The person who got me through 2021:

Monty Don inspired my new, obsessive love of gardening

My admiration for the Gardeners’ World presenter took seed in lockdown and kept growing, thanks to his calming aura amid the mayhem

Years ago I collected my new prescription glasses and walked home staring up like a person who had time-travelled from a pre-aeroplane era: I had no idea trees had individual leaves that could be seen from the ground.

Before 2020, I had never noticed gardens, either: they were things that old people liked and neighbourhood dads mowed constantly. The garden attached to my flat became interesting only if a fox was standing in it. Then lockdown happened, and the people who usually kept the vines and trees from eating the building stopped coming. I tried to sort it out myself, pathetically Googling to figure out what was supposed to be there and what was an alien plant invasion. Somehow, I ended up watching Gardeners’ World.

Read more at The Guardian.