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.

Gardeners see things in a different way to normal people.

An ordinary family meal, for example, is imbued with more tension than a Christmas episode of Eastenders as I watch Mr Mandy Sutter boiling to b*ggery the kale nurtured with difficulty over the past months.

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.