This is me. A woman grappling with serious who am I and how do I want live the rest of my life issues. You’d think I would know by now. After all I am sixty three! But the great thing about getting older is the way it surprises you. By turning out to be nothing like you expected. So I don’t have all the answers. I don’t feel particularly grown up. I haven’t settled down and stopped wanting to do new things. And I’m always learning.
Last week I went back to Long Barn. It was one of those autumn days that start out grey and gloomy but slip quietly into fabulousness while your back is turned. This is the time of year when you need to be paying close attention. Because while you are looking in the other direction invariably something wonderful is happening behind you.
It was raining as we started out cutting back the daisies – erigeron karvinskianus, the Mexican daisy. This innocuous little sparkler has been an unexpected star for me this year. It caught my eye in the nursery at Beth Chatto’s garden when I visited in May and I bought three pots of it for my own garden. There it was again in Majorca in June, planted in drifts under olive trees in the garden of one of the newly restored villas on Pine Walk, looking effortlessly gorgeous. And when I went to Long Barn in August for my week of work experience it was everywhere, softening the paths and steps, flowing across the terrace.
But last week, under the instruction of Richard, the head gardener, Anne and I were putting it to bed for the winter. I felt rather cruel, the little daisy was still looking sprightly after a long hot summer of hard work. But it had to be done, so that it could take a breather before doing its thing again next year.
So we were outside in the rain…. And at one point we had to take shelter in the greenhouse, where Richard gave us a quick lesson in propagating plants from non-flowering shoots. And then back outside and on with the daisies. And while we were working the sun came out.
Suddenly the garden was vibrant and glowing. The penstemons in particular were jewel-like.
So Richard allowed me to take some cuttings, and following his instructions I potted up some babies of my own.
They’re on my window sill now.
It’s a wonderful thought that next year I might be able to have a sprinkling of Long Barn magic in my own garden.
Do you ever have those moments when you just don’t feel right? You can’t quite put your finger on why or what it’s all about. But you just feel a bit s***. And you don’t seem able to do anything about it.
Well this week has been one of those weeks for me. I’ve been feeling like a right old grumpy moody witch. And I’ve been unable to snap myself out of it. And that’s made me feel even more grumpy and moody. So I haven’t been a whole lot of fun to live with….
But have you noticed that if you let it life has a cunning way of getting you back on track? The thing is not to panic. I’m a great one for the ‘I don’t feel right so I’ve got to do something about it right now’ approach to life. The mad busy get out there and damn well sort yourself out girl strategy. But you know something…. I’m learning that it’s not always the best way to approach things.
I saw a very wise friend of mine this week who said something that really helped. She said that we are human beings not human doings. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’ve realised that I’m very good at doing, not always so good at being. But you know what, sometimes it’s better just to be with the things the way they are and see where life takes you.
And life has taken me to some wonderful places this week. To good friends whose words of wisdom have nudged me in the right direction, back to lovely Long Barn (of which more in another post) for a therapeutic day immersed in gorgeousness, to the cinema to see Rush, a film about James Hunt and Nicki Lauder which plunged me right back into the fabled summer of ’76, to a take away curry on Friday night with all my children home and the family sitting round the kitchen table.
And then this morning….
First thing when I woke up the mist was lying in the fields.
So I took my camera and went outside.
And magic happened in front of my eyes.
The planes were performing miracles in the sky.
Pictures painted by the hand of god….
The northern lights, who needs ’em…. I’ve got them in my own back garden.
I have a bone to pick with the people who forecast the weather. I know they do their best, and these days quite often they get it right. But also quite often they get it wrong. Like this year….
Do you remember that while we were stuck in the rainy season from hell, when month after month of grey skies and rain seemed like it was going to be our fate for the rest of our lives, we had insult added to injury when the forecasters predicted that it was going to stay that way for the next ten years. TEN YEARS…. How depressing was that….
And look at the amazing summer we went on to have.
I can’t help wondering if the weather forecasters had something to do with it. I mean look what happened after they predicted a barbecue summer. It didn’t stop raining for the whole year. And don’t talk to me about the hosepipe ban….
So now I’ve decided to stop listening to the weather forecast. And try to live in the moment. Be prepared and take what comes as it happens. Which seems like a pretty good lesson for life….
And I’m trying to live every minute of this wonderful autumn to the absolute full. Because whatever the forecasters were predicting, the weather combination this year has delivered some spectacular results. I swear I can hear the pear trees groaning with the weight of their harvest.
And earlier this week, I went outside to discover that the set designers from Great Expectations had been practising in my garden.
For those of you expecting to sign in and read about the final term of the garden design course that this blog started out being all about – I’m afraid you are going to have to wait a bit. Because I’ve had to put it on hold. And the reason why…. I’m going to be honest…. Because I underestimated the amount of work involved and simply didn’t manage to get it all done.
When I signed up last year I didn’t expect to have quite so much course work to do over the summer holidays. Actually I didn’t expect to have quite so much course work to do, full stop. So I planned to do lots of other stuff, including my trip to Everest Base Camp at Easter, and didn’t leave myself enough time (or energy) to get everything done. Cue panic….
Add in some unanticipated family issues that needed my attention, and I found myself contemplating the start of the autumn term with two projects unfinished, a new project to get started on right away, and the realisation that I simply wasn’t going to be able to get it all done. But all is not lost. The fates – and the lovely people at KLC – have been kind to me. Demand for the Diploma Course has been so great this year that they’ve been running an extra course which started the term after ours. So they are very kindly allowing me to delay completion of the final term until January 2014.
So a few words of advice to anybody thinking of doing this course. Believe them when they tell you…. it’s a huge amount of work.
But I’ve been lucky. And now I’m going to devote the next few months to re-editing and publishing my favourite of the five books I’ve spent the last twelve years writing, completing the unfinished projects for the course, working in my sadly neglected garden and…. having a bit of a rest.
I’m going to keep on blogging, so I hope you will all stick with me. I don’t know where it will take me, or what I will be doing at the end of it all. It’s a bit of a watch this space situation. So stay tuned….
Back to earth, feet on the ground (I think!) after time away and stuff to sort out when I got home. And the long hot summer of 2013 feels like it’s drawing to a close. Might have drawn to a close already if the rain this week is anything to go by.
And you know what I say…. Bring on the autumn. Because the great thing about contrast is the way it allows you to appreciate the differences. Between the seasons, the moods, the good, the bad and the ugly. And one of the wonderful things about a really good summer is the way it leaves you ready and waiting for a really good autumn.
But I can’t let this wonderful summer go by without a last post dedicated to its fabulousness. And it’s another one of my ‘where would you be’ tributes to the most ‘where would you be’ place of all the ‘where would you be’ places I know.
My family started going to Pollenca in 1984. It was my parents who first went there and they liked it so much they went back. So then we went with them and the whole thing took off. Things out there have changed a bit over the past thirty years – mostly good things: the beach in the port has got bigger, the centre of the old town has been pedestrianised, buildings have been cleaned up and rebuilt, restaurants have opened and closed. And we’ve changed our allegiances as we’ve discovered more places to go and things to do.
But there is one thing that hasn’t changed. There is one place we have always gone to, and still always go to. And that is the bar at the Ila d’Or hotel. Three generations of my family have sat under the umbrellas with a drink in their hands, gazed out across the blue water of Pollenca Bay, and been at peace with the world.
We’ve gone with the children when they were small, and they’ve swum in the sea while we sat under the pines and ate calamari rings and french fries. We’ve drunk our coffee there in the mornings, we’ve eaten toasted sandwiches and drunk beer there at lunchtime, we’ve had a last thing on the way home night cap there. We’ve taken friends there, presenting it to them with an ‘aren’t we clever to have this on our doorstep’ flourish. We’ve laughed there, sometimes we’ve cried there.
And the thing is that it’s not because it’s really cool, or serves the best cocktails, or is where the beautiful people hang out. Because it isn’t any of these things.
It’s because it’s not any of these things that we love it so much. It’s tucked away at the far end of Pine Walk so most people who go to Puerto Pollenca don’t know it’s there. To get to it we leave our house and walk the hundred and fifty yards or so to the edge of the sea.
Turn left away from the centre of the port, stroll along Pine Walk. And there it is waiting for us.
The hotel is charming, easy, slightly old fashioned, in the same way that the family hotels we used to go and stay as children were. The waiters stay the same, same faces greeting us, same drinks appearing in front of us as soon as we rock up.
The view is always amazing….
Whichever way you look.
You should be there when the sun is going down…..
And there’s no better place for cloud contemplation….
So we sit down by the edge of the sea, and we pick up our drinks, and we look around us and we say……
Isn’t it that thing that teenagers do in the summer holidays? Go and spend a couple of weeks in an office, filing and photocopying and watching the clock until the end of the day. At my age it it’s the last thing I expect to be doing….
The year’s course at KLC requires us to spend time during the summer break working in a garden or a nursery for a couple of weeks. It’s viewed as an essential part of the experience. I had been allocated two weeks at Great Dixter in July, which I had pulled out of at the last minute when my father in law died. And a week at Long Barn at the beginning of August.
Long Barn is the house that Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson moved to when they were first married. They bought it for £2,500 in 1915. It was Vita’s first home after Knole and, with the help of their friend Lutyens, she and Harold created a garden that would be the precursor to Sissinghurst.
It’s a house with an amazing guest list – visitors included Virginia Woolf, Stephen Spender, Clive Bell, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster, Hugh Walpole, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. Oh and Jane King of course….
The current owners had been kind enough to offer the opportunity for a couple of us to come and spend some time in the garden, so I went to there to make the arrangements earlier in the summer. And was blown away.
But being blown away by a garden and doing hard labour in it are two very different things. And on that Monday morning in early August, having undertaken the eleven hour drive back from Ullapool the previous day, and with my own garden in sore need of some serious attention, I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to get started.
Shows how wrong you can be.
This garden is pretty close to my idea of perfection. But it’s not open to the public. So to spend a week there in perfect weather, sun shining but not too hot, working from one area to the next, pruning and cutting back, sometimes talking with fellow student Ann and head gardener Richard as we worked, sometimes quietly getting on with it…. let me tell you it doesn’t get much better.
We pruned roses.
Before pruning….During pruning….After pruning…
We worked in the vegetable garden.
First you see it….Now you don’t….
We got up close and personal with some onions.
Before….I could swear there were onions here when I last looked …..There they are….And finally…. Onion Art
And made a lot of trips to the compost heap.
I need a break!
There were unexpected bonuses. I got to spend time with lovely Ann, a kindred spirit in the making. And Richard, the head gardener, was friendly and patient and very kind to us novices.
And then of course there was Vita.
I followed her ghost along the side of the majestic yews planted by her husband.
Walked beside her through the orchard.
Gazed out with her across the fields and wooded slopes of the Weald.
Trying to see the garden through her eyes – and influenced no doubt by the photos I’d seen from the days when she lived here
– I had a moment when I saw the world in black and white.
So that when I snapped back into the present it seemed almost unnaturally colourful and bright.
How lucky were we? Ann and I? To spend time in that special place. To work in that unique garden. No doubt I will visit many more wonderful gardens in years to come. But I can’t imagine I will find one to live up to Long Barn.
This blog is taking on a life of its own. It’s expanding.
It started out as a way of recording my experiences as a trainee garden designer at KLC. But along the way other things have crept in. And recently they’ve been threatening to take over.
But I don’t want you to think that, just because it’s the summer holidays, the course work is taking a break as well. Oh no….
Because there’s the dreaded Construction File to complete, which I’ve been working on since term ended. I’ve still got 11 CAD drawings to do – which I keep putting off, because CAD and me are not exactly what you could call the best of friends… and I know it’s going to be painful.
Then there’s the work experience. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I was supposed to be going to Great Dixter for two weeks. I had to pull out of this because my father in law died, but I did get to spend a wonderful week at Long Barn, Vita Sackville West’s first garden after she left Knole. Of which more to come in later posts….
And running alongside everything else this summer is the project that we have to be ready to present on our first day back in September. Which is no small ask….
This week I’ve been working on the 3D model we have to make as part the project. And it’s been a tortuous experience. There are people out there who are good at this sort of thing. I’m not one of them. I went out last weekend and spent my life savings on tissue paper and plasticine, and anything else that looked like it might help me to build my dream garden in miniature. On Monday morning I went to the little shed in the garden where I work feeling quite excited. The excitement lasted about five minutes.
By Wednesday morning I was on the verge of packing the whole course in. You should have seen the state of my shed. There were bits of torn up tissue paper, drinking straws cut into pieces, broken cocktail sticks, lumps of plasticine, cardboard. It was like the scene of an explosion in the Blue Peter studio.
Which is ironic. Because explosions are what my project is all about.
Crane Park in Twickenham, the location of Project Number 4, is the site of a gunpowder mill which closed down in the early 1900’s. Making gunpowder is a dangerous business. While the mill was in operation there were numerous explosions, some of which could be heard as far away as Heathrow. And over the lifetime of the mill seven workers died.
It was this aspect of the site that caught my attention. So, at the start of the holidays, I began to research explosions. And while I was away in Majorca I spent many happy hours on the internet (feeling uncomfortably aware that some big brother somewhere was aware of the person in Puerto Pollenca typing ‘gunpowder’ and ‘the aftereffects of explosions’ into Google). And this was how shock waves became the theme of my summer.
There was one picture in particular that caught my attention. Not because it was useful for the Crane Park concept –
but because it made me smile.
And I got this idea in my head that while we were in Scotland I should try and persuade the rest of the group to re-enact a ‘shock waves’ moment on the beach up there.
Which is how it came to pass that, if you had been on the Achnahaird beach near Alchiltibuie on a particularly blustery day a couple of weeks ago, you might have been a little surprised to see ten fifty somethings drawing circles in the sand and leaping into the air.
First draw your circles….Then practice your jumping,,,,Now altogether….I said all together…..Don’t think the dogs quite get it….
Ok so maybe the jumping isn’t quite as accomplished as the original….
But if anyone else happens to find themselves on a beach with nothing better to do….
Just remember you don’t have to be young to have a laugh.
You know those places…. the where would you rather be places? Well I’ve got another one for you. And of all the where would you rather be places in the world this one is my favourite.
I’ve been going to this particular place every year since I was fifteen. That’s forty years, with only a few missed here and there. Kind of tells you something, doesn’t it.
At the end of July the King family heads north. We pack the car with dogs and children, wellington boots and picnic hampers, fishing rods and golf clubs. And we set off around the dreaded M25, along the M40 and onto the M6. If we’re lucky, as we get up beyond Manchester, the traffic begins to thin. When we get to the stretch of the motorway that runs through the sweeping hills and valleys of the Lake District I begin to feel like I’m on holiday.
We cross the border into Scotland, pass the sign to Gretna Green, where in 1928 my grandfather took my grandmother on the back of his motorbike to become one of the last couples to marry over the anvil. On up to Glasgow and beyond. We stopover for the night in Pitlochry. Then back into the car the next morning for the last stretch. Up through the Cairngorms, onto Inverness, and we drive across the bridge over the Moray Firth, and take the road heading north west to Ullapool.
Because this is where we are heading. Inverbroom Lodge, a sprawling white house on the southern edge of Loch Broom, seven miles from Ullapool on the west coast of the Highlands. It’s an old fishing lodge, rambling and comfortable. Sleeps 20, and we’ve had years where we’ve been 20 and more, with a caravan in the garden to take the overflow. But this year the ‘children’ are all working, getting married, gap yearing. So it’s just ten of us ‘grownups’.
I start the week the way I always do. Wake up early on the first morning. Dress quietly, creep downstairs, trying not to disturb the rest of the house, put on my boots, take my fishing rod and head down to the river. The sun is just beginning to touch the tops of the hills.
It’s quiet and still as anything, just the gentle sound of the river tumbling past. I go to the bridge pool, wade out a little way and cast my first line.
If you don’t fish you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. And it’s hard to explain. It’s kind of meditation and relaxation and thinking time, all tied up with excitement and anticipation and breathlessness. Because who knows, maybe the next cast…. and to catch a salmon on the first morning would be nice. It’s happened before.
This year there were no fish before breakfast. But much peacefulness and ‘glad to be here-ness’. And after a couple of hours it’s back to the house for porridge, and eggs and bacon and sausages and tomatoes and…. Planning the day ahead. Maybe the beach, Inverewe Gardens, golf, a trip into Ullapool to potter about the shops and stop for coffee at The Ceilidh Place. Maybe someone will do the the steep walk up the hill above the lodge to the ruins of the minister’s house. Maybe someone else will decide that this is the year for climbing Stac Pollaidh.
One of the best things to do is drive along the coast road towards Gairloch. We peel off at the wonderfully named Mellon Udrigle, park the cars, take the dogs and follow the path to the coast. If you want views you won’t find better than these. Three hundred and sixty five degrees of …. well actually words fail me. You kind of have to be there….
So I don’t know about you. But I know where I’m going….
Get ready for a stream of posts from this old dog. With so much to write about…. And so little time.
Because hasn’t it been wonderful? The summer I mean. After an endless run of damp dark years, when it felt like July and August had gone off to somewhere else in the world and forgotten about us, we’ve been rewarded for our patience with a summer from the days when we were young. Where we can throw open windows and doors…. Put up the sun umbrellas and lay out the cushions in the garden…. Drag the cover off the barbecue and light it…. and then do it again a couple of days later. Sit outside in the gathering dusk, eating and talking and remembering old times…. without having to go inside because it’s really far too cold or about to rain or the wasps have taken over.
And while this glorious weather has been doing it’s thing, I’ve been doing a few new things of my own.
A couple of weeks back I went to the Proms for the first time.
Picture the scene. It’s a Tuesday afternoon. I’m on a bus from Victoria station. The backs of my legs are sticking to the seat, the hair on my neck is hanging in damp curls. I’m so hot I feel like I’m going to dissolve, so that when the bus stops outside the Albert Hall it will be a puddle of water that slides out of the door onto the pavement.
But I make it intact and step out into a swarming mass of excited Wagnerites. Because this is what I’m in letting myself in for. A night of Daniel Barenboim conducting Die Walkurie, the second part of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.
Am you completely mad, I hear you cry. Die Walkurie goes on for five and a half hours…. You missed the first part so you won’t have a clue what’s going on….. There are no costumes or props or anything to keep you amused if the music doesn’t…. And no subtitles…. Just singers and an orchestra and not a lot else. And to make matters worse it’s eighty-five degrees in the shade…. And The Albert Hall doesn’t have air conditioning.
But this is how the BBC described the evening.
‘Daniel Barenboim’s Proms Ring cycle with the Staatskapelle Berlin continues with the razored strings and yelping brass of a violent storm, the cloudburst of incestuous love, a bitter marital dispute and the first appearance of Wotan’s rebel daughter, Brünnhilde, sung by a leading exponent of the role, Nina Stemme.’
Sounds kind of exciting, don’t you think!
And it was. Exciting and amazing and fantastic. Honestly….
It helped that we were there with the chairman of the Wagner Society. (Who happens to be a friend, and is a reassuringly normal, fully functioning human being.) So he could fill me in on what it was all about. And it also helped that according to the review in The Guardian the following day ‘the cast that had been brought together at the Albert Hall was very close to being as good as any that could be assembled from singers today.’
So if I’m going to be introduced to Wagner and The Ring Cycle it’s the right way to do it…..
And I loved it.
And then two nights later I went to The Globe for the first time.
Another beautiful night. So perfect for a theatre with a roof that opens to the sky. And I’m there to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream with my daughter Hattie, who has bought the tickets as a mother’s day present.
So dinner together in Borough Market. Then we wandered along the side of the Thames through the evening crowds.
The Globe is lit up and enticing, like a birthday cake.
Inside the atmosphere is buzzing. We’ve rented cushions (thank goodness…. the seats are wooden benches) and we settle ourselves down with the rest of the audience and prepare to be dazzled and amazed. Which we are….
It’s fast and furious and laugh-out loud funny. Fairies, muddled lovers getting lost in the woods, Bottom and Puck and Titania; Shakespeare at his most relaxed and devious.
At the interval we sit on the wall by the Thames as the light fades.
And when it’s over we walk back along the river towards London Bridge station. With the moon competing with the street lights to see who can outshine who.
Not a great photo but spot the moon in the middle….
I felt rather cruel, the little daisy was still looking sprightly after a long hot summer of hard work. But it had to be done, so that it could take a breather before doing its thing again next year.
The penstemons in particular were jewel-like.
So Richard allowed me to take some cuttings, and following his instructions I potted up some babies of my own.
They’re on my window sill now.
Old Dog. New Tricks 