A small, dedicated, efficient – and most importantly – invisible workforce.  Such was the stuff, I imagine, of ITN’s managements’ dreams. And without even having to go on a paint-balling, team building, human resources course, I think I can claim to have reached this happy state with my own devoted band of domestic assistants.

Whereas  ITN wanted to own you, body and soul, I ask for little. At home staff turn up, do their allotted tasks, preferably in my absence and submit a monthly invoice.  Perfection.  On reflection this may well have been the plan at ITN but my terms and conditions do not require people to work the sort of unsocial hours that would make a Junior Doctor faint, deal with unpleasant politicians – is there any other kind? – or submit expenses claims.

We might have made it look like the work of a moment but have you ever tried to account for hundreds of used banknotes thrust into your hands – money intended to sustain you and the crew through a wet and windy week in Blackpool – and again, is there any other kind? – with has INEXPLICABLY vanished by the time you got to Euston?  Those expenses sheets were not the work of a moment, dear reader, and possibly were the only truly creative writing that any of us did.

But to return home, isn’t there always, even in Paradise, a snake in the grass, an ancient mariner, a Banquo’s ghost, casting their gloomy shadow?

Mine comes in the form of Lawnmower Man and any reference to a horror film is entirely deliberate.  It must be admitted that my garden hirings have not been an unqualified success. There was an entirely blameless, and not unattractive Irishman who my husband suspected was burying illicit arms in the compost heap and then a wild-eyed Care In the Community youth who constantly pruned his own body   A single handed/ fingered walking Tarantine movie, at least he reduced fertiliser outlay to fish and bone.

Enter Lawnmover Man whose sole aim in life does not centre upon my need for grass containment but on his desire to ambush me in the shrubbery and subject me to the peat-dark outpourings of his troubled soul, episodes that would leave even the most devoted fan of Dostoyevsky gagging for a little comic relief.  He would not normally have got past the security lights had he not confused me with an actress with a similar name and behaved in such a grovelling, star-struck manner that vanity triumphed over common sense.  (And not for the first time, you remind me).

Getting rid of him was not simple. Not one to take the subtle hint – ‘You’re fired’ – my creative juices were taken up for months devising ways to reduce the size of the lawn and the need for him.  Whole gardening series could have been filmed as I contemplated the merits of paving, decking, cobbling and concreting.  More ‘construction’ than ‘constructive’ dismissal but it’s the thought that counts.

But now it is done. The last blade of grass is history.  Where once was an emerald sward now, thanks to the services of a miniature digger, there is a shiny sheet of water large enough to have waves and self-governing Islands.  And best of all, Lawnmower Man has been replaced by Pond Man, a sunny natured, raven haired Italian who is teaching me to tango on the lakeside.  An entirely better kettle of koi.