Gardeners’ world: on the couch with the heating on

There is something incredibly British about the Chelsea Flower Show isn’t there?

Titchmarsh and co kick back in London’s sunny haze and look at gardens, talk about gardens and drool over gardens.

What is it with gardens and us? I mean we don’t even have the weather for it.

If we lived in Australia it might be different. There we would be kicking back in our enormously expensive garden, the bright sunshine filtering through the leaves of our newly-planted Acer tree and we would be loving it.

As it stands, we look at our garden through a drizzle-ridden window sat inside on the couch with the heating on. So why spend so much time spending money on them?

At the beginning of the year we decided we wouldn’t build an extension, we couldn’t afford it — but we could afford a bit of decking. Or so we thought . . .

Surely it’s a cheaper option, you cry. Well you’d be wrong, it cost us a small fortune.

My jaw became slack with incredulity when the bill came through.

For a bit of wood? In the garden? I was close to tears.

It’ll be worth it in the summer he said. “What blinking summer?” came the reply and, as predicted, I have sat looking at this incredibly expensive expanse of wood through a drizzly window while sat inside on the couch with the heating on.

If only we could change our thinking so rain became the new sunshine.

Oh yes, we love camping in the rain. Riding my bike, only if it’s raining please, that sort of thing.

If I were to look on the bright side, which is a very rare occurrence for me, as my half-empty glass tends to be dropped right after paying for the drink, we could say we have a swimming pool in our back garden.

There are no sides to it, it covers most of the lawn and the majority of the “Springwatch” cast appears to be doing the backstroke in it.

However, we’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and spend a bit of time out there. So it’s on with the waterproofs and the wellies, we’ve got ourselves a great big umbrella and we’re sitting out on our lovely decking and enjoying the flowers.

All we need now is for Titchmarsh to appear. But on second thoughts . . .