There's a specific kind of exhaustion that makes you into a person you don't quite recognise. The person who snaps at their partner for asking an entirely reasonable question. The person who cannot make a decision about something small and feels genuine distress about it. The person who is made furious by nothing specific — and then made worse by noticing they're furious about nothing specific. She is not difficult. She is running a nervous system under neurological constraint.

There was a corner of my grandfather's garden that got the most afternoon sun. That was where the basil lived. Next to it, coriander gone to seed. Thyme along the stone border. And somewhere, tucked in where you might not notice it, a small cluster of something soft and lemon-scented that his wife picked for tea in the evenings. I didn't know then what that tea was doing. Now I do. Part II of the spring herbs series, and the most personal one yet.