Why does everyone think that I should pull on my gardening gloves now that I’m north of the retirement age? Gardening is boring, and I hate it and anyone that does it. My late husband Mikey loved the garden. Was always tending to those darned tulips. Honestly, I think he loved those tulips more than he loved me. To be fair, I loved the tulips more than I loved him too, and that’s saying something. Those things make my allergies flare up something nasty.

Whenever Mikey did something wrong and didn’t really want to apologise, he would get me a bunch of tulips from the garden. I would have to fawn over them and tell him what a sweet gesture it was, before running off to the bathroom to blow out my body weight in snot. I would tell him I was tearing up because it was a cute gesture, but actually it’s because my eyes were itchier than our dear old dog Dotty when we forgot to give her flea treatment for four years in a row.

I sure am glad that Mikey and those tulips are gone, but the kids keep nagging me to do some gardening. They say it will be relaxing, and remind me of Mikey so I don’t miss him so much. Well, I don’t miss him! Maybe I would have liked gardening if he was not so obsessed with it. We nearly divorced over his tulip garden, but that’s not something you tell the kids. No, I just say, “yes dear, what a lovely idea” when Marissa and Mark tell me I should take up gardening.

Now here’s the kicker. Marissa couldn’t recognise sarcasm if it walked up to her, shook her hand and introduced itself. She thought I would actually like gardening. So what did she do? She bought me a bag of hyacinth mixed bulbs! Now I am going to have to plant them. Mikey would be laughing in his grave.