Two things have struck me this week: firstly – unreasonable expectations and, secondly – allotment envy.

My girlfriend (yes, I do actually have one) asked how the potatoes were coming along. They had been in the ground for five days.

I’m not sure what she expects, but even in the rich and fertile earth of the foothills at Vesuvius the ground does not yield fantastical crops in mere hours.

Although the idea of lightning allotmenteering does appeal and I may fire off an email to BBC Three. If ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’ gets commissioned then why not?

I reckon I could rip up a mucky patch and have courgette, radish and a swaying plot of barley in days with the right chemicals.

It must be said my girlfriend has been a staunch pillar of support and advice over the winter months… from the confines of the sitting room.

I fear she will be mortified come September when my barrow comes wheeling back to the flat laden with an earwig infested leek and three onions nicked from a neighbouring plot.

Speaking of which everyone else seems to be making better progress than me. Significantly better progress.

I dreamt the other night that as I walked through the allotments everyone turned and said ‘hello’, but they all looked like Alan Titchmarsh. Eerie.

Now, I’ve never met my neighbour, I know he got his patch at the sane time as me, but he has evidently been reading different books.

He is either Paul Daniels or just buying veg from Asda, waiting for me to appear in the distance before plonking it on top of the soil and cackling uncontrollably from behind a compost heap as I stand scratching my head.

I don’t care who you are, there is no way garlic grows that big, that quickly, in Britain in March. That much I do know.

No doubt I’ll go back at the weekend to find a combine at work, or my ‘allotment pal’ hovering over the patch in a chopper spraying fertiliser.