WHAT were you doing last Thursday evening?

I bet you weren't doing the same as me. I was sitting in a hot tub in the garden, watching the stars and a big swollen moon gliding serenely across the clear night sky.

The air was mild, and bore on it the softly sweet scent of next door's flowering bird cherry. The evening tranquillity was intermittently pierced by the laughing screech of nesting jays, and the occasional bark from mating muntjack deer but, apart from that, the only sound was a distant hum in the background from passing traffic on the M42.

Relaxed by the warm bubbles in the water and sipping a freshly mixed gin and tonic, it was easy to pretend that it was the noise of waves crashing onto a nearby shore.

I was staying in a guesthouse just south of Birmingham. It was a family do; my aunty was throwing a retirement party. It was her fifth retirement party since November, and she isn't 60 until the end of May, so I guess it won't be her last retirement party.

This was the official family party though. Her neighbour was also retiring, so they were holding a joint party in their gardens. Living in such a small village, where everyone still acknowledges and knows the names of their next door neighbours, it eventually turned into a street party.

I decided that if we were travelling that far down for a party, I wouldn't feel like driving all the way back up in the evening, so why not make the most of it and turn the venture into a holiday?

My parents had the same thought, and had already bagged aunty's spare bed, so I searched the Internet and found a beautiful, and very reasonable, guesthouse only ten minutes walk away that had vacancies for the whole week.

You know what it's like when you go on holiday with friends and family; you only need a limited amount of time together, or else you run the risk of exposing petty niggles. Luckily, as a family we rarely seem to suffer from a build up of claustrophobia, probably because we are always doing something constructive (and because we had the sanctuary of the outdoor hot tub to run away to at the end of every day).

The main activity we undertook this holiday was collecting enough matter on our daily rambles to create a unique and flavoursome 'hedgerow' soup for the retirement party.

Mum was assigned the nettles. The new tips would make up the bulk and body of the soup. It has a taste not dissimilar to spinach, and is packed with an astounding array of beneficial vitamins and minerals.

This was Mum's job, because through her many years of gardening, her hands have become so tough that the stinging hairs can't penetrate deep enough to cause any harm. On the odd occasion that she does get stung, she doesn't curse or swear, but sees the positive side, and deems it a useful cure for her sometimes stiff joints and mild arthritis (which was probably my fault too, as she often reminds me that I depleted all the calcium from her body while I was in the womb).

The rest of us searched for a few other wild and weedy ingredients.

The tastiest one in my opinion has to be wild garlic (ransoms), the leaves of which are now at their peak for eating. They have all the flavour of conventional garlic cloves, but none of the lingering pungency. If it had been a few weeks later we could have added a few handfuls of the budding flowers too. Hedge-garlic or 'jack-bythe-hedge' adds a deeper mustardy and peppery element to the soup.

Chives and wild onions give a touch of sweetness. I believe that a few handfuls of goose-grass (sticky-grass or cleavers) was tossed in as well.

This is normally better used in a stir fry, but at this time of the year when the shoots are still small and tender they pack a taste that is full of 'greenness' and chlorophyll.

The soup was served outside in the garden with locally made wholemeal bread. Despite people's initial nervousness, everyone had a mug full of the stew, and most came back for more.

If you know what you are doing, can identify your plants and make sure that you are not ripping out vast quantities of endangered wild species, then you do not have to look far for something different, tasty and memorable to serve up to your friends and family.

JOBS TO DO THIS WEEK

IF you have any gaps in the borders from plants that didn't make it through the winter, then nip down to your nearest supermarket and pick up a cheap perennial plant such as peony, astilbe, penstemon or campanula. They will fill an empty space with colour, and will come back even bigger every spring.

Dead head daffodils as the flowers fade, but don't cut down the leaves. This allows energy to be stored in the bulb for next year's burst of growth.

Sow broad beans straight into the soil in beds outside. They will do even better if you cover the soil with polythene for a few days beforehand, as this warms the soil.