Indoors, I have plenty of trays of seedlings to tend to, including two varieties of the Tibetan blue poppy … (which I am trying again following my failure last year); the fabulous yellow Siberian delphinum; the perennial bronze grass ‘Carex testacea 'Prairie Fire' (which is proving tricky) and some Acanthus Hungaricus, which is slightly smaller than the common species, for the middle of the herbaceous border to provide winter interest. With their chunky flower spikes, acanthus are unusual plants, since they lose their leaves in summer yet retain a vivid evergreen silhouette over the winter months. I also have seedlings of the lovely herbaceous geranium “pratensis’, white foxgloves and bright achillea flowers.Then one morning the topsoil I had long been waiting for arrived. My builder, Carl turned up in the morning on a giant digger with the dark local soil held high within the cavernous tipper of the bright yellow machine. I felt an immense sense of satisfaction at seeing this vast pile of earth dumped in the courtyard by the barn and realized, perhaps for the first time, the true value of this basic raw material. It was as if I had been given a very valuable present which promised an unseen potential. Although it was mixed with quite a bit of stone and rubble, it proved to be of excellent consistency being both light and water retentive.