Today, for the first time in a week, I have been able to go out into the garden and enjoy the sun. On surveying my vegetable patch I was rather saddened to discover that all my spinach has gone to seed, along with my fine crop of Cos lettuce. The raspberries are looking luscious though, and Alice and I have just baked a sponge cake in order to use up the bountiful supply of red fruit. I know I’m making myself sound like a saccharine-coated Martha Stewart figure, but I’m not like her in any way. Some people can knit and run up curtains, but I can’t; I’m a failure as a woman because I don’t like wandering around fabric shops and rummaging through little drawers of buttons and bobbits. I don’t much care for bits of lace trim or spools of ribbon, and I have a special loathing of wool shops. I find the idea of working in a wool shop so repellent that I’d rather get a job empting Portaloos. So you see, I’m not Martha Stewart, but I do love cooking, and I love to see my girls cooking too. Teaching my children to cook is fundamental to me, as fundamental as teaching them to use a screwdriver or a spanner. I know it will equip them for adult life, and in the absence of a father it is vital to me that they have a rounded knowledge of practical issues. But they’ll never be able to knit a scarf or make a tea cosy; they’ll never be able to run up a set of curtains and they’ll never have any idea what Petersham is. All they will ever be able to do is mend a lawnmower or make a lasagne, but I guess they’ll get by somehow.

My vegetable garden has only recently been resurrected, having lain neglected for a number of years. I gave up caring about growing my own food when Charlie died, and when the girls were younger it was all too much effort; but now they are at school all day I find I have regained the desire to grow vegetables. We planted out the seeds in spring and Rosie and Alice have delighted in watching the tiny shoots emerging from the soil. I wish they’d take as much delight in eating the stuff I grow, but having said that, it’s only the broad beans that they refuse to eat, and that just leaves more for me.

When the vegetable plot was lying fallow I decided it might be prudent to use the space in an altogether different way. My girls don’t have any pets, except for three goldfish, and so I thought it would be a good idea to teach them the rudiments of animal husbandry. I’d always loved the idea of keeping ducks, so that’s what I decided to get. I dug a big hole in the vegetable plot, put in a liner and filled it with water, laid some turf around it and made a duck house out of an old wooden trunk. The ducklings were installed with great excitement – rather too much excitement for the ducklings as it turned out...

Alice decided to help one of the tiny birds out of its new pond by lifting it up by its head. The poor ducking had to be rushed straight to casualty (the kitchen) and placed in a high dependency bed (a woolly hat in a box). She was then kept warm by being placed in the bottom oven of the Aga, and Alice and I kept watch over her and waited to see if she’d recover. The Aga seemed to suit her very well because she was soon cheeping happily - we thought she was saying, ‘I’m all better now’, but looking back on it I think she was probably saying, ‘Let me out, I’m not ready to basted.’

Despite the rough handling, the ducks grew rapidly. At first the girls were more than happy to feed and water them, but gradually, over time, as the ducks grew bigger and more reluctant to be mauled and chased by two over-excited children, the novelty of Crispy duck and his three wives gradually wore off. I was left to trudge outside in the pouring rain to open up their house and give them breakfast; I was left to clean out the sawdust and I was left to change the filthy, stinking water in their pond.

Letting them roam around the rest of the garden was, at first, a wonderful idea. They let out a series of delighted quacks, took the air and strolled around the borders, eating slugs and rummaging in the leaf litter. My delight at having happy ducks soon turned sour, as in a couple of weeks four small Aylesburys managed to turn my pretty cottage garden into a scene resembling the last battle at Passchendaele.

I decided for the sake of my garden and my sanity that the ducks had to go. Despite neglecting their charges, Rosie and Alice were very fond of the ducks, and I wondered how they’d react to the news. I called Rosie over to me and said, ‘Listen, Rosie, I’m going to have to get rid of the ducks, and if I can’t find somebody to take them I might have to kill them, so we can put them in the freezer. Now, I’m fairly immune to the thought of animal slaughter, as I’m the granddaughter of a master butcher. I thought it perfectly normal to be taken on a visit to the local slaughterhouse as a child; it was much more interesting than the cinema and taught me about life and death. I didn’t know how Rosie would react, but it seems she has inherited my no-nonsense approach to livestock, because instead of collapsing in tears at the thought of Crispy duck becoming just that, she went and fetched my ‘How to keep Ducks’ book, opened it at the page entitled, ‘Killing and preparing your ducks’, and handed it to me, with the words, ‘I think you might need this, mummy.’

I was a little surprised by her reaction, but delighted that she should adopt such a pragmatic approach. In the end I couldn’t do bring myself to kill the ducks, so I had to think of another cunning plan. After a lengthy discussion with my friend Beth, I resolved to put the ducks in the back of the car, and then drive to the home of a kindly local farmer. I would release the ducks into the farmyard under cover of darkness to mingle with all the other birds, and nobody would be any the wiser. But I couldn’t do that either, because there are always vicious farm dogs to beware of, and I didn’t want to get caught by a gruff man smelling of cows, and have ‘Duck deserter’ added to the long list of names by which I’m already known hereabouts.

The ducks went back to the place where I got them, and as far as I know they are now turning somebody else’s pond into a cesspool. My garden took a while to recover, but now it is back to being a little oasis of calm. The ducks have left a legacy of rich nutrients in the soil, and my parsnips and carrots have never looked better.


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