School Radio. GROWING WITH GRANDDAD, PART 1 By Rob John. School Radio Michael: Can we go home now Granddad? I m cold.

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GROWING WITH GRANDDAD, PART 1 By Rob John A long time ago when I was about eight I was quite a miserable kid. I don t know why but I could always find something to moan about.

1 GROWING WITH GRANDDAD, PART 1 By Rob John A long time ago when I was about eight I was quite a miserable kid. I don t know why but I could always find something to moan about. I was always moaning, me. My Mum used to say, If moaning was in the Olympics you d win the gold medal, you would. One of the things I used to moan about was my Granddad s allotment. My Mum used to say What s wrong with Granddad s allotment? I ll tell you what was wrong with Granddad s allotment. It was full of horrible stuff. That s what was wrong with it. Stinging nettles... worms...wasps..mud...vegetables. Eurgh. Horrible. I hated the place. Then when I was eight my Mum had a baby and I had to go round my Granddad s all the time so he could look after me. Anyway it was really bad news because if you spent time with my Granddad it meant you had to spend time in his...yeah you guessed it. Michael: Can we go home now Granddad? I m cold. Then help me with the digging. That ll warm you up. Michael: I don t like digging. Don t like mud. Can t we go now? You just give me a hand with these last spuds then we ll go to the cafe and get a cup of tea. Michael: And an ice-cream. Can we have an ice-cream? Help me finish planting up these seed spuds, then we ll see. Michael: Why do we call potatoes spuds? I don t know. We just do. Michael: It s a stupid name. Spud. It doesn t matter what it s called. Just plant one. For me? Michael: Doesn t look very nice. It s a bit wrinkly. It s got green bits sticking out. Wouldn t want to eat that. Come on, Michael. Give me a hand with these potatoes. 1

2 That s cos it s a seed potato. It s not for eating. Might not look like very much but that little seed spud s full of magic. Michael: No it s not. No such thing as magic. Please yourself. So are you going to plant it or not? Michael: Suppose so. Right put it in the bottom of the trench about a foot from the last one. That s right. And in he goes. Right. That s the last of them. Michael: Is that it? Can we go now? No, we can t. We ve got to fill in the trench. Like this. Go on. You do your side. That s it. Good. You got the hang of it. There we go. Now look at that. Looks nice doesn t it. Michael: It s just mud, Granddad. Mud in lines. Just you wait. Michael: Wait for what? You wait till the summer. Michael: I hate waiting! It ll be worth it. I promise you. Michael: Yeah? Can we go to the cafe now? Three months later it was the summer holidays and Mum was busy with the new baby so she sent me round Granddad s again. And as soon as I got there guess where we went! Michael: It s really hot, Granddad. Can t we go swimming? Not now. We ve got a job to do. Michael: And there s wasps. The whole allotment s full of wasps. They re not wasps, Michael. They re bees. Michael: Same thing. 2

3 Bees are not the same as wasps Michael. Michael: They can sting you can t they? Yes but... Michael: So what s the difference? Please yourself. Just put your bucket down and lets see if we can find some spuds. Michael: Why don t we just go down the supermarket and buy some spuds. You ll see why in a minute. Michael: I can t even see any spuds. It s just green bushes. There s nothing there. Let s see shall we. Now. Take that fork. Put it in the soil next to that one. That s the one you planted. Remember? Now put your foot on the fork and push down. That s it. Now bring the fork handle down and there you are...magic. And in a way it was magic. Up through the soil came...potatoes. Small, perfectly round, yellow, creamy-looking potatoes. There must have been ten, eleven... Michael:...Twelve...thirteen...fourteen...fifteen. There s fifteen of em Granddad. Did they all come from......that one little old seed spud that you planted? Yeah. Michael: So did I grow them? Yep. You did. So...what d you think? Now I was good at moaning. I was Olympic champion moaner. But I wasn t very good at saying that things were nice. What I wanted to say was This is brilliant. This is amazing. I put that little old seed spud in the ground and now three months later there s all this... But all I managed to say was... Michael: It s alright. Yeah. I know what you mean. It s alright, isn t it? 3

4 Michael: Can I dig up some more, Granddad? No. Not today. We ve got enough for dinner. Enough for you and me. We ll the leave the rest. Leave em where they are so they can keep on growing. Then we ll come back for more. Come on. Let s get eating. Michael: But I don t like vegetables. I don t eat vegetables. Granddad didn t say anything. He just smiled. I ll never forget that meal. We had sausages, baked beans and my potatoes. We boiled them whole with a little bit of salt and chopped mint from the allotment and then we put on some butter. Actually we put on loads of butter so the spuds went all shiny and golden. And they were the most beautiful things I d ever eaten. I kept shovelling them in till I couldn t eat another scrap. Granddad just sat there smiling. And that s just the start of it Michael. The summer s only just begun. We got carrots and peas, spinach, broad beans, courgettes. All just growing away and waiting for us. Waiting till we re ready to eat them. Michael: What are courgettes? Michael: No. You never had a courgette? Then you just wait. Michael: But I don t like vegetables do I? But it turned out I did like vegetables. I loved squeezing the broad beans out of their pods, picking the runners off their frames, digging up the bright orange carrots and of course those potatoes. I never got sick of those potatoes. And then came the courgettes. At first they were like little green fingers with yellow flowers on the end and they grew so fast you could almost see them getting bigger and bigger before your very eyes. 4

5 Granddad used to slice them up and fry them in olive oil with salt and pepper and at first I wouldn t touch them but then I put one small slice in my mouth and... and it was lovely. Then there was no stopping me. Lettuce, spinach, French beans. I ate everything. Mum didn t believe it. Suddenly I was eating vegetables every day. She said it was a miracle. And it wasn t just vegetables. Cauliflowers, spring cabbage and then before you can blink we ll be back here and it ll be time for the spuds again. But next year when it was time for the spuds again things weren t quite the same. And I ll tell you about that next time. In Granddad s allotment he had blackcurrants and strawberries. He had gooseberries and big fat raspberries you could eat straight from the bush. And Granddad was right. It was a kind of magic. That summer the allotment became a magical place. A magical place I shared with my Granddad. Then suddenly the summer was over and we had to go back to school. I was a bit sad. I was going to miss the allotment. I was going to miss my Granddad. Michael: Is it all finished now Granddad? Finished? Never. The thing about gardening and growing is that it never finishes. It carries on. Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. It never stops. We ll be planting stuff for next spring soon. 5

Phrases for 2 nd -3 rd Grade Sight Words (9) for for him for my mom it is for it was for. (10) on on it on my way On the day I was on

(1) the on the bus In the school by the dog It was the cat. Phrases for 2 nd -3 rd Grade Sight Words (9) for for him for my mom it is for it was for (17) we If we go we can sit we go out Can we go? (2)