I hate rushing, I hate being late, I do both of these things quite often. I am lucky, I suppose, that I have too much life to fit into the time allotted. On Monday I arrived at a stranger’s house and into a conservatory full of women who had, I imagined, got there 20 minutes earlier. The room was cleverly low lit and held two tables piled with foliage, I was handed a moss-covered wreath ring, soft and damp against my palms, and shown how to make little posies of blue spruce and leylandii and other greenery and wrap them with wire to make a wreath. I had not caught my breath.

Over the next two hours, though, I did. I stood next to my mother as she effortlessly covered her wreath in neat little bundles, and realised that I was living the quiet festive comparison she has spoken of before - of thinking that she was always a bit crap at making wreaths because her own mother was so good at it. There was 40 years of muscle-memory drifting between her fingers and the foliage they handled.

The wreath house was beautiful and filled with temptation: hazel leaves sprayed in pink and pale gold, dried lemons and apple slices, strange buds and berries. I plucked branches of fluffy yellow mimosa, gypsophilia and eucalyptus out of buckets and worked them into the moss, feeling the temptation to compare and judge my abilities drift into the air above me with the smell of sap. The room quietened, I guess everyone was doing the same.

I was surprised to find dirt under my fingernails when we left. They’ve been clean for a while; it’s been weeks since I did anything in the garden. I could draw up a list of everything that needs doing but I have not prioritised the time. I’ve been so busy I’ve forgotten that I miss the soil. I needed a reminder, and now I have had one, things will begin to chamge.

This morning I discovered that vine weevils had got to the Fatsia japonica that’s been giving me such satisfaction over the past few months. It felt like a failing - I should have got the nematodes in - and then I realised it opened up a space: I will plant something else there, instead.

Other good things this week...