Better late than never

Ok, this is getting ridiculous. On the eve of the Garden Media Guild Awards 2012 I notice that the last entry on my blog was written the day after the Garden Media Awards 2011. And, yes, they only happen once a year. This is embarrassing even to a lazy laggard such as myself. So I am hauling myself to the keyboard to prove I am still alive. I have a few excuses for my absence from horticultural bloggery – I’ve been building a house (not literally though at times it has felt like it), moving to it and writing a book. And then, just when the children are relatively house trained we got a puppy. I am also trying to plant a 3-acre orchard and turning a concrete farm yard into a blatant attempt at a rip off of Beth Chatto’s garden. Did I mention that the puppy currently has diarreah?

Anyway, as the hortirati raise their Cava in recently nail-brushed hands tomorrow, I wish them all well as I try work out how to plant standard apple trees eight metres apart in straight lines using only the benefit of my eyesight – wonky at the best of times – and a large collection of bamboo canes. My new book is due out in March – it’s called The Rurbanite: Living in the Country Without Leaving the City. I realise that as I now live in the country, this might prove something of an irony, but I did live in London for longer than my Clinique All About Eyes cream would dare to admit so I’m an urban girl at heart. Just an urban girl with a field. In Kent. I’m not complaining.