A problem of a slightly different hue this week. Those of you who grow vegetables will know how time-consuming it is. And you will know that the real point of it is to show them off to friends – I mean, to enjoy eating them.

Actually, I mean both. The ultimate point is to enjoy eating them with friends (and to show off). This is one of those areas that can put a friendship under strain. “The trouble with other people’s gardens,” one good friend said to me at my last attempt to show her around the vegetable patch, “is that, like other people’s children, they are not remotely interesting.” Which was admirably honest, if a bit of a shame, as she also happens to be my daughter’s godmother.

So I’ve given up incorporating tours of the vegetable patch into weekends chez Miles – visitors were drying up in any case, to be honest. But I do introduce as many impressive vegetable courses as I can over a weekend. “I grew that,” I mention nonchalantly as they tuck into a broad-bean salad. Grow your own herbs and the guests aren’t safe with anything: the chicken is going to be stuffed with thyme and rosemary, a simple bowl of noodles will have your own chillies, garlic and coriander in it, for a start.

See? I’m showing off again, even to you, poor reader. I know how dull it is. I know that they, and you, don’t care. I wouldn’t care. I hate being shown around other people’s gardens; always have done, still do. And I loathe people showing off about what they have cooked. Nothing destroys an evening quicker than the chef boring on about their food.

The other weekend, a friend, let’s call him John, managed to show not a flicker of interest in any of it. I think he may have been feeling a little sick from all the vegetable courses. And I finally learnt to stop it. Because really, and contrary to Sarah Wain’s advice, below, I knew that John was right: there is no excuse for a vegetable or culinary bore, and I had turned into both.

Sarah Wain's expert advice

– Include some foodie friends when you entertain so that you don’t have to be the sole supplier of food/growing chat. They’re your friends, they should be interested in what you do, for gawd’s sake!

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