My friends and family should rejoice that this is not my garden. If it were, I might spend half my time sighing with contentment. That’s certain to become annoying.

If it were my garden, I’d also be feeling, and perhaps acting, a little smug right now. Ah, the perfect popping of another perfect poppy. The heavy-headed peonies. The picturesquely repeated blues and apricot orange that hold it all together. The sunny gentle slope, facing south and west, that presents each flower for view, like a crayon in a Crayola box. I’d be smiling and nodding in that smug, knowing way. My friends would not like it. Nor would my family. No.

And, if it were my garden, I’d have to be out there every day from dawn to dusk – photographing each bloom from every angle. Any hours left over would, of course, be spent with my laptop, adjusting layers in Photoshop so that the loud singing of the red poppy didn’t drown out the blue flax behind it. My family and friends would never see me.

Although, considering the smugness and the sighing, they might not mind.

So, it’s probably good that this is not my garden. Good that someone else can enjoy the planting and watering, the weeding, deadheading, deadheading, deadheading and staking. Someone else gets to feel the smugness (though I’m sure they’d be too nice to let on).

Sometimes ’tis best to love from afar. Please pardon my sighing.