Ahhh, Carol Klein.

I’ve been watching some of the earlier ‘Life in a Cottage Garden’ episodes on iplayer.  And I’ve decided that I would like Carol Klein to adopt me.  She seems so jolly, so lovely and so, well, decent.   I can’t help but feel that she would make a very good job indeed of looking after me.  Pints of steaming hot Earl Grey and a mean,  homemade coffee and walnut cake, I imagine.  Hot water bottles and cocoa in winter; freshly squeezed lemonade and warm quiche fresh from the oven in summer.  My dad might be a little perplexed by the arrangement but I think it for the best.Don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t be a one way arrangement.  Oh no, Carol (Mummy), would benefit to.  For a start I wouldn’t have let her go up that terrifyingly high ladder (episode 1) in order to tug off some entangled clematis.  No way.  I would have sent her husband up.  (Terrible head for heights, myself).  And I’d buy her some flipping gardening gloves.  Doesn’t matter what she’s doing; weeding, pruning or digging up an herbaceous clump the size of a Pacific atoll – bare hands.  Poor love.  Her hands must be in a shocking state.  I barely step out of the greenhouse without donning at least one pair of leather mits. And mine (cunningly designed by yours truly) steadily secrete hand lotion all day long.  I wince when I see how little care Carol takes of hers.Mind you, I do wonder what on earth she does with all those seeds she sows, plants she divides, self-sown seedlings she pots up and cuttings she takes.  I know she runs a nursery but how big can it be?  I imagine she must be the sole supplier of garden plants to the entire garden center industry in the UK.  If so, she must be worth a tidy penny.  Adopt me, Carol.  Adopt me.