A FIRM believer that talking about something is as good as actually doing it, I decide to invite the women from the allotment ‘club’ for our first lunch of the year.

Not much progress has been made on my plot but I have drawn a plan on a scrap of paper and am prepared to wave this about if I feel inadequate.

I find that talking about seeds and digging methods over a bowl of soup leaves me with the healthy glow of one who has spent a few hours working the land.

Perhaps there is a gap in the market here. Wonder if a virtual allotment website could take off.

The site would be aimed at people who have no allotment or garden but can talk with tremendous authority about their virtual experiences of growing their own produce.

Read that people who play on flight simulators long for the day when a pilot on an actual flight is incapacitated and they are asked to land a real plane.

In a similar way, members of the virtual allotment community could linger by real allotments waiting to step into the wellies of a genuine plot holder who acquires a gardening injury.

Husband is once again keen to get an invite to the lunch and tells me, menacingly, that he might just set up his own club.

"It will be a mixture of an allotment and fight club," he says. I press him for more details but he says mysteriously "The first rule is I can’t talk about it."

Realise that he is having one of those days when he imagines himself to be Brad Pitt (or ‘arm pit’ as daughter refers to him) and leave it.

As long as he is not expecting me to miraculously morph into Angelina Jolie then we will all be happy.