Ah do like a good 'angin' basket... | Jack Marshall's column

That wonderfully soporific murmur unique to cricket is hovering over the ground, paired nicely with a slight lull in play as the two sides silently arm wrestle for control of the match. David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd is on commentary, the utterly charming Accrington-born doyen of English cricket.

Famed for his wonderful turn of phrase and garrulous nature, Bumble watches as the cameras take advantage of the sleepy proceedings to pan around the ground. They focus softly on one of the hanging baskets thick with overflowing red petunias swaying gently from the grand old pavilion.

That’s it. “Ah do love a good ‘angin’ basket…” Bumble whispers into the mic in his disarmingly thick Lancashire droll.

We all love a good ‘angin’ basket. Rain or shine, they look magnificent and regal. They look professional and cared-for, as if it takes a particular bucolic love for all things pretty and alive to nurture one. And, even better, they’re not for anything; they’re just there to look lovely. And that’s lovely in itself.

My parents went on holiday recently and, while my father may not have the green-fingered zeal that my grandfather had, he enjoys the odd flowery dabble. And that includes rearing hanging baskets. This year, he was to be away for a crucial period of the baskets’ summer development and so, as his heir apparent, it fell to me to care for them in his absence.

Dutifully, I charted weather forecasts, adjusting my watering in accordance to the day’s rainfall. Feeding time was just before bed after the sun had long gone down so as to prevent any unnecessary evaporation. Plant food? Two scoops, twice a week.

Like hair, fingernails, and lockdown waistbands, it’s hard to notice something getting longer or larger or bigger when you see it every day. Growth is so incremental that it becomes invisible. This was the case with the hanging baskets.

Not knowing if they were drowning, doing just right, or being parched in the bright but muggy weather, the only sensible recourse was to crack on. They weren’t dead or dying, after all. Then Titchmarsh himself got back and before you could say ‘bonjour, ça va?’ he was out in the garden.

The hanging baskets were ‘massive’. I’d passed the test. Kudos all around on a fine innings. After all, we do love a good ‘angin’ basket.