I love a well laid garden.? I love the variety of colour, the imaginative creativity, the assault on the senses.? I love the idea of cocktails on the patio and barbecuing every night.? I love the smell of freshly mown grass and the sight of fruit ripening.? I love all these things, as long as I’m not expected to work for it.

If I were to win the lottery, I would employ a gardener.? Even if I didn’t upgrade my house, I would still have someone come in, organise the garden to my instructions and return weekly (or whatever) to keep it under control.? I adore scented flowers, revelling in the cloud of perfume they produce – especially in the evening.? I want a bee and butterfly corner, fruit trees and a vegetable patch.? But please don’t ask me to actually work in the garden.

It’s not that I wouldn’t want to.? In spite of the bees, worms, SPIDERS and other creepies that live in the environment, I used to thoroughly enjoy the rush of seeing a cleared patch of land, plant it with carefully chosen examples of flora and watch, as they grew and flourished.? Some producing flowers, some comestibles.? Mother nature at her finest.

However, Mother Nature has also had a hidden agenda for some years now.? She has gradually whittled away my ability to actually do anything in the garden, however much I want to.? I can’t kneel and my hands are no longer strong,? complaining after too much use.? I know I should at least do some work and stop when my bones have had enough, but I never know how far I will get and that puts me off starting.? It’s a rubbish excuse, I know, and I feel myself talking myself out of the prevailing situation.? Perhaps I should find another way to garden – boxes, pots, raised beds – ways round not being able to kneel.? I could use the gardener money for something else.? Oh, yes – I know!? I could use it to pay for a gardener to set up the garden the way I want it!