So January hasn’t offered many easy gardening days so far. I’ve managed to get a few under my belt but have also been making the most of Yogi Days, days where I can be at home with my four legged friend, reducing my own to-do list, and reading and planning.

Occasionally I am overwhelmed by guilt at the amount of books ‘someone’ will have to sort out after my day. That annually triggers an intended pruning of the book shelves, which always ends up in me sitting on the floor reading a ‘good book’ that I had forgotten about. So, my book shelves are still groaning under the weight of my beloved books. They surround one of my rooms like a big hug and break-away book shelves have found their way to any other available wall space too. I even have stacks of books in the bedroom – not on the bedside tables but as the bedside tables.

Of course, I’m not alone. Other bibliophiles include Ernest Hemingway who amassed 9,000 books, Thomas Jefferson with nearly 6,500 and maybe a bit more surprising, the late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld who had a collection of 300,000 books. Then there’s the 76-year-old former sugar plant worker in India who has been collecting books since the age of 20 and has amassed over two million titles.

Most of my friends have gone over to Kindle and Audio books but whilst I appreciate the few advantages of them, you can’t beat holding a book, turning pages and just the physicality of it all. Around the cottage, my books feel like ‘company’, each one with it’s own story and purpose. I have reference books – admittedly Google has meant a lot of them have a thin layer of dust on them – autobiographies, and a huge amount of books on nature. And of course there’s the obligatory ‘shelf-help’ section.

Disappointingly, I don’t retain a fraction of what I have read but it doesn’t take away from the enjoyment of their company – and it means that on unfriendly gardening days, I can read them again.

Something I recently re-read was that there will be three types of people in your life. Leaf People – those who just burst in for a relatively short spell, are uplifting and but then leave as quickly as they arrived. Then there are Branch People – those who offer support at various stages of your life. They tend to be around for longer but still tend to drift off in other directions. And then there are Root People - those who are in your life for the long haul and tend to go unnoticed a lot of the time. Root People stay, no matter what the season and weather.

As well as reading books I still use notebooks and pens a lot too. Especially this time of year where I make copious lists and sketch out ideas for my and my client’s gardens. It’s nice to have that bit of extra thinking time that the spring and summer months will soon snatch back. I do use the computer for ideas and research, and it is particularly useful for checking out new products that are available. This year I’ll be sorting out a good irrigation system for my raised beds (and suggest you do the same), trying (again) to get the hang of growing micro-greens, and chasing up – and hunting down - those ideal non-slip working boots.

And I’ll write all the contacts, ideas and projects in a notebook on the desk, next to the computer. I just prefer to be more organic and let the ‘pen be mightier than the spade’ for a while.