WAY back in lockdown we dug up our vegetable patch to create a fish pond for the housemate, who had long been making secret plans to repurpose the area.

For the first year I enjoyed a break from the seemingly constant weeding and feeding which went along with growing veg. That is until summer came and with it a hankering for our usual bumper crops of beans and lettuce and beetroot and everything else we laboured all year to produce.

Unwilling to miss out again I set about creating a small allotment of a patch of driveway too small to park a car on, thanks to my lack of spacial awareness during the planning process. For the past couple of years it’s raised borders and pots have yielded a great harvest of beans and courgettes and lettuce which have made us unusually popular with the family.

Spurred on by our success I encouraged The Mother to put a few pots on an area once occupied by her greenhouse.

“You love runner beans and you’ll be able to go out and pick your own just like you used to,” I said trying to push her in the right direction.

“I’ve got a couple of plants left over so you can have those,” I added charitably.

As the growing season progressed we would compare progress as her beans struggled to drag their way up the poles while mine flourished.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” she would say as we gazed mournfully at her feeble and weedy plants.

“It’s your first time growing them. You’ll learn as you go along,” I would say condescendingly, knowing that she and my late father had grown enough veg to feed a small nation over the years.

“I’ve got flowers on my beans!” announced The Mother proudly as we arrived for Sunday dinner some weeks ago.

“Have you?” I said plastering on a fake smile. “We’ve got come beans coming and they look lovely. We’ll have enough for dinner next week.”

“These beans are awful,” said the housemate as she worked her way through a pile I’d picked a few days later.

“They’re as tough as old boots and too stringy to even cut up,” she moaned struggling to get a knife through the skin.

“You can’t take any of these to your mother,” she added, knowing how bad the gloating would be.

“They’ve suddenly come all one way,” announced The Mother as she dragged me into the garden to see a collection of beanstalks which looked as if a giant could appear atop of at any time.

“I expect you’re both sick and tired of beans with the crop you’ve had but we’re having them again for dinner tonight, because these are my first homegrown ones,” she said, barely containing her smile having sneaked a peak at my sorry looking plants during her last visit.

As we settled down for dinner and I scooped up a forkful of her admittedly delicious produce, she smiled over at me.

“How are your peppers looking? Mine are beautiful…and has your sister told you about her grapes?Her vine is hanging with them,” she added, driving her knife home, having clearly caught a glimpse of the two withered bunches on my unhealthy looking vine.

“Alright.” I sulked. “I’ll remember not to teach my granny how to suck veg growing eggs next year!”