MESSAGE FROM ELSPETH THOMPSON’S HUSBAND FRANK WILSON

It is with the deepest sadness that I must tell you that my beautiful and beloved wife Elspeth died on Thursday 25th March aged 48.

She brought her family and friends so much happiness during her short life and she loved to share some of the things that brought her happiness through her writing. She was loving, warm, wonderful and generous and she will be missed by many.

I will try to write more about her when I have had the chance to begin to come to terms with our tragic loss. She used to get so much pleasure from all the comments readers made on her blog and I’d like to thank you for your support.

May she rest in peace and remain in our hearts.

Frank

ADDED,  29/3/10:

Elspeth’s obituary in the Telegraph can be found here.

7 MARCH 2010

After the longest, coldest winter that I can remember (and I was away for two weeks of it), spring is finally springing –  with tubs of bulbs all bursting into bloom.  I’ve been rushing about in the garden, trying to catch up with long-neglected pruning and getting some bare-rooted hedge plants in.  Indoors, things are shockingly untidy as a result, but in among all the mess, we’re enjoying watching pots of spring bulbs open in the increasing light.

We’ve been enjoying waking to lighter mornings, with pink-tinged skies glimpsed through the raised guard’s van windows in our sitting room….

… and the early sun making the decorations on my daughter’s bedroom windows glow like stained glass …

As I embark on the next stage of work on the seaside garden, with the creation of proper paths, a large pond and the planting up of beds beneath the pergola, I have been thinking about all of the gardens I have made – none of them in particularly promising places.  And I’ve decided to start a new blog, which will concentrate much more on gardening – chronicling my efforts here, and also championing others who feel compelled to garden in unprepossessing sites or circumstances. It’s called GARDENING AGAINST THE ODDS and you can find its embryonic incarnation here.  It’s still in its early stages, but do pop over and see what you think. Meanwhile, things will continue here with regular posts on home life, photographs of my beloved beach in all weathers, favourite poems and so on…. I hope you’ll enjoy it all.

For background information on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more photographs, garden writing and other journalism, and information on my past and current books, please visit my website.

23 FEBRUARY 2010

We’re back from our travels, and my heart is brimful of memories, not least of  the wonderful sunsets. Why is it we take the time to watch them when on holiday, but so seldom do it at home?

I resolved to make more time for sunsets in my life – so on the first afternoon that we were back, we were down on our own beach – a little less exotic but no less beautiful, enjoying the amazing light show at the close of day as the dogs leaped with joy at our return.

Having animals to come back to always makes the end of a holiday easier. It may be wet, it may be cold, and it may be extremely muddy, but it’s still good to be back home.   I’d like to bring you more photographs – of the white crocuses in pots on the front door step just opening, and daffodil buds pushing through the soil – but I have managed to drop the camera yet again (can you believe it?) and so those will have to wait a few days. But I hope to be back before long.

For background information on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more photographs, garden writing and other journalism, and information on my past and current books, please visit my website.

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.

11 JANUARY 2010

There has been snow on the beach: a rare and rather magical event.

But given that this is a depiction of the weather patterns over the UK in the past few days, perhaps hardly surprising. (Picture by NASA).

I have so enjoyed this snow: the way it has transformed even the most mundane landscapes into places of silent beauty; the twinkle of it in sunlight; the tangible crunch of it underfoot.  I have loved the ethereal light it brought into the house and the all-forgiving blanket it cast over the  garden.

I have loved setting off with my knapsack in a heavy flurry on foot to stock up on provisions; tramping across snowy fields with the dogs and toboganning down the sea wall on empty dog food sacks. And I have loved coming back to a warm house with the woodburner crackling.  I particularly loved witnessing the delight my daughter and our dogs took in it all – each snowfall an excitement to be enjoyed anew. Here is the snowman Mary made with her dad – OK I’m biased, but I do think he has the sweetest face of any snowman ever….

Today, however, the magic is breaking.  The schools are back, the snowman is melting, and there’s a drip-drip-dripping sound in the air – together with the occasional unnerving crash as another sheet of ice slides off the glass roof of the kitchen and smashes on the deck below.   The light is still incredibly bright, though – bouncing off what remains of the snow and making colours glow with increased intensity.  I’m loving its effect on the little cyclamen and other plants in my porch as I come in and out.

The immediacy of its effect reminds me of  Louis MacNeice’s “Snow” – a poem I have loved since my schooldays, though I’m still not altogether sure what all of it means….

“The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

From Poems (1935)

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.