I’m not even taking parent plants. I’m just re-homing their babies

10am Saturday. I’m about to wake my husband in order to put to him my plans for the day. Best to do this with fresh coffee; I’m expecting an oppositional response.

“Today,” I say, opening the bedroom curtains, “we’re going to hunt Centranthus Ruber.”

“What?” he says.

“Valerian,” I say, “wild plant, likes walls, but difficult to get the roots out. I know a secret spot where it’s rampant. About an hour-and-a-half away. I want some for the garden. Many hands make light work.”

“Fine,” he says.

“But you hate flower excursions,” I say.

“As long as we’re back by three for the rugby.”

“So I needn’t have bothered with the coffee,” I say.

“Nope,” he says.

“Well, chip chop, then,” I say, “if we’ve got to be back by three, you’ll have to drink it in the car.”

12.30pm. We arrive at my secret spot in the coastal boondocks of West Cork.

“But this is a graveyard,” my husband says, “you can’t take plants from a graveyard. It’s bad karma.”

“I’m not robbing cut flowers from graves,” I say, “I’m winkling out tiny Valerian seedlings from old walls around a neglected graveyard so I can transplant them. I’m not even taking parent plants. I’m just re-homing their babies.”

“This is bad karma, I’m telling you.”

“I don’t believe in karma,” I say, “and even if I did, it’s not bad karma, it’s propagation.”

1.10pm. I demonstrate on top of a high wall, with a chopstick and a kitchen fork.

“Find a place,” I say, “where the earth is loose, then gently - don’t tug by the leaves or stem - just eeeeeease it out. See - the root is like a miniature white carrot but more brittle. Takes a bit of time but now I have one little Valerian baby for my garden.”

“What if I believe in karma?” he says, “and I’m not happy to take my chances with it?”

“You’ll miss the rugby,” I say, “because it will take longer. Start over there on that low wall - and I don’t want any ham-fisted attempts. You need delicacy for this. Pretend each seedling is a tiny little newborn baby - that might help you.”

“That wall is way too near that old grave,” he says.

“Just get me some babies,” I say, “live ones. Here’s your chopstick. If you see a ghost, you can kill it with the chopstick. Afterwards, put them in the car boot, in the box I filled with earth this morning.”

1.30pm. “I’m off,” my husband says, “I’m going for a walk up there on the cliff where there are no dead people. I’ve put some Valerian in the box. You coming?”

“You going off-piste?” I say.

“Yes,” he says with his Bear Grylls face on.

“Then no,” I say.

2pm. I’m walking towards the car with my Valerian babies when my husband returns. He is limping through the undergrowth, looking terribly excited.

“You’ll never guess what,” he says.

“What?” I say.

“I got caught in an animal snare,” he says, “I was just walking along and suddenly, wires snapped around my ankles. Really tight. Straight over I went. Landed with a bang. Took me half an hour to get myself free. I didn’t have my phone. I was calling and calling.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” I say, approaching the car.

“I went down on my shoulder,” he says, “if I’d fallen on my head, I’d still be lying there in the snare now, concussed, with you weed-collecting down here, oblivious. I told you this place had bad karma.”

“There’s no such thing as bad karma,” I say, opening the boot.

I look at the box.

“On second thoughts,” I think, “maybe there is.”

The box is jam-packed with my husband’s Valerian babies; if this box was a still-life painting, it would be called, ‘Thoughtless Massacre’.

“It was a lucky escape really,” he says, catching up with me.

“Not for your ******* Valerian,” I say.