Green Beans and Summer Dreams

Horrified, I watch as the lorry accelerates off into the distance with my beautifully wrapped mortgage payment nestled cosily between the kohlrabi and the clementines.

When I met Jamie, I was in my mid-twenties, sharing a chaotic but colourful flat with my three best girlfriends in Edinburgh. We were all starting out in our careers; I’d graduated from the university with a degree in English and was now a lowly public relations assistant with a salary to match. But being broke much of the time didn’t seem to stop us enjoying ourselves and partying most weekends.

I met Jamie at our local pub – I left my scarf behind and he sprinted the length of the street to return it and ask me on a date – and I fell crazily and completely in love.

A financial analyst, Jamie was something of a whiz in the maths department; far more intelligent than me, but not in the least bit geeky. Quite the opposite, in fact. He could liven up any gathering with his charm and wealth of funny stories, and he was also surprisingly romantic. Once, for my birthday, he filled the entire flat with sunflowers (my favourite) – dozens and dozens of them in every room, all in pretty blue vases that must have cost him a small fortune.

Before long, we were such an inseparable double-act, my flatmates started laughingly referring to us as Richard and Judy. And a year after we met, we decided to move in together.

Everything was wonderful.

I’d never been so happy.

But the downside was that while I was so wrapped up in my new life with Jamie, my visits to family tended to get put on the back-burner. With Dad living in Glasgow, just an hour away on the train, I saw him and Gloria fairly often. And at least four times a year, I’d usually make the journey south to see both Mum and Midge. But during that first year of living with Jamie, I let things slide.

So when Mum phoned with some grim news, it came as a truly devastating blow.

My lovely Aunt Midge was desperately ill.

She had undergone a heart operation without even telling us, which was typical of her. The prognosis was not good. The doctor was advising us to visit as soon as we could.

As I moved round the flat in a daze, blinded by tears, trying to pack a bag for the journey south, Jamie arrived home.

His concern when he heard the news was genuine. He’d met Midge just once but he’d liked her very much, especially her dry humour and her feisty spirit. He immediately phoned work, saying he had a family emergency and would be absent for a few days. He located my keys and went round turning off lights while I stood by in a useless daze. Then he drove me all the way down to the hospital in Surrey and an emotional reunion with my mother.

Midge died two days later.

I was numb with grief.

And weighed down by guilt.

I hated myself for not being there when she needed me. Midge had kept her illness to herself but that was no excuse. I should have gone down to Surrey a lot more often, then I would have known she wasn’t herself. But I’d been too wrapped up in my life with Jamie. I kept promising Midge I’d visit but it was always hazy, planned for some time in the future.

I never actually fixed a date.

And now it was all too late.

A few weeks later, I was stunned by the contents of Midge’s will.

She had bequeathed her beloved Farthing Cottage to me, along with the adjacent field where she’d kept her rescue donkeys at one time.

I couldn’t believe it.

I loved the cottage. I’d spent such idyllically happy times there with Midge during my school holidays. I couldn’t possibly sell it. But what was the alternative? To live there would mean giving up my life in Edinburgh, yet as the months went by and we debated what to do, I grew more and more enchanted by the idea of moving down to Surrey.

Then, when Jamie landed a job as a financial trader in the City of London, that was it.

The decision was made.

Off we went.

Jamie had always hankered after working in London’s Square Mile, the heart of the powerful financial district, so he was happy. I immediately started job-hunting, feeling fairly confident that with my degree and experience, it wouldn’t be long before I’d be earning, too.

I began applying for jobs locally in the PR industry. Then, when I wasn’t immediately successful, I started to spread the net wider. I reasoned that living in Surrey, it would be an easy commute by train to London and for a while, I entertained a lovely image of Jamie and me travelling in together each morning, he with his Financial Times and me with my nose in a book.

When the first few rejections arrived, I stayed optimistic. I knew that with the recession still biting hard, it might be a bit of a slog. But if I kept on trying, I’d get there in the end.

But it wasn’t as simple as I had imagined.

After three or four months of getting precisely nowhere, my confidence had taken a bashing and I was growing restless, stuck in a dilapidated house while Jamie worked long hours to establish himself at his new firm – although thankfully, he was earning more than enough for both of us. I was also missing Edinburgh and my friends. I desperately needed something to occupy my mind.

That was when Jamie came up with a plan.

I would give the job-hunting a rest for the time being, and instead, project manage the renovation of Farthing Cottage. He was more than happy to pay the bills while I worked on the house and we’d have a gorgeous home at the end of it.

I accepted the challenge gratefully. After months of anxiety over my future in the workplace, finally I had a project to get my teeth into.

And what a project!

For the last few years of Midge’s life, the house had been neglected. Every part of it – the roof, the plumbing, the electrics, the gardens – needed a complete overhaul. The roof was the worst. We had leaks in the kitchen whenever it rained. And an inspection revealed that renewing the tiles would not be sufficient. The entire thing would have to be replaced.

So we drew up big plans to go the whole hog, knocking down walls, extending the kitchen and installing en-suite bathrooms and a conservatory. We took out a small mortgage on the property to raise funds and lived in a caravan for the first few months while the roof was fixed and the interior reshaped.

Then we moved in and spent the best part of six months battling with the mess, installing new fittings and making it into a lovely home again.

I was focused one hundred and ten percent on the project. I even took some night classes in plastering and eventually, after a few false starts, we managed to save ourselves a shed-load of money by doing most of it ourselves. We hired plumbers and electricians to do the specialised work. But most of the donkey work I did myself, helped by Jamie at weekends. Finally, we had a beautiful blank canvas and I was able to embark on the painting and decorating.

I shaped rooms and chose paint shades and fabrics with Midge in mind. It was like she was there, advising me with her wise words and shrugging her shoulders when I got it wrong.

I was also determined to have the wrought iron main gates restored to their former glory. They were beautiful. A real work of art. But they had tarnished over time and Midge had seemed agitated about that when we last spoke.

With the house project over, I started job-hunting again while setting to work on the jungle of a garden.

I’d found a twelve-month gardening diary Midge had started in 1992, a few years after she’d first come to live at Farthing Cottage. So now I was following her lead. I threw all my energy into tackling the huge, overgrown plot at the back of the house, getting rid of the tangle of weeds, pruning the fruit trees, and even cultivating a small vegetable plot. I’d never gardened before but I borrowed loads of books from the library and started experimenting. Jamie helped out at weekends with the heavier jobs.

And I found I loved it.

Working in the garden brought me a satisfaction I’d never experienced before. Even project managing the house hadn’t given me the same pleasure as working outdoors in the fresh air, coaxing plants to life and leaning on my spade at the end of the day to admire the result. My muscles would ache, I’d be hot and sweaty, and in my gardening gear, I looked rather like a scarecrow. But the sense of achievement and the feeling of peace was second to none.

I’d discovered a genuine affinity with the earth and a love of gardening that I could only assume I’d inherited from my Aunt Midge.

And for the first time, I realised that actually, I wouldn’t be at all disappointed if I never saw the inside of an office again. I hadn’t missed my PR work at all.

My mind seemed to be wandering in a new direction.

Could I turn my love of gardening into a business?

I’d spend hours mulling over the possibilities. Could I sell my own vegetables at the farmers’ market? Set myself up in business as a gardener in the local area? Or try to find work at a garden centre?