147. Carol Klein

I'm in love with Carol Klein. It's a pure, virtuous love - nothing sordid, thank you very much - but it is quite heartfelt.

For those what don't know, Carol Klein is a gardener. She's on the tellybox and in the papers and she writes books, too. If you're quite keen on these things it will interest you to know that Carol is in fact a plantswoman and that her cottage garden is also a nursery.

Whenever I try to gather myself to do some gardening Herself stares at me blankly and tells me that nothing will grow in our garden. This is patently ridiculous, but for some reason I never say 'pshaw' and shove my way past her - I think she might be telling me that the garden is her thing and I should butt out. Fair enough.

It's quite difficult to learn something you're not practising - but I've been watching darling Carol in her garden (thanks to a new series on the tellybox - Life in a Cottage Garden) and I'm picking up some tips for the day that I am allowed to get my hands dirty. And the reason that I love Carol is that she's an old-fashioned enthusiast. Her love for her garden and her role in the cycle of the garden is a shiny, palpable thing. She is enormously experienced and clearly hugely talented, but she isn't patronising (unlike most of those other Gardener's World wonks) and nor does she dumb-down - she talks and you listen and learn. She's kind of fab to look at too. She's in her mid-sixties but she's all crazy blonde highlights and her gardening jacket is an ancient leather bomber jacket. She's got more energy than I do. She bounces around talking about things in the garden she loves and it calms my soul. She represents everything that I admire: passion, enthusiasm, dedication, longevity, joy and a kind of wilful doggedness. And of course as I"m watching and listening I'm seeing such beautiful things in her Devon garden - not least of which is her Lakeland puppy. Sigh.

Anyway - with Carol in my life the cold, dark days of job-hunting and penury seem a little lighter and longer, and who knows, maybe one of these days Herself will let me loose in the garden and I'll get to see what all the fuss is about.