Thursday.

I got up at 5.30, put on a load of washing and had eggs for breakfast. I packed my lunch, dressed, made the bed and hung out the washing before getting ready to go to work. I had to do 70 bunches of radishes, 44 bunches ofgolden beetroot, 60 bunches of purple ones and then anything up to 144 bunches of carrots. Everything was going well till I got to the carrots. It was around 11.30, so I cut my string, found the fork and started digging. The sun became hotter and hotter, I ran out of water and there wasn’t a breath of wind. Bearing in mind I am 79 and the ground is hard in all this dry weather, it was really hard work. I felt quite ill by 12 o’clock and had to sit on a box for a few minutes. I carried on working and got slower and slower. I only did 76 bunches when the boss came to pick me and the carrots up, it’s a good job he did because I don’t think I could have walked back to the yard. I felt so awful. I filled my water bottle at the tap and had to sit down drinking it till I was rehydrated and within 15 minutes I was back to normal but I am really worn out and won’t be able to stay awake for my soaps tonight. We had steak for dinner with potatoes, carrots and beans. No more work till Monday.