I am now so very thankful we decided not to turn our front garden into a statue and music themed arena. I had grand plans of having some kind of tasteful bronze cast of myself and my husband, placed onto a plinth (perhaps depicting us on our wedding day), then enhancing this with a ‘Waltzing Waters’*-style lights and music show with trained spotlights, and Queen anthems (classical style) kicking off in the background. Ha.

Instead, I came to my senses and decided to preserve relations with my neighbours, who would have no doubt come round with rifles and shot us if we’d gone ahead. I asked local food writer-cum-green-renegade Rachel de Thample if she was interested in having some space in which to grow produce, and she said YES. She has since transformed our front garden into a vegetable plot. Much more sensible. Things got properly started in the last couple of weeks, and Rachel has been really busy digging, grappling with concrete and lugging hefty sacks of compost about the place. She is a hardcore woman of many talents, and my husband and I are now feeling rather sheepish and lazy, because she has single-handedly transformed the space with no help whatsoever from us!

Behold – the mess at the beginning (what a state):

Then…

Now this – boom, a veg plot is born!

Rachel hard at work, making branch towers for runner beans to climb up:

So while Rachel toils away in all weathers, I basically sit on my arse drinking tea and watching repeats of Come Dine with Me on my laptop.  Actually that’s not quite right – I have a different kind of job, namely looking after my toddler, a mini merchant of chaos, who forces me to jump higher, run faster, and read the same story to her 25 times a day (unless I have packed her off to nursery). I’m fully at her mercy. So we’re very grateful that Rachel has stepped up, and hopefully she’ll get a lot out of it too. And, most importantly, she has spared the inhabitants of my street a themed statue arena.

*Those who have never visited Waltzing Waters on the Isle of Wight have not yet truly lived. GO! But do take a face mask to ward off potential Legionnaire’s disease, as it gets pretty humid in there. Plus the gift shop is a legendary mausoleum of tat.