For those of you who do not know, I’ve just returned from 4 weeks of riding the rails through Europe.
I am certain that I will have a lot to write about in the coming week, and I will try not to madden you with jealousy, or bore you to tears.

Along the railroad tracks in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and the British Isles, one can spot small gardens. Imagine the grassy area, like a median, between a county road and the railroad track–maybe 12 or so feet before the gravelly slope of the railroad embankment. Now, imagine that area subdivided into little parcels, maybe 20 feet wide. Now, imagine those areas enclosed, en-fenced, and planted with well-tended gardens, and maybe even with an outbuilding. This is an allotment garden.

As Europe became increasingly industrialized, this little gardens began springing up. Many Europeans live in large cities with little garden space, or even in apartments with no garden space, sometimes without even lawns that they can actually walk on. Although there are parks, and even wonderful forests and fells to hike in, there are many people who still feel a need to have land of their own. I don’t think it is as much about owning the land (they often do not), as it is about having a little corner that they can tend, that they can grow something upon. You often see them on the weekends, working and then sitting or staying over in the little sheds. Sometimes, they will even invite friends out to their little domains to share wine and eat al fresco.
The part that struck me over and over again was the pride with which this tiny little parcels were cared for and decorated–yes, Virginia, there were garden gnomes. Since I really do not enjoy gardening–it is like housework, but dirtier and hotter, and I am really uncomfortable at the idea of permanent ownership, especially of land–this feeling is alien to me, but perhaps those of you who could imagine the desire for a tiny little farm (or even tending tiny little sheep) could try to explain it to me. However, I do believe that there is something about being human that makes us want to have our little piece of nature and of life to tend and to take care of. I don’t know if this is in spite of or as a result of our increasingly artificial and detached relationship with the natural world and with our food sources.

Either way, it seems like a lovely idea.