Reluctant gardener, Anthony Peregrine bemoans his wife's obsession with all things green ...
There are many sources of tension in a marriage. One is to team up a gardener with a non-gardener. This is hell for both parties. Unlike other sources of tension, lovers, mistressess, the overdraft, the garden never goes away - not even eventually.
Like all fanatics, gardeners simply will not accept that you don't share their enthusiasm.
The truth is that I find it difficult to have fixed opinions on matters which don't interest me in the slightest. 'It's your garden too is now the usual refrain' and it's difficult to deny, and my name is on the deeds. So I desperately try to pay attention as monologue ranges over fertilisers, grafting, and the desirability of evergreens, bedding plants... It's no use though, I can't help it. The eyes glaze over, and the mind turns to lingerie ...
Infinitely worse, I'm invited on a trip to the garden centre. The garden centre is the most depressing retail outlet on earth, ahead of discount furniture warehouses and that's saying something! When mercifully it's time to leave, her trolley is groaning under several tons of heather, and fuscias.
'Where are we going to put all these?' I asked.
'Well,' she said, flushed with excitement, she'd mistaken my alarm for interest. 'The heather will go down by the forsythia, and the fuscia perhaps alongside ..."
I switched off. It's going to be another long summer.
