It’s been a more eagerly awaited spring than most this year, and now that it’s finally here, as ever, it’s just too much to take in. There’s just no way of describing an English spring to someone that has never experienced it. I think it’s something, like queuing, steamed puddings and creativity with offal, that we can’t be bettered at. Continue reading »
This week I will mostly be eating fajitas and my own weight in chocolate biscuits if the cupboards are anything to go by, as I am in charge of these two, Boy and Dog of Shelley, who as we speak is no doubt collapsing in a hotel after a hot bumpy taxi ride from JFK. I have told Boy that I expect to be waited on hand and foot and I think he thinks I’m joking. Far more important to learn and meet the domestic needs of a knackered forty-something than to pass one’s GCSEs. He also seems to think he will be beating me at Scrabble, but I have already established that he doesn’t know all his two letter words (I offer you ‘gu’, a rudimentary violin. Oh yes.)
I will also be dealing with this lot;
…they do a very nice line in vertical take-offs whenever you stray near their fence. Dog is intrigued;
Dog is not actually levitating there – Boy is doing the hoisting.
Have a lovely time old girl, I’ll try not to burn the house down in your absence, or have social services and the RSPCA take the Boy and Dog away (and not necessarily in that order). Remember to look the other way first when you cross the road… I have had far too many already of those Marks and Sparks biscuits you left on the table and I feel sick.
No CGI there. It really is 22 degrees in the shade here today. Too hot for me obviously but welcome after so many months of rain and cold winds. The garden is still too damp to get on and do anything meaningful, and even over the wind I can hear the ground singing as the water percolates through it. But this sun must be a blessed relief for some occupants of the garden;
I see the Narcissus ‘February Gold’ is finally out. Continue reading »
Now that the days are (slightly) longer and (slightly) warmer, your thoughts can be turning gently towards doing something creative with willow. As I type it is actually snowing, but we will gloss over this for a moment. The nice stooled specimens above come from an amazing sexagenarian lady half an hour round the lanes; she runs a charity that encourages folk with learning disabilities to care for farm animals, is a retired flying instructor with two single prop planes ‘out the back’ on a landing strip, lives on Saxon fortifications and has a mk 9 Jaguar and an Austin fx3 in her shed, both full of chickens and horseblankets. She also has cheekbones that would make Diane Keaton smack her in a jealous rage. Continue reading »
Finally, a bit of sun, and everything seems galvanised into action. And gilded. These Camassia shoots have very quickly hoisted up last year’s fallen leaves as they strain skywards.
It only seems yesterday that we were all picking our way through the silence of the snow and squinting against the peculiar light glancing from the ground. And marvelling at the newly visible filth in the house. I can only assume this is how Spring Cleaning came about – the low sun and reflection from the snow really show up the muck. There’s enough fluff skulking round the skirting boards to knit a whole extra cat, the windows are opaque with splatter, the spiders have clearly been very industrious in the gloom and the kitchen is frankly unsanitary. Continue reading »
Now this is more like it – catching the greenhouse covered in what looks like expensive translucent wallpaper before it slides off in the sun. Continue reading »
You can’t move in what I believe the young folk call the Blogosphere at this time of year without being confronted by frosty umbels. And I am not about to be left out. The garden is full of them, twinkling, scattering scintillating dust with every breath of wind or careering Long-tailed tit on its way to the feeder, and demanding to be photographed.
Yes yes, I know, been two months. My excuse is that since the end of June I have been suffering rather badly with tinnitus, One doesn’t like to moan (well actually one does) but it is dreadful, upsetting, and seeping into every part of my life. I am different person than I was in the summer and I don’t much care for it. Don’t recognise myself (literally, as I have dropped over a stone and a half and haven’t reduced cake and pasta intake at all – I am amazed at how many friends seem to think this is A GOOD THING regardless of why the weight has come off) and the noise seems to get worse all the time.
I have now been referred to the London ENT hospital and am hoping they will be able to just ram something sharp into my ear and dig out whatever it is that’s causing this, although there was nothing on my brain scan. A brain, pleasingly, but not much else. Meanwhile on the home front I am being let down repeatedly by builders and young men, the garden is either solid or soggy or, somewhat bizarrely, both. Can you tell I am thoroughly fed up? Oh, and I have Jury Service in a couple of weeks, something I have spent my whole life dreading.
Scout as you see has the answer to all ills – lie with your arms under the woodburner until you have to be dragged backwards by your legs by a passing human.
So, normal service etc etc , hopefully; if I have maligned in advance the afore-mentioned young men there may be garden developments to show you before the world ends (hurrah!) or Christmas, whichever comes first. Ho ho ho.