AS USUAL I am a step behind the true gardeners. So busy have I been drinking cups of tea on the allotment and "planning" where this year’s produce will go, that I have actually forgotten to order any.

Neighbours and friends have potatoes chitting while I have been chatting. It is time to collect egg boxes and get a move on.

The allotment is now vying with other demands on my free time. There is of course the running. I have been three times since Christmas and can manage 13 minutes with one stop.

Have had many kind offers to accompany other jogging mums but do not yet feel ready to enter into society running.

Firstly there are the clothes. These women actually manage to look good when they run. Their clothes announce that they mean business.

My jogging attire consists of blue tracksuit bottoms that have been worn on the allotment for the last five years. I wear a baggy t-shirt to hide the hole that has appeared in them. Trust me, until I invest in some new clothes no-one would want to run near me.

And then there is the chit chat. These mums have been running for some time and I am convinced they are actually able to talk and run at the same time.

I am still at the stage of trotting around the field like a tourettes sufferer, capable only of uttering the odd expletive every ten paces. It is better that I run alone.

This week husband has been enjoying the limelight that comes from an appearance on Blue Peter.

He managed to get himself filmed while running a 10 mile cross-country race in Wiltshire.

He gathers the family around the TV to watch and admire and we all make the required congratulatory noises. Okay, so that is not quite what happens. Actually, the children fall on the floor laughing and daughter (ever conscious of fashion) asks him "Do you always wear that ridiculous hat when you run?"

With his hat and my jogging trousers, perhaps husband and I could set a running club of our own for the sartorially challenged?