Anyone who knows me well knows I never waste anything writing wise.  I don’t like wasting food either but rather that than what seems something fun to write about.  One of the triggers for this book was my daughter’s adorable little rented house in a village near us.  There was a row of them and they were built in a time when a garden was essential for growing food.  These were known as ‘black gardens’ because they were soil, no land was wasted on lawns.

I loved my daughter’s house.  She shared it with a work colleague and it was tiny but perfect.  A sitting room, little kitchen and two bedrooms.  

Next door to her, in the porch was a row of three sets of wellingtons.  Small, smaller and absolutely tiny.  

I knew I had to write a book that involved that row of cottages and that row of boots.

It so happened that we were having major alterations to our house.  The instigators of the alterations were neighbours.  (Top tip, never go away and leave your daughter in charge of the house.  It’s not the wild parties, it’s the interior designers she lets in, who have big ideas which are so tempting that really costs the money.)

These neighbours were also doing up their house and, because they were overseeing my building work and having a baby at the same time, their renovations were slow.   They didn’t have a staircase.  Everyone said, don’t worry, as long as you have a staircase by the time the baby is born, about eight months, walking, but honestly I can’t tell you how long it was before they got up and downstairs without using scaffold planks and ladders.  I put this in the book too!