I once worked with a man (Clint Anglo) who loved to see women in fishnets but had the most horrible nickname for them. He called them sprout bags because he thought they look like the bags that you get Brussel Sprouts in from the supermarket.

There is a popular fallacy that all men love fishnets but I can vouch for the fact that this is absolutely, categorically not true. DM hates them. Early in our relationship, we went out to see a band on the train for the evening. I had taken great care to glam up for my new love and was wearing a fake leather skirt, fishnets and kittens. How wrong could I have got it….he hates fishnets and kittens. By the time we got home he was really peeved with me because the guy opposite un on the train home was ogling the fishnets all the way home and he was really miffed about it.

Ah well, as they say, the best laid plans…

I must say this is one area where we couldn’t be more different. I love to dress up and he loves to dress down. He rarely ever wears anything other than jeans (501s of course) and likes his women to do the same. I have a pathological hatred of wearing jeans and, having tried to please him by buying a couple of pairs, made myself miserable in the process. These days he has to accept that we just like different styles.

I’ve never done this sort of ‘series’ of photos before because I’m trying to make my photos about my real life and the ‘series’ doesn’t really fit with that. Today, though, the tenuous link is the sprout bags because I’ve spent the entire day in the garden. All the veggies are now planted and all the bedding plants are in tubs and borders and the garden looks wonderful. Am I congratulating myself on how wonderful it is? No. The reason why it looks wonderful is because David has been out there too and while I’ve been planting he’s been tidying. He’s cleaned paths and edges of weeds as well as giving our poor, beleaguered lawn some TLC. Dogs and hens play havoc with lawns at the best of times but in our dry, sandy soil, the poor grass stands no chance with little water and no nutrients on top of the pounding of dogs feet, the scratching of hens and all of them digging holes. I’ve done my best with it since I’ve been here (it was like a field when I came here) but I’ve just not had time to give it the love and care it deserves when I’m more interested in growing veggies. He says it is his mission to improve it so I hope he can achieve that.

So a tenuous link with the sprout bags but a genuine desire to say how much my feet ache after a day of hard work. Dontcha just love the red metalflake nailvarnish though?

Technical note: A couple of people have asked how I did this - self-timer, manual focus and a lot of dashing about but all my own work!