Until I was nine, we lived in a tiny terrace with a postage stamp sized garden. One of my chores was to cut the grass- with a pair of scissors! That gives you an idea of the size of it! My dad has always been a keen gardener, and many of my most vivid childhood memories are of spending time with him in his allotment. When it rained (and in Manchester it often did) me and my sister would take blackberries from an obliging bush and eat them in the car, watching our dad tend his plants. As adults, it occurred to us that this bountiful bush was not actually on my dad’s allotment, and we may in fact have been pillaging from another gardener! We did not realise our crime as kids, and my dad is not observant enough to have stopped us!

By the time I was ten, we had moved into a house in the corner of a road, so the front garden is small and triangular, but the side and back garden is enormous! This was the reason for buying the house. And ever since, come rain or shine, that’s where you’ll find my dad.

He’s a proper gardener’s gardener, so it’s not formal or landscaped, but festooned with plants in every corner all year round. He grows gladioli for my mum, and sweet peas and iris for me. In spring he cuts the Lily of the Valley flowers to perfume the house. In summer, he scratches our names on marrows and grows us each a sunflower so we can all race to be tallest. Isabella’s is usually eaten by snails, and secretly a dwarf sunflower has usually been planted for my mum, so she never wins! Mine is currently in the lid by quite a margin, with little sign it plans to flower soon.

This year, one final storm laid waste to the old greenhouse, and me and my dad spent early spring building a Rhino greenhouse together. It’s the fanciest (and most expensive) greenhouse he’s ever owned and was fairly complicated to build. Rhino Greenhouses come with a 20 year guarantee, and I’m certain its sturdy construction will survive a nuclear apocalypse. It was nice to spend so much time building together. We make a good team; he’s strong and agile, while I am good with a technical diagram. We’re also both hilarious risk takers, which had me at one point balancing a heavy roof window vent on a dirty broom above my head, while my dad relocated his ladders. Soil went in my eyes and they watered so much I couldn’t see- not our finest hour! But the vent was secured without further incident. And now he’s growing aubergines and kale and all my other favourite things.

In spring and summer we spend family days playing garden games with our little croquet and boules kits. I purchased a ‘party tent’ for my mum’s birthday one year, and it’s brought out when the sun is too bright or too soggy to sit outside without shelter.

I like to spend time drawing in the garden, but it is so easy to be distracted by the beautiful flowers, busy bees and cheerful songbirds. Though, just once, I’d like to keep a few cherries on the trees long enough to ripen, And me and a cheeky magpie always get into a dispute about ownership of the blueberry bush, Mostly, I just like to sit under the pergola admiring the view.