from our Easyjet to Corfu

 ...descending beside the Albanian mountains west of Vlorë, hardly a hundred miles north of the green island and beloved Greece where I kneel to touch the concrete half pretending a problem with balance.

In hours we're at work again, cutting the greenery that blocks the path below the house, tidying the small garden, and - at last - cutting out rotten sections of the wooden balcony...

...straightening the floor in the small bedroom upstairs where some 'lazy idiot' - we know who - had laid a chunk of flooring grade chipboard with no cross beams between joists...

...so that it sagged the width of the small room. We sawed out the chipboard in two sections to extricate its edges from the wall plaster; put in cross beams, fixed them with angles screws to the joists while resting on battens I'd nailed to the joists. Screwing down the curled up edges of the chipboard, we removed its sag; all this before we can add varnished skirting of wood recovered from a dismembered palette waiting in the garden.

Rotting balcony wood replaced

*There are plans to remove certain statutory protection of allotments, by giving local councils more 'responsibility' when it comes to being blamed for implementing the new national planning policy framework:   The full list of secondary legislation, orders and regulations (with commentary provided by the DCLG) that the department intends to abolish or amend is as follows:

1. The Small Holdings and Allotments Regulations 1919 Remove. This required councils to get the consent of the CLG Secretary of State for certain actions in relation to allotment land, such as if they want to purchase allotment land or lease allotment land to an association or lease allotment land for more than a year at time.  It is not considered that these regulations have effect any longer and this will help clean up the statute book.  

Making tea on the allotment

I begin to get a sense the soil on Plot 14 is improving. Before Christmas I invested in manure and topsoil. Since then Taj has been helping dig and weed out...

...the white rhizomes of couch grass that spread just below the surface of the soil, extracting nourishment, we remove by spade and hand; pile at the back of the plot. I'd not pride myself on tilth of the kind you'd find on Vanley's plot, but that's my goal. It's an endless process, made more arduous by the now well known proliferation of stones ...

...on all VJA plots where once a mighty prehistoric river ran under tropical sun. These primordial water-smoothed stones are being extracted and piled up, in some cases used to edge paths. I feel nearly as optimistic with experience as, when, in ignorance, I took on the plot four years ago.

Four years ago

In between, there have been times when I've procrastinated about even going out to the site, though it's hardly five minutes on my bicycle. The other day I brought out a kettle and camping gas stove - the means of making tea on site.

My new kettle

Taj met me. He usually comes on foot, often jogging, but occasionally on his new small bicycle. We continued working. I'd used the Handsworth Helping Hands van to deliver a water butt someone had thrown in one of our street clearance skips. It needed was a tap which I bought on eBay. Hoses are forbidden for watering plots but you're allowed to use them to fill a water butt. Almost surprising  to be thinking about water, given previous weeks of rain, but of a sudden it had become warm and sunny. With the van on the plot we set about clearing and loading up rubbish left by another departing plot holder whose dreams of building a summer house out of old timber had foundered along with the rest of his plans to grow vegetables. With the semi-rotting wood, went sacks of plastic detritus, a rusting water filled tool box, a grimy dented electric kettle (did he think there was power on site?), bottles and cans.
"A cup of tea, Taj?"
"No. I have orange"
The kettle whistled. I applied myself to mug, tea-bag, milk -  in a wine bottle - and sat back in the sun, a bowl of water for Oscar.

We gazed on the ground in front of us. Taj had been digging at the top of the plot and I at the bottom. More rows of potatoes were in, each nested in a handful of topsoil, beside two rows of onions.
"It's looking good, Taj"

"Now for cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower. But I must find a way to protect the young plants from the pigeons. Bastards!"
We worked until 2.00. I peeled off layers of clothes under the warmth of the sun; had two more breaks for tea and some chocolate fingers, melty. A rhythm of sorts. Taj tidied the paths adding edging bricks and lazying slabs I'd recovered from a skip last year. My broad beans are showing. I'm not sure about the state of the onions that have sprouted. They look the same as they did three months ago. I dug up the last of the Jerusalem artichokes, taking some home for eating, replanting the rest in two rows.
Gill came out to check the beehive she's kept on the plot the last two years.

The bees which had lost their queen and died off last winter had made it through this winter, but after Gill had done her inspection she said "They're all dead. I think it's because the weather got better a month or so ago. They started going out. Then we had this rain. Bees hate wet'"
She held up a comb she's taking for analysis. It showed a grey patch like a tumour on an X-ray. "That's the damp patch. They brought in the rain when they returned to the hive"
She'll seek another swarm for April. I said I was going to rebuild the hive's surround; make it less vulnerable to wind.
"It's nothing you're doing wrong, Simon."
*** *** ***
I took Oliver to see the allotment. He wanted to hold Oscar's lead. We processed down our road; I holding Oliver's reins, he led by Oscar, until we got to the VJA site when I let Oliver take over...

...watching he didn't snatch at Oscar's lead and that Oscar wasn't going to pull him over, They seemed to have a working relationship.
The departing plot holder next to me, during his 6 month occupation, cropped the hedge that bisects the site - a useful wind break running most of the length of the site. He left the cuttings uncollected.
Allotments demonstrate gaps between between intention and action. Other plots near ours reveal similar chasms. Being more familiar than I was three years ago with the difference between an idea and an action I can sympathise. It would be good to have a successful gardener next to me instead of two more or less fallow plots on either side. Oliver was as intrigued by the shed as I, wanting to shut himself inside, burrowing under the wheel barrow.

My grandson in the shed

I imagine living long enough to ask him if he recalls being in that shed or will he construct his early memories out of grown-ups' anecdotes and images? How much have I've made up the story of my childhood  - 'a sleep and a forgetting'.

Sat on Gypsy at Mill End  - the story of my childhood

Then we walked on to Handsworth Park, having this favourite place almost to ourselves. A sturdy west wind blew down the pond, a calling wind streaming the spring bud willows. Now and then a cloud gap allowed dazzling light onto the ruffled water.

Even I was tired when we finally got home. Oliver sat at our kitchen table, gradually nodding into sleep, a rusk in one hand.
"You and Oscar have worn him out" said Lin

*** *** ***
From New York where they've been in a museum my half-sister Oriana sends me an anticipatory e-card, a wedge of Oldenberg Cake

*** *** ***
On Thursday evening I'm taking the minutes for a committee meeting of Handsworth Helping Hands. We're hassled by errands and news of difficulties in other people's lives; a distant friend made blind by a series of strokes; another diagnosed with only months to live; another braving the ordeal of chemo, and a sudden wave of sadness for the absence of my mum. What I meant by a 'calling wind', the way the rushing sound, like a big waterfall, like distant surf, reminds me of other occasions with the same note, seeming to stimulate memory as varnish brings out an oil painting, a fragment of infant sensation when I was preoccupied with the green of the grass around me, happily alone insulated, left to myself, and somewhere a small aeroplane wandering in the sky, a sound undulating with the gusting of wind in the trees, independent of place and time, abrupt, a sound from heaven.

The earth turns towards the sun

When we in our species' infancy supposed a personal agent, as I'm inclined to even now until thought overrides instinct, so this gusting wind in the trees ...

Our washing line in Ano Korakiana

...that blows the washing dry, that I feel calling was - is - a being, as is the sun rising and setting, and the earth, giving increase.

Jimoa, John, Linda, Mike and Charles - Handsworth Helping Hands

*** *** ***
My university is kindly and gently saying goodbye:

Dear Simon. As you may be aware, it is INLOGOV’s 50th Anniversary soon and as part of this celebration we are seeking to put together a ’50 Faces of INLOGOV’. This will feature 50 people who have been involved in the life and work  of INLOGOV (both in the past and present) over the last 50 years.  We would very much like to have you as one of our 50 Faces and I am writing to enquire whether you would be willing to be featured?
We are aiming to put together some information together about each person and I if you would like to be featured, please could provide me with the following information to use in this context:-
1)      Two/three sentences to describe your current role/career
2)      Two/three sentences on how being involved in INLOGOV as a student, staff member, client etc has helped you
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me in the first instance.
Kind regards, Rachael

Rachael Pearson, PA to Catherine Staite, Director, INLOGOV
Institute of Local Government Studies

Dear Rachael, I hope this will do. Let me know this has arrived and if Catherine would like it modified - with subtractions or additions.

1. Two/three sentences to describe your current role/career

Inlogov is a gateway to a world that’s engaged me for forty years. Despite intense pressures – political and financial – I’ve been allowed to remain an ‘amateur’, encouraged, by successive directors and invaluable colleagues, to balance writing, research and face-to-face training and development with practitioners, never having to put an academic career ahead of a shared fascination with studying, supporting and working with local government practitioners. In retreat from campus I remain a community activist with enough experience of government to make trouble in sensible ways.

2) Two/three sentences on how being involved in INLOGOV as a student, staff member, client etc has helped you

I’ve been a tourist in my own land; finding routes by train, ferry and bicycle to seminars and consultancies between Kirkwall and Newquay, Barnsley and Greenwich, roaming deep countryside and mean city streets, working with all flavours of councillors and the diverse professions that strive to serve them. My research focus - a thirty year preoccupation - has involved capturing on video, with their permission, the conversations of members and managers at the source of tension between politics and administration where government is made. The institute's international reach has brought invitations to assist in the same exploration in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia.

I attach a pictures that is reasonably flattering:

Best wishes

Simon

Simon Baddeley, Visiting Lecturer, INLOGOV, University of Birmingham 

Leaving Darlington "The seminar on scrutiny skills for councillors went well, I think"

Order

The smell of mildew was increasing inside my smallest shed. Everything is so jumbled up in there, it’s taking me ages simply to assemble the tools I need for a job.

It's worse than I realised

“That shed’s just far too small for everything that's got to go in it”

“But I can’t bring myself to pay for another, Lin. Get rid of the old one? Assemble another? I just haven't the time”

“Suit yourself”

I began emptying everything out. No rain for a while. Things can stay out overnight. It was clear the shed floor and lower planks were sodden; rotten through.

“Just take it all out. Put in a new floor” says Lin

These jobs are such an opportunity to think about other things like, wasn't it around now that Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens, or a century and a third since Wordsworth wrote about remembering childhood, and, when I was two, the start of the Battle of Monte Cassino in which our Polish neighbour fought; the monastery - a restored building we glimpsed above us from the back end of a busy fast train from Rome to Bari seven years ago. It was Easter, we couldn't get seats, sat on our suitcases looking out at the passing rails through our carriage's vertical glass back door. It was 15th of March, the Ides, an evening twenty years ago, Jack, my stepfather, died in Dorchester.

Without thinking how to do it, I set about with my splitting maul, wielding it carefully in the confines of the shed. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Out came a pile of semi-rotted deal to be stacked in a recycling box, followed by four barrows of damp earth gathered from the back of the shed, the main source of damp. I scraped back to the garden wall with a trowel; spread two spare sacks of sand and pebble to cover the mix of brick and slabs on the floor and drove out to my allotment with the HHH van and carried back two hefty pallets that weren’t doing much. One fitted neatly on the gravel. I cut a third off the other with a handsaw and slipped it into the remaining gap, nailing a sheet of roofing felt to the wall struts to cover the gaps at the foot of the shed. The shelves, wiped with bleach, went back in. I began disposing, sorting and restocking the shed. The stuff outside, minus bags of waste, and scrap and excess tools for charity and items for the allotment, begins to go back inside; approaching order of a sort where was confusion. The musty smell is gone, part dispersed by several days without rain.   

*** *** ***
The Japanese quince in our front garden and the cherry behind it are blossoming. But too many of the front gardens in our street have been cleared for car parking. I pointed out the blossom to Oliver on a babysitting day; also snow drops, crocuses and daffodils. It's O's second spring. I imagine his brain taking photos, embedding colours. 

Japonica and Cherry in our front garden

Saturday round teatime. House warm. Amy and Linda chatting. My grandson sleeps on my knee. I fidgeted. He fidgeted and he slept on. What i wonder does he dream in this time when he hardly knows the difference between dreaming and waking and when he wakes cannot tell us what he dreamed.

Freud claimed small children dream straightforwardly of the fulfillment of wishes - the 'dream day'. In grown-ups the situation's more confused, their dreams subjected to distortion in the light of common day, disguised by a stew of unconscious impressions and wishes. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

When Oliver awoke he cried inconsolably for a while. Neither Linda, his nana, nor our daughter could comfort him. He held out his arms to return to me, where he continued crying. Our Amy said "He often does that when he wakes suddenly."
Was it the abrupt difference between being asleep and awake, or is it teeth coming through? Later I turned on the computer and looked at ourselves in Photo Booth. 

*** *** ***
At last I've been able to get out to our allotment. Taj has removed much weed and piled up many stones. I pay him. I value his help even as I know employing him has changed my earlier intention of proving I could do this all myself, saving money.  No question that I'm exemplifying that NHS contention that allotments are a middle-class hobby. My plot is showing earth in marked contrast to my neighbours, one of whom I learn has left while the other has effectively disappeared. The ground is ready for planting; drying swiftly in the sun. 

I dug in three rows of first earlies. The little seed spuds were not all chitting. I laid them down about eight to twelve inches apart in rows two feet apart, added some of the topsoil I'd bought last year and raked them over smooth with a bamboo markers at each end of the rows. Sleep now my little spuds and grow. I'll put in more tomorrow.
The HHH van helped me deliver some useful items scavenged by Handsworth Helping Hands, during our last street clearance; things would otherwise have gone to the tip - a bucket, a waste box, shelves and a water butt that just needed a new tap.
I'm becoming more acquainted with rubbish - scrabbling in it, picking it up with gloved hands and spade, grab-n-lift leaf collector. Some trash is easy - already bagged, not too heavy. Most is more intractible - shards of glass mixed into weeds, rotting used nappies in leaking plastic bags, open spilled paint cans, hardened bags of cement and plaster, sodden mattresses, carpet tack strips, innumerable cans, bottles and canisters often still at least half-full of whatever they originally contained, rotting carpets, underlay that falls apart as you try to lift it from the ground, heavy heaps of broken tiles...the list is hardly a start. We're getting better at organising ourselves to collect the variety of mess we encounter - manual collection, digging raking, sweeping...using plastic sacks, boxes, bins, and builder bags, as fits.

Winnie, Folarin and John clearing a building waste fly-tip near Church Vale

Collectively, we're getting better at knowing how to load skips, ensuring they don't overflow or that space is wasted by bad stacking

Mike and Linda working in Church Vale during a 'Skip-it Don't Tip-it' day

There are as always toys thrown away or given us as gifts to recycle, redistribute...

Items gifted and whizzed to go to new homes

Chip break during a street clean - Mike, Lin and Denise

Night work - Winnie loads a deep freeze dumped in Stamford Grove

Emptying the HHH van at Holford Drive Waste Recycling Depot

**** **** ****
I've begun a thread on the Corfu Grapevine after Amy asked me to do some research into whether she could breast-feed in public in Corfu if she came out to us in October:

Simon Baddeley I saw this on a recent Corfu forum re breast feeding in public here ..."its socially accepted throughout Greece, my partner never had a problem with our little boy when he was feeding last year and the year before..." Is this the case? My daughter requests me to ask on CG about the acceptability of breastfeeding in Corfu. She's thinking of spending some time with us in October. A grand-daughter is due in July. Obviously most of the time Amy could feed the baby at our house but she wouldn't want to be feeding in the loo when we're out. Are there places where it's OK or where it's a 'no-no'? Many thanks for advice. I'm making no judgements. Just need to know. Simon

Like ·  · Share · 4 hours ago near Birmingham

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  Harriet Lioumba Greeks are very acceptable of any issues with babies and children! My opinion is that she will be welcomed with open arms x

  4 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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  Simon Baddeley Thanks Harriet. I will seek a few more views before getting back to my daughter, but thanks so much for your swift reply. S

  4 hours ago · Like
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  Πέτρος Παπαγεωργίου I've sent you a PM on the subject

  4 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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  Paul McGovern I am surprised you are not more abreast with the local custom Simon x

  4 hours ago · Like
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  Simon Baddeley Paul! I thought your doctor had told you to lay off punning for the next six months (:))

  4 hours ago · Like
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  Paul McGovern What does he know, he's only a chest specialist, anyway he's Indian, from the Punjab I believe.

  4 hours ago · Like
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  Susan Daltas I would say it depends on how the feeding is carried out - discretion is key, with a strategically placed blanket or large blouse!

  4 hours ago · Unlike · 3
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  Simon Baddeley Go away Paul mou. I need advice not ruddy chat XX S

  4 hours ago · Like · 1
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  Sue Tsirigoti My niece breast fed everywhere as Susan said with a strategically placed blanket you would never have known. Luckily nursing mothers clothing makes t easy to this these days!

  4 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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  Simon Baddeley Many thanks Sue. I suspect it's a lot to do with what's polite in specific situations. I saw this when researching on the net. http://greece.greekreporter.com/.../4th-pan-hellenic.../
  

  
  

  4th Pan-Hellenic Public Breastfeeding | GreekReporter.com

  greece.greekreporter.com
  

  Mothers breast fed their babies at the 4th Panhellenic public breastfeeding taking place simultaneously in 39 cities of Greece.

  4 hours ago · Like · Remove Preview
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  Aitchm Muir As others have said , no problem for breastfeeding mums ,it can be done discreetly, there is nothing wrong with it , most natural thing in the world,and most Mums are discreet anyway~~ the one time I was peed off was when I was in a café and a mum was feeding her (4yrs old maybe daughter,) in full view , all hanging out , but what pissed me off was , the child had a bottle of juice as well which she was drinking ! and went off to play around and came back grabbed the breast and had a "go" almost like having a toy to play with! , not nice to see>>>

  4 hours ago · Like
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  Deborah Anne O'flynn-Mouzakiti Exactly~its not what you are doing , It's how you are doing it. I breastfed both my girls here with no problems. Obviously the ideal was at home in comfortable surround but there were times it was necessary out and about and of course, by doing it sensibly ( and not in your face making other's uncomfortable) then it is totally acceptable here. I think its being courteous and considering others...I have a great example of when it wasn't acceptable~in our jewellery shop a few years ago~my husband was there alone and a woman came in,plonked herself in the chair..whipped it out and said to my (greek) husband~ you don't mind do you but this is the best place for me to do this (without waiting for an answer) FULL out, not hiding anything..in fact it exposed both with her blouse opened up completely and proceeded to walk around looking at things in the shop with the shop full of customers and my very embarrassed husband. The next day she came back to do the same thing and I was there and had to tell her my shop was not the right place to do this.

  3 hours ago · Like
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  Simon Baddeley As a bloke - albeit descended from strong women, one a suffragette - I'm not really entitled to speak on this, but I think the answer 'its not what you are doing , It's how you are doing it' is perfect and not just about breast feeding in public. I suppose some people are wanting to make a statement while others are just 'ignorant'. The message I'm getting from both men and women is that it's natural, quite OK and even welcome if done in style - i.e chic discrete (:S)

  3 hours ago · Like · 2
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  Aitchm Muir Agreed Simon, a very natural thing to do ,xxx

  3 hours ago · Unlike · 1
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  Tracey Tagg-Kotsia Breastfed all my four and whopped me knockers out wherever i was with no problem. I was discreet with it but that was for my own dignity not to try minimize embarrassment to others, if others have a problem then they only need to look elsewhere. I also breastfed when i was in UK with no problem. It's the most natural thing in the world and some folk need to loosen up and not be so prudish.

  2 hours ago · Unlike · 2
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  Simon Baddeley I'll be more judgemental! I accept the idea of discrete chic, but it vexes me that some people claiming to be embarrassed by any kind of breast-feeding - men but even women - tend to blame the person doing it rather than examining the source of their own sensitivities. In the past and in many countries still, woman are required by men to cover up to protect those same men from feelings for which too many of them refuse to take responsibility.

  about an hour ago · Edited · Like · 4
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  Tracey Tagg-Kotsia We were given breasts to feed our babies so why should it be embarrassing? Women whop 'em out on beaches and no-one seems to be embarrassed about this!! Personally, I've never been a topless sunbather and I try to look elsewhere. We weren't given breast to get an all over tan in the summer. I'm not against it, whatever floats your boat but I'm with you Simon Baddeley. I've breastfed on buses, trains, planes, in parks, in restaurants and other people's homes. It's what i was given breast for and it's not my problem if others don't like it.
  2 hours ago · Like

  about an hour ago · Like · 1
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  Anna Smith I breastfed my baby last year when we were out and about in Corfu with no problem at all. I dont think anyone seemed to notice or if they did I didnt notice!  x

  about an hour ago · Like · 1
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  Caroline Badcock Seems a shame that we can admire a animal feeding her young yet a woman feeding her baby naturally gives some embarresment

  about an hour ago · Unlike · 2
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  Jan Manessi well we don;'t want to watch other peoples' natural functions in general i suppose

  about an hour ago · Like
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  Keith Miller Are you suggesting she use the bathroom?

  48 minutes ago · Like
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  Louise Edwards I breast fed my son 24years ago here when out and never had a problem, As mentioned above discretion is the key. Baggy blouse or a wrap abound shoulders. At the end of the day no different to being on the beach with topless sunbathers. If you are offended don't look.

  46 minutes ago · Like · 1
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  Jan Manessi no keith miller just responding to caroline badcock's comment

  44 minutes ago · Like
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  Louise Edwards I am sorry to say Jan Manessi that this is the type of attitude which has stopped so many young women from breastfeeding. It is in most cases the most beneficial for the mother and child and the most economical. A bare breast today raises no eyebrows anywhere, so with discretion what is the problem. You use of the words 'natural functions' brings to mind going to the toilet in public, slightly different.

  31 minutes ago · Unlike · 1
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  Simon Baddeley Is a stable a public place?
  

  
  

  

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From the Ano Korakiana website:

Ζημία μετά κλοπής  

Η «αφαίρεση» το Σάββατο το βράδυ των καλωδίων συνολικού μήκους 220 μέτρων που συνδέουν το αντλιοστάσιο με τις γεωτρήσεις στη θέση Νταμάρι, έχει προκαλέσει από το μεσημέρι της Κυριακής διακοπή του νερού σε ολόκληρο το χωριό. Ειδικότερα, κατά τις τρεις το μεσημέρι άρχισαν να φθάνουν στον Πρόεδρο του Τοπικού Συμβουλίου οι πρώτες ειδοποιήσεις από κατοίκους για τη διακοπή του νερού, αρχικά στις απάνω γειτονιές. Όταν δε, έφθασε στο χώρο της γεώτρησης συνοδευόμενος από τεχνικό της ΔΕΥΑΚ, διαπιστώθηκε ότι άγνωστοι είχαν διαρρήξει την πόρτα του αντλιοστασίου και είχαν αφαιρέσει, κόβοντάς τα, όλες τις καλωδιώσεις, βγάζοντας το σύστημα εκτός λειτουργίας. Λίγο αργότερα προσήλθε περιπολικό της Αστυνομίας, καθώς και υπεύθυνοι της ΔΕΥΑΚ για την αποτίμηση της ζημιάς και κυρίως της αποκατάστασής της…για την οποία μπορεί να χρειαστούν 1-2 ημέρες…  

(my translation) Theft damage 

The pilfering on Saturday of 220 metres of cable connecting the village pumping station to the boreholes at Damari had, by noon on Sunday, deprived the entire village of water. At three on Saturday afternoon the President of the Local Council alerted residents in the affected neighbourhoods to turn off their water. DEYAK (Corfu Municipal Water Supply and Drainage Company) technicians, having been unable to find any problems by digging, found intruders had broken in the door of the pumping station, and rendered it inoperative by cutting and removing all cable. Police arrived shortly after with the DEYAK engineers responsible for assessing damage and restoration - possibly 1 to 2 days.