Mandy Sutter, Writer

Composting is a complex business. When we whipped the plastic tarp off our heap this Spring, the whole thing was as dry as a crust. To worms and beetles visiting for their winter holidays, it must have been a bitter disappointment, like arriving at a half-built hotel.

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.

Mr Mandy Sutter and I are proud parents for the second time.

I refer not to Dog MS, our first born, but to the wheelbarrow that was delivered safely last week. Mother and barrow are doing fine.

For the last few months, people down at the allotments have been talking horseshit. Along with good tools and tartan thermos flasks, they seem to swear by it. So when a chap called ‘Mr Muck’  delivers a gently steaming mountain, I make enquiries. ‘Ah, manure belongs to t’bloke int blue pick up,’ says the bee [...]

It’s the day after Valentine’s, and the long-stemmed red roses that were £1.99 at the greengrocer’s yesterday are now reduced to 49p. He has a lot left.

I’m a regular visitor these days and notice such things. Down at the allotment, you see, all the plants (except the weeds) have now either been withered by the frost, drowned by the flood, or eaten by creatures with various numbers of legs. Everything in the vegetable compartment of the Reluctant Gardener’s fridge today, therefore, has come from the greengrocer’s.