Caroline O'Donoghue: Ten thoughts on being asked to 'plant-sit'
I was left with very specific instructions, along with a colour-coded plan of her yard to indicate which plants needed a can, half a can, or two cans of water.
I do not garden, so I can only presume that my friend cycled through her more green-thumbed neighbours before eventually asking me to water her plants while she’s on holidays.
In her South London yard she has tomatoes, courgettes, carrots, beetroot, lettuce, and beans.
They are her babies, they are her pride and her joy, and they are my responsibility while she is in Wales.
I was left with very specific instructions, along with a colour-coded plan of her yard to indicate which plants needed a can, half a can, or two cans of water.
The whole thing took about 20 minutes, and then I was free to do the real business of plant-sitting: ie, poking around her house for an hour.
After a while, even this got old, so I locked the kitchen door and started down her back steps.
Then, I heard something. The key to her front gate had fallen through the kitchen steps and into the mess below.
My friend’s garden might be a bountiful farmer’s market, but her little under-stairs region is a hellzone full of recycling, weeds, and sacks of soil.
I went searching. The key had slipped right out of my hand and into the mess of it all.
With no key to the front gate, I could not leave until I found it.
What followed was 90 minutes of me searching for the key in 30 degree heat, an activity that could not be completed without simultaneously deweeding the area (it was too overgrown to see anything) along with sorting, crushing, and binning all the recycling (I was afraid the key had fallen into one of the boxes).
Finally, after covering myself in dirt, and removing two snails that had attached themselves to the small of my back, I found the key stuck to some packing tape.
Is it just me, or does plant-sitting bring the worst out of us?
I extend this to all kinds of home foster care, whether it is plant watering, cat sitting, or post sorting.
Whenever a friend asks me to do something in their home while they’re not around, I feel immensely flattered to be trusted with such responsibility, and then immediately paranoid that I will break that trust spectacularly.
It feels a little like being on a cliff’s edge and being afraid that the urge to throw yourself off might overcome you.
You end up over-focusing on the wrong things - like closing all the windows before you go - and these constant, jittery reminders to yourself throw the rest of your body off balance, like a bag of M&Ms before bedtime.
That’s how you end up dropping keys through steps, or locking the cat out, or — in one famous urban legend that has been going around since the beginning of time — wrapping your unflushable poo in a sandwich bag to bin later, and then end up leaving on someone’s desk.
I respond to this kind of stress — the stress of other people’s trust — extremely badly. I have never, for example, had a good first day at work.
Years ago, back when I worked in social media, I ended up accidentally quoting Gary Glitter on my first day to an audience of thousands.
Another time I wore a new ring on my first day, not realising that it was actually a toe ring, and it had to be taken off with some bolt cutters.
Every time I try to perform some version of trustworthiness and reliability, my brain short-circuits, and I do something mad. This is why I have not learned to drive.
This fear, I suspect, lives in the hearts and minds of many people, and I genuinely think it is the real reason more people do not volunteer at soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
It is not the fear of the unknown, or contempt for the poor, or even laziness: I think people in general do not trust themselves with themselves, and think if they are asked to peel a potato in a charity’s kitchen they will somehow end up carving off their own thumb and feeding it to people.
On my way out, my friend calls me. “How are my boys getting on?” she asks, ‘her boys’ being what she calls her courgettes.
“Fine,” I reply, as faux-breezily as possible.
“You know, this is the least stressed holiday I’ve ever been on. Usually I’d be worrying whether I left the iron on, but it’s so comforting to know you’re there.”
“Oh… good,” I respond, realising that, when you agree to house-sit, you are not just looking after their plants.
You are looking after their fear of burning their house down, by converting it into your fear of burning their house down.
Oddly, I find this very soothing. My friend’s anxiety is just another pet I’m taking care of while she is away, and like any house cat, it’s best to treat it like it’s your own.
