I am just about to go off on a mini-lecture tour of Ireland followed by a few days in Moscow getting cold but wanted to rattle off a quick post partly because I have been slack but mostly because I have matters of great import to share with you. I have been rushing around sorting out various gardens (notably a rather fab one in Devon that is coming to completion soon) and shooing assorted clients into position but I have, to be honest, been slightly wrapped up with other important things over the past few weeks.

In particular Fruit Pastilles. I have developed a rather rash craving for them and don’t like to drive too far without a packet in the car. However, this is a double edged sword as there is something inherently unfair about the colour distribution in a packet of fruit pastilles so I am distracted from the rules of the road by worrying about the inherent unfairness of life. And the fact that there are fourteen sweets in each tube and only five colours makes equality and fairness impossible. Even if we wanted to live that safely.

I think that almost all of us can agree that a green fruit pastille is an abomination – some people profess to preferring the green ones but I tend to regard them with suspicion. They are probably the sort of people who would wear v-necked T-shirts or black satin pyjamas. A green fruit pastille is only acceptable in very small doses but should be treated with caution as they are notoriously unreliable: if any fruit pastille was going to be sick on the sofa, goose the au-pair or nick the petty cash the the green one is the one. They are also perfectly capable of leading the yellow ones into temptation. I have recently had two packets which both had no less than five green fruit pastilles in each tube: this creates unbearable social and diplomatic tension. Conversely, I also had another packet which only had one green and the majority were either red or black. Sounds good but it was too much of a good thing: like having your favourite puddings every day for a week. I do not know how fruit pastilles are selected: whether the process is randomly automated, whether the machines have colour recognition sensors or even if the whole thing is done manually by oompah-loopahs. The general theory of probability can be expressed very simply:

Probability = The number of ways an event can occur/The total number of possible outcomes

but nothing is that easy and the selection process doubtless involves a great deal of complicated mathematics. Or they are all chucked in a bucket and blindfolded workers take them out one at a time. Randomly.

The other thing that is bothering me is a date: 23rd March to be precise. One of the great pleasures of my life is reading the birthdays column in the Saturday papers. We even play a game where everybody has to guess how old  a particular person might be: this can turn into a quite heated competition – especially when having to guess the age of a distinguished (though generally unfamiliar) person like, for example, the former Bishop of Cleethorpes or the head of the CBI from 1981-87.

Anyway, on looking at the column on saturday I was struck by a strong theme. Did you know that Chris Hoy, Mo Farah, Jason Kenny, Joe Calzaghe, Steve Redgrave, Roger Bannister and Mike Atherton were all born on the same day? I think this is an extraordinary coincidence which almost makes me embrace astrology (even if this means an uncomfortable intimacy with Russell Grant). All of you who are currently planning families should take note of this date and, if you wish to be the parent of asporting legend then you should get out your calculator and plan your insemination accordingly.(i)

Although, of course, you cannot guarantee anything. It is all down to probability and chance. Just like Fruit Pastilles.

The top picture is of Crocus vernus in the Alpine house at Wisley. I find myself increasingly drawn to this partly because it is a bit warmer than standing on an exposed hill but also because it has some extraordinarily beautiful plants. All laid out as individual specimens, sunk in raked grit. It is like a museum exhibit rather than a garden but that is rather satisfactory. The other picture is just there to break up my ramblings and to stop you becoming dispirited: it too comes from the Alpine house and is called Saxifraga Allendale Accord.

I am listening to I’m Crying by the Animals.

(i) I feel that this is the perfect opportunity to publish the lyrics of the Floaters classic ‘Float On’ which is the best use of astrology in music.I am sure that any of you Ladies reading would be thrilled by a trip to “Love land” , especially by somebody on a powder blue sparkly morning coat. You can watch them here.

Aquarius and my name is Ralph
Now I like a woman who loves her freedom
And I like a woman who can hold her own
And if you fit that description, baby, come with me

Take my hand, come with me, baby, to Love Land
Let me show you how sweet it could be
Sharing love with me, I want you to

Float, float on (Come on, come on,
(Come on, baby, yeah, yeah)
Float on, float on (Ooh, ooh, baby)
Float, float, float on
Float on (Float with me), float on

Libra and my name is Charles
Now I like a woman that’s quiet
A woman who carries herself
Like Miss Universe
A woman who would take me in her arms
And she would say, Charles, yeah
And if you fit that description
This is for you especially

Mmm, take my hand etc.

Leo and my name is Paul
You see I like all women of the world
You see to me all women are wild flowers
And if you understand what I’m sayin’
I want you to

Mmm, take my hand etc.

Cancer and my name is Larry, huh
And I like a woman
That loves everything and everybody
Because I love everybody and everything
And you know what, ladies,
If you feel that this is you
Then this is what I want you to do

Ooh, yeah, take my hand etc.

I am returned from holiday. I assume that you noticed my absence? if not then I am glad as it means that you have all been terribly busy doing important things other than reading this blog……..

It was a blissful time during which we did the following: slept late, went fly fishing (but caught nothing – evidence left (i)), swam early in the morning (ii), lay around on beaches, wandered through gardens, danced (iii), boated, sailed (iv), played billiards, lay on more beaches, climbed a hill, walked down the other side, got bitten by a midge, ate langoustines, crabs &stuffed squid, stayed up late, lay on another beach, sat on a rock, collected shells (v), ate slightly sandy salad, bounced on heather, cut down a tree, went surfing before breakfast (vi) and other sundry activities.

For more details about Colonsay go and look at this: also if any of you would like to exchange an off season holiday for a couple of days gardening on the island then please tell me.

I also managed to read one and a half books which may not sound very much but you will realise from the above list that things were quite hectic most of the time. One book was called Blood Knots by Luke Jennings and is rather a fine memoir mostly about fishing with interwoven bits of family history and schools in the 1960s (vii). Fishing is not a subject with which I have ever shown huge interest – nor success (viii) – but this is a good book even for the non-fisherman. He was taught the finer points of fishing by Robert Nairac who was later assassinated by the IRA..

The other half book is by Anthony Woodward and was sent to me by the ever delicious Camilla Swift. It is entitled The Garden In The Clouds and is the story of his building a garden up a Welsh mountain. His aim is to get into the Yellow Book, I have not got to the point where we find out whether or not he does but I suspect a happy ending. At the moment (page 94) he is dragging a railway carriage up the side of said mountain. I read an interesting review of this book in the Spectator written by grumpy Welsh person Byron Rogers. He spent the first part of the review pointing out that a very basic mistake had been made. Mr Woodward chuntles on about his house being called Tair Ffynnon which means ‘Four wells’ in Welsh. Except it doesn’t: it means Three Wells. Mr Rogers then rants a bit about English disrespect before admitting that it is actually rather a well written and amusing book. Which it is.

There now, you weren’t expecting literary criticism were you? (ix)

Thank you to all of you who wished me Happy Birthday via blog comment, Twitter or text. I spent the actual day driving so there was not a lot of time for raucous celebrations. I did have a small cake while on the ferry.

A few days before we went away we, as in Three Men Went To Mow, pootled off to Essex to play around in the Gibberd Garden. This eccentric garden full of sculptures and odd structures built out of concrete was made by Sir Frederick Gibberd, designer behind Harlow New Town in the late forties. Some people might not, with hindsight, think this a good wheeze but at the time it was thrusting and forward looking. The garden is interesting although one of the first things I did on arrival was to step soundly into the ordure of an as yet unspecified species. Cleve filmed it for your entertainment but I have decided that that is probably a step too far (pun intended, ha.ha!)

Instead here is picture of Cleve and Joe inappropriately touching a perkily buttocked statue.

We had a fine and fabulous day as you can see for yourselves very soon. Just need to enlist my elder son Archie to do a bit of fine tuning in the editing department so the finished film should be with you next week.

I am listening to Secret Love by Doris Day.

There is a guest blog of mine at the excellent Rochelle Greayer’s Studio G Blog here.

The picture is of  the lime walk at the Gibberd Garden. (x)

  1. You might notice my rather fetching headgear. This is a Basque beret that can be worn in a number of different ways. Without exception every style is more than a little foolish and causes a raising of the eyebrows from my family. But, if you can’t wear a silly hat on holiday, when can you wear one?.
  2. By “early in the morning” I mean about 8:30. We were on holiday so any earlier would have been silly. Especially as the Atlantic is damn cold. Also by “swim” I mean run into the sea, gasp, dive through a wave, gasp again, swear loudly, run out of the sea, stand shivering under an inadequately sized towel, watch one’s fingers drain of colour and swear never to be so foolish ever again.
  3. Some of you will remember my writing about the Highland Scottische last year. This year I was taught how to dance it by the very lovely Jill. I will not pretend to be an expert but I got round without falling over of treading on Jill’s toes. Or maybe I did and she is just too polite to tell me. I do know that it is a very exhausting dance and I was left panting like a wheezy mountain goat half way up an alp. This is it being danced, oddly, by some Russians.
  4. Including doing that thing where you stand on the side of the boat suspended by a harness above the briny deep. It is very exciting once you get over the scary ‘oh shit,I am going to drown’ bit.
  5. I did not get to build a sandcastle: one of the great regrets of my children getting older is that they do not greet this activity with as much enthusiasm as they did when they were six. I used to go on holiday with a proper spade so that we could build extravagantly moated constructions. Alas, they now prefer to loaf about or go off on more exotic holidays of their own.
  6. By ‘surfing’ I do not mean standing up and whizzing through the tunnels of thirty foot waves with the breeze rattling my extravagantly patterned boardshorts. I mean bodyboarding while wearing a sensibly thick wetsuit. This latter is generally a much more satisfying activity as one is less likely to get bruised or battered and it can be done in the company of smaller children.
  7. These were days when children were encouraged to do things like climb enormously high trees before such things were reconfigured as “dangerous” rather than “character building”. We were allowed to hang on to the back of a tractor when I was at school, it was a great treat and an added frisson was that we were inches above the viciously rotating blades of a mower. Nobody ever fell off.
  8. In my life I have caught (as far as I can remember): three trout, twelve pollack, seven mackerel, seventeen very small perch, one eel, one muddy carp and assorted shrimp, mussels and crayfish. I was also given a fish by a well meaning fellow fisherman which I then took home and claimed that I had caught it myself.
  9. And you did not get any really, just me saying “How lovely”. For the real thing try Cornflower Books. A person who also like footnotes so being (ix) might afford her some mild satisfaction. Although not as much as being number 2 on the Top Literarature Blogs list.
  10. I tried to get more words into the footnotes than the actual body of the post but felt that any more than this would be a bit forced. It may be that even this particular footnote is in itself forced but as very few of you will actually read this far it probably doesn’t really matter that much.