I'm mad about gardening. I have an allotment on the other side of Hampstead Heath, and I keep three hens in my... — Deborah Moggach

I'm mad about gardening. I have an allotment on the other side of Hampstead Heath, and I keep three hens in my garden.

Author: Deborah Moggach

Insight: There's something almost defiant about a person who gets genuinely absorbed in gardening and keeping chickens. It's not a trendy lifestyle choice wrapped up in Instagram aesthetics—it's the kind of thing people say when they've actually made space in their life for something that demands real attention. Hens need feeding whether you're busy or tired. Gardens don't care about your schedule. What often gets overlooked is how this kind of "madness" becomes a form of resistance. In a world designed to keep you moving, scrolling, optimizing, there's something quietly radical about choosing to be mad about something that grows slowly and requires you to actually show up. It pulls you out of your head and into your hands. You can't check your phone while harvesting vegetables or collecting eggs—not really, not without losing focus on what matters in that moment. Maybe the real thing Moggach is describing isn't just gardening but permission. Permission to be completely absorbed by something impractical and sustaining at the same time. Permission to care more about your hens than your productivity metric. In giving yourself over to that kind of mad dedication, you're actually reclaiming something most of us have half-forgotten: the simple pleasure of tending to something alive.