My daughter holds a caterpillar in her hand, determined to take the pale, earth covered creature home as a newly beloved addition to our family. She proudly introduces  ‘Pillar’ around the group of gardeners who, taking a rest from shovelling farm yard manure onto the allotment beds,  lean on tool handles and smile indulgently in turn. We all wonder whether it will become a moth or a butterfly, and we all want it far, far away from our budding vegetable plots.…

Standing with my two feet firmly stationed on the brick walls of the raised bed, I bend down, grab the underside of the large root ball and lift a sage plant high up into my arms, dirt loosening and crumbling down beneath it. The herb has reached shrub like proportions and I can barely see around its woody stems as I cradle its mass against my chest. As I jump…

Aged gravestones, inscriptions effaced by time, sit heavily at angles in ancient rows. Carved angels and women, draped in sorrow, melt into the stone plaques, their faces covered in lichen, their feet hidden in tufts of grass. Surrounding, covering and emerging from these stony beds: the unstoppable verdant life of goosegrass, bramble, hawthorn and…

The bookshelf is a series of lime green squares, each holding a haphazard collection of books. Titles range from ‘Hermeneutic Philosophy and the Sociology of Art’ to ‘Around Bruges in 80 Beers’, from ‘Fundamentals of Industrial Administration Vol. 1’ to ‘Dragon Bones’. I crouch with curiosity, head tipped to read the vertical spines. My fingers track through tall hardbacks and thin dog eared paperbacks as I assess the titles, often pulling books out to read the blurb. I’m at the…