Mandy Sutter, Writer

The working life is tough: don’t we know it.

Unfortunately, some of us choose ‘interests’ that are hard work too.

While gardeners are happy to emote about weeds – ‘those beautiful buttercups’ or ‘that bloody Himalayan Balsam’ – down at our allotment few voice their feelings about their own crops. Perhaps it seems taboo, like saying you have a favourite child.

Mr Mandy Sutter, not understanding that I am the designated spiritual member of our household, went on a meditation retreat last week. It was something I’d been urging him to do, to combat stress.

So I can’t explain the strange resentment I felt when he finally went, and broke all contact with me for ten days. Not even a text.

The day finally came.

A tall dark handsome stranger appeared at the allotments, on a plot a mere stone’s throw from our own.

Between the years 0 and 50 BG (Before Gardening) my eyes skipped automatically across certain programmes in the TV listings.

I don’t mean A Question of Sport or Friends repeats. I mean gardening programmes, mentions of which I hardly saw, as if there was nothing printed on the page.