An arrogant young estate agent once referred to what was my little bit of treasured garden space as a ”yard”. Where I saw pots of flowers and shrubs and tomatoes growing in profusion he saw only the concrete on which they stood.

I didn’t have a space of my own to garden in until I was forty. It wasn’t much of a space, but it was vast to me. I had a lot of beginner’s luck planting seeds and they all flowered. Great masses of pots of lovely blooms covering the concrete.

And then miraculously I was pregnant for the first time at the age of 42.

My sense of smell was never as acute as that time. Everything was intense and new and flowers were blooming all around me and a baby was blooming inside of me and it was glorious.