The watering lance that turned a chore into my favourite hour

It's a long wand you fix to the end of the hose, with a softened spray at the tip, and the gift of it is reach. You can stand comfortably and send water right to the back of a bed, in under the leaves where the roots actually want it, without trampling everything or stooping over each plant in turn. After years of a standard hose attachment, it felt like a small revelation — gentler on the plants, and so much nicer to use.

Mine's the metal sort, which has an unexpected pleasure to it: on a hot evening it stays cool in the hand, lovely to hold while everything around you is still giving off the day's heat.

There's a particular guilt to an allotment in summer: the days you can't get down there, knowing everything's thirsty, willing the forecast to promise rain. But when I do make it down, watering is honestly one of my favourite things. There's no rushing it. You move along the beds, plant by plant, and the whole plot seems to soften and settle as the light goes.

As the summers get hotter I'm planning ahead: a dip tank, and more water butts, so there's always something of our own to draw from. The tap at the allotment gets busy in a dry spell — sometimes there's a queue for it, sometimes nothing free at all — and the more we can catch and keep ourselves, the better. But that's a project for another day. For now, there's an hour of golden light and a bed of thirsty marigolds, and I know exactly where I'd rather be.