Growing up in the garden

If you asked my younger self, I don’t think I’d ever have suspected I’d end up being professionally green-fingered.

Indeed, my love of gardening only properly kicked off in my late 20s when I entered a local competition and won ‘Most Improved Garden’. I was delighted. I’d never won anything before and, for the first time, I realised I was actually quite good at something.

Then, the arrival of three little dragons in quick succession (three under three!) meant that I could no longer do anything on my own, let alone gardening. Quickly, I began to really miss the head space it gave me. I realised my mood was suffering, anxiety setting in. For me, being outside not only clears my mind but it centres me.

Becoming a mother massively changed my life in every respect, as it is wont to do – I’d gone from chief breadwinner – wearing Austin Reed suits, attending three-piece Thursdays and champagne Fridays while working my way up the corporate ladder – to dungaree-wearing dependant, constantly splattered in a variety of children’s bodily fluids. I felt totally alien.