It was the lovely Sharon’s birthday and she wanted to go to a walled garden and see flowers. At one point in my life I started to listen to Radio 4 and I accepted the process of aging. Now it is viewing flower beds, walled gardens and looking forward to Friday night’s Gardener’s World with the guru Monty Don. I still accept it all, however there is a line in the sand for me and gardening. I work on the edibles and the trees, and the lovely Sharon works on the beautiful flowers, the things to look at while sitting beside the borders eating morning porridge. Yet, some inspiration from her birthday adventure, and her flower borders slipped into my mind; the wild flowers.

This morning I began researching wild flower seeds online. Then I consulted Gardening for Bumblebees by Dave Goulson (another guru). I made placed an order with a local company then grabbed my hoe and spade, and headed out into the garden. Actually, as wild flowers help pollinators like bees, I think I am still on my side of the line in the sand. I’m planting the beautiful coloured flowers for the bees, and therefore the honey. Who am I kidding.

The grand plan is to make two patches of wild flowers in the back garden. I stripped the two patches of grass and was about to begin raking the soil to prepare it, when two of the little people arrived. They wanted to help. This often means the job will take twice as long. Yet this time they got the hang of it quickly and turned it into a competition to see who was best. I couldn’t believe this was happening and tried to slip quietly away and leave them to it when the third little person, the littlest man, arrived and saw his siblings competing furiously. He couldn’t be having that, “Daddy, get me a rake now!” I got him a rake then left as quickly as I could. Fifteen minutes later they declared the raking complete and started to put me in the difficult position of choosing who was the winner when, as quickly as the competition started, it was over. They suddenly thought of something more exciting and ran off. Who was the winner? I was.