3 FEBRUARY 2010

From one beach, to another, far far away……

I love winter holidays, as I wouldn’t be anywhere else except the UK from March till November…. So we are off for a couple of weeks in the sun…. The lovely bag was made for me by Sally Walton of Carry-a-Bag from vintage ticking with hand blocked printing.  Sally’s ethos when founding the company several years ago was that if you have a bag you love enough, you will have no trouble remembering to take it with you when you go to the shops – and I have to say that since she gave me this bag I have done a lot better in this respect.

And may I be the first to note the irony of writing about the notion of saving plastic bags when one is flying half way around the world…. Ahem.

Tucked away in the bag is my reading matter: Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky,  Leviathan by Philip Hoare and AS Byatt’s The Children’s Book for some suitable seaside reading. Oh, and a much-thumbed copy of Peace is Every Step by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, which I re-read on every holiday (an advantage of getting older, it seems to me, is that books can be enjoyed again and again!)  And talking of books, thank you for the nice comments about the Wonderful Weekend Book, which has just been re-published in paperback, price £8.99 from a bookshop near you, or very possibly cheaper on line.

I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

For background on our journey converting two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more writing on gardens, interiors, green issues and other subjects, plus lots of photographs and information on past and current books, please visit my website.

27 JANUARY 2010

I’m enjoying these little signs of spring clustered around the house in tiny vases.  This collection on the kitchen table – each vase is only an inch high – contains flowering rosemary, choisya, purple-leafed sage, white cyclamen and a few sprigs of the winter-flowering honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, that I planted by the gate.

And over in the sitting room there are fragrant ‘Paperwhite’ narcissi on pebbles, white hyacinths in forcing jars, and more tiny vases – this time filled with a posy of violets that were miraculously in flower.  (This corner was arranged for an aticle in The Sunday Telegraph; its components are now dispersed throughout the house).  I like a lot of white flowers in the house – they are a peaceful presence to welcome in the new year after all the visual cacophony of Christmas.

The hyacinths have been lovely. I love them most just as the buds are splitting into separate flowers and opening – before they have become top heavy and threaten to topple over in their glass.  I keep them in the porch where it is cold enough to prolong their flowering period and where their scent – too strong for some all the time – can hit one coming in and going out. They remind me of the ones in last year’s January post here.

And the last of the lovely ‘Paperwhites’ are just coming into bloom. I shall miss them until next November – they are a bit of a winter ritual with me; a talisman to take me through the cold months and out the other side into spring. This year we will be cheating a little and heading off on holiday somewhere hot. (Well why not? We haven’t been far afield for ages and everyone has been stuck with colds…)

So I’ll leave you with a poem again.  A few years ago I had one of my favourite jobs ever: writing a book about flowers to go with beautiful photographs of flowers arranged by the interior designer Tricia Guild (the book I am writing now is another of the ones I have worked on with her).  Anyway, as well as thinking up things to say about lovely flower pictures (it’s a hard job but someone has to do it), I had to compile a list of quotations about flowers that we could drop in alongside.  One of my favourites was this, by the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (and one of the reasons I love my tiny glass vases so).

“Still, in a way

nobody sees a flower

really

it is so small

we haven’t the time

and to see takes time

like to have a friend

takes time.”

For background on our journey converting two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more writing on gardens, interiors, green issues and other subjects, plus lots of photographs and information on past and current books, please visit my website.

19 JANUARY 2010

The magic of the snow is past, but we are still getting some beautiful frosty mornings down here by the sea. This was sunrise the other day, photographed from the verandah in my pyjamas.  Brrr.

Back in the warm, the light was quite extraordinary. It’s worth putting up with condensation on the windows for effects like this…

Almost the last of the ‘Paperwhite’ narcissi, filling the whole house with their scent.

A short post this week, as I am working on a book, and have both husband and daughter ill in bed requiring nursing.  So I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Along with this favourite poem by Kathleen Raine

I BELIEVE NOTHING

I believe nothing – what need

Surrounded as I am with marvels of what is,

This familiar room, books, shabby carpet on the floor,

Autumn yellow jasmine, chrysanthemums, my mother’s flower,

Earth-scent of memories, daily miracles,

Yet media-people ask, “Is there a God?”

What does the word mean

To the fish in his ocean, birds

In his skies, and stars?

I only know that when I turn in sleep

Into the invisible, it seems

I am upheld by love, and what seems is

Inexplicable here and now of joy and sorrow,

This inexhaustible, untidy world -

I would not have it otherwise.

For the story of the conversion of our Victorian railway carriages into an eco-house, more photographs, garden writing and other journalism, plus details on my current and past books, please visit my website.