Hi CADS,
you never know. I was on the waiting list for one site for 1 year. But then I broadened out to be on the waiting list of several sites, after deciding that I'd be willing to travel. One of them had a waiting list which they thought would be about 2-3 years. I put my name down anyway. I got a plot 2 weeks later! (Plus another one at another site, but that's a different story...)

Once you do get one, here are the tips I've learned from keeping my 4 year old daughter happy:

- If a neighbouring or nearby lottie holder also has children, get pally with them. Try to organise to be there together anytime you want to have a longer spell at the lottie.

- Get child sized tools, and let them get stuck in. give each their own 'plot' that they can grow stuff on.

- Make sure that you let them 'help' you. There usually are things that they can do which are genuinely helpful, otherwise, relatively harmless stuff which makes them feel like their helping. Esther is good at thumping clods with her rake, for instance, when I'm digging a bed, and breaking it down for me.

- Have something they can play with there. Bury a washbowl as a mini sandpit, for example. We have sharp sand in ours, so that it's good for our clay soil when it spills out. At one of our allotments we're blessed to be able to put up a swing in a tree there. She loves that!

-Get creative - is there a temporary den that they can use? For example, we have straw bales waiting for use as mulch / paths / etc. She makes dens from these until they're used. Or climbing frames, or ... imagination is the limit. We even made a 'see-saw' from a scaffolding plank and a couple of flag stones until the plank was needed for the raised bed. Keep it changing. If it's fresh, it's interesting.

- ring the changes and change the pace. We can stay at our 'big allotment' basically all day, and she'll be happy. There's enough to do, and a child to play with some of the time. She spends 20 minutes helping, 20 minutes in the sand, 20 minutes on the swing, 20 minutes killing crocodiles with her stick sword, 20 minutes with Mum hunting for the South Pole, 20 minutes with Dad seeing what insects/flowers/whatever they can find, another 20 minutes helping out again, and so on. And there's usually another little girl for her to play with there (also bring plenty of snacks and drinks). Does this work? Yep - she asks if we can go to the allotment. And if we say we're going to the big allotment, she starts shouting hurray and doing a dance.

At the small allotment where there is no space to give her a 'play area'/kill crocodiles, etc, we can't spend longer than an hour. And of that, she's genuinely happy for 30 minutes. If there are children there, that's another story - then we can stay as long as we like.

Hope this helps, and good luck in finding an allotment. You'll get one eventually if you stay on it. I'm so glad we got ours, it's one of the best things to ever happen to our family.