No, you haven’t received the wrong post. This is a Veddw post and it’s not simply written for younger people. Read on:

I recently decided to buy Tim Richardson’s book, Sissinghurst, The Dream Garden. (Excellent book) And I did something I’d been meaning to do for a long time – I bought the eBook. It wasn’t much cheaper, so why? Well, perhaps most of all because garden books with yummy pictures are Very Heavy. I’ve got fed up trying to manage them. Have they got heavier over the years? Might be fun to weigh some… Anyway –

Some years ago I tried getting garden magazines online and hated it. They were slow to load, so turning each page was tedious, and the screens I was using were better suited to work than reading for pleasure.

I also experimented with garden magazines which were designed purely for the internet – and was disappointed to find they were just like the paper versions, not just to load and read, but they had the same tedious people waffling on the same old way. It was a bit like when the magazine ‘new eden’ was published in 2000. It seemed really exciting, something new and refreshing. Then you discovered Christopher Lloyd and Monty Don were writing for them – and that felt dated 20 years ago. (O, and haven‘t things moved on since..!)

And Michael King bravely published books online, years ago, and I never seemed able to download and access them. Which felt a great shame. But they’re still on his site, so perhaps we can get them easily now?

Because things have changed! And no-one told me! So I am telling you!

First – Amazon now let you read eBooks on anything, it seems, so the handy but colourless and little Kindle that you have by your bed is not the place for your garden books. (You need the Kindle Cloud Reader)

You need a phone, laptop, Chromebook or tablet and then suddenly the photographs will glow!

And you will be able to enlarge them on the page to look at details. Wonderful. (Just like you can on here, really!)

And you won’t need a lectern to read the book. The book will be no heavier than the piece of tech you are reading it on. It could even be your smart phone. You could be reading something really good and beautiful as you wait for your virus vaccination.

Big bonus for me – oh, if only this had been years and years ago – your books won’t take up acres of bookshelf, and you will be able to find them when you need! I really do spend hours searching for books I need.

So, I know what you will all be wondering? Can you get The Bad Tempered Gardener as an eBook? Yes you can!!! Here !

Now, please be kind and restrain yourself from writing to tell me how you love how real books smell/taste/feel. No-one is going to take them away if you prefer them. But I feel liberated, just as I did when eBooks first arrived. Maybe we could forget making overtures to publishers and do our very own Veddw book now!?

Oh – and don’t forget you can now read me on Garden Rant!