RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013

20 May 2013 23:12

I’ve been watching the coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show, it’s their centenary year. It has been a terrible year so far for plants and the horticulturalists must have been pulling their hair out trying to get plants ready for the show.

So far I’ve seen plenty of lovely plants but the large show gardens which I’ve seen have been a disappointment to me. The designs seem to be very bitty, as if they are all trying too hard and the result is a bit of a mish-mash. I think that in any design you should keep in mind that ‘more is less’ – unless you’re decorating a Christmas tree!

To be fair, I’m always far more impressed with the smaller gardens, I suppose they’re a bit like short stories and those show gardens are the hefty tomes, the ones which could have been doing with a good editor! I’ll still be glued to Chelsea on my TV this week though, and also voting online for my favourite gardens and plants.

If you’re interested in gardening you should take a look at the RHS website here. You can look at the directory of gardens and choose your own favourites.

Anyway

2 Comments »

Categories: Gardening

Tags:

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

19 May 2013 11:10

I turned to P.G. Wodehouse when I very quickly decided to give up trying to read something heavier, I just wasn’t in the mood for reading something I had to concentrate on. I already had Right Ho, Jeeves on my Kindle, if you want to have a go at it you can get it free here.

You know what’s coming, which of course is part of their charm. Bertie Wooster has been in the south of France, spending a lot of time with his cousin Angela. On his return to Blighty, Bertie pays a visit to Angela’s mother, his Aunt Dahlia. A couple of Bertie’s friends are included in the house party, Augustus Fink-Nottle and (gosh I’ve forgotten the other chap’s name, that’s Kindles for you! ) are both in need of help. Their love lives are not going well and Bertie is determined to sort them out. He advises them on how to win the hearts of their girls, you can imagine how well that goes!

Jeeves does his best to rein in his young master but of course Bertie thinks he knows best.

The BBC recently aired Wodehouse in Exile, with Tim Pigott-Smith playing the part of Wodehouse and Zoe Wanamaker as his wife. It was really well done and if you are interested in Wodehouse I think you’ll enjoy it.

I hadn’t realised that Wodehouse had neglected to leave his home in Le Touquet, France before the Nazis got there in 1940. The upshot of which is that he was sent to a prison camp, but when the Germans realised that he was a famous author they decided get him to broadcast talks on the radio which could be interpreted as being pro-Nazi.

It makes you think that Wodehouse himself resembled Wooster far more than Jeeves – how he could have been stupid enough to get himself into such a situation, and not even realise it, beggars belief – but he did. Anyway, you can view the programme below if you’re interested. I hope people outside the UK are able to view this too, but it might be blocked.

5 Comments »

Categories: BBC, Books

Tags: , , ,

Boswell Book Festival

17 May 2013 23:55

Have you read James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson? Or even the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The 16th, May was the 250th anniversary of their first meeting. So this weekend they are having a bit of a ‘do’ at Boswell’s home, Auchinleck House, in Ayrshire. It’s the Boswell Book Festival.

How I wish I could go but I can’t split myself in two, so I can’t be there. Apart from the house and grounds I would also love to be able to listen to the many interesting guest speakers, particularly Artemis Cooper, who has written about Patrick Leigh Fermor amongst others. Maybe next year we can get to Auchinleck and go camping or even glamping.

You can see images of Auchinleck House here.

You can read about the Boswell Book Festival here and listen to some BBC programmes on the subject.

4 Comments »

Categories: Architecture, Books

Tags: , , ,

Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys

16 May 2013 22:29

This book is subtitled: More News from the Home Front 1942-45.

Obviously it’s a continuation of Henrietta’s War, and is every bit as good as that book. Joyce Dennys said that she didn’t know where Henrietta ended and she began. As Joyce was a doctor’s wife herself and living in the West Country she was really just embroidering her experiences, and as they were all so unusual in wartime she probably didn’t have to do too much embroidering.

In amongst the humour there is the odd bit of serious observation, sometimes explained by footnotes. One is about the up and coming White Paper which the government was preparing on the proposed formation of the NHS. In Henrietta’s April 19, 1944 letter to her friend Robert she tells him of a conversation about it which her husband has with his friend, Doctor Rival.

It makes you think, and I must admit that it makes me feel proud that whilst they were still busy fighting World War II they also had time and the inclination to set up the National Health Service. We were up to our eyeballs in debt, the financial debt to the Americans was only just payed off a few years ago, it took us about 60 years to do that. But they still managed to do it, and this crowd of politicians that we have in at the moment are doing their best to get rid of the NHS. Shame on them!

Anyway, back to the book. Spookily, the May 16th, 1945 letter to Robert reports that it is snowing, just as it was today in the west of England, so the weather wasn’t any better then. In this book Henrietta reveals herself to be a booklover and when there is a Red Cross campaign for book donations she has a difficult time of it, which books can she part with? She gets out her copy of The Princess and Curdie, but then thinks again as she might need it for future grandchildren. She sometimes wakes in the night, in anguish over the books which she has lent to people over the years – never to see the people or books again! We probably all know how that feels!

I was really sorry when the book came to an end, especially as she doesn’t seem to have written anything else in a similar vein. I enjoyed being part of Henrietta’s world, but it struck me that in reality the end of the war was a brief joy for a lot of people, then after the celebrations they were bereft because they knew that everything was going to be changing and terrible as it may seem, the war was the best time of many peoples’ lives. They felt useful, they all had a common enemy and there was always so much going on, organising to be done and fund raising for Spitfires and such. Joyce Dennys seems to have captured the atmosphere of her times in an amusing way, which obviously went down well with Sketch readers during the long hostilities. Another hoot and a comfort read, perfect for when your brain feels more akin to spaghetti than grey matter!

2 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , ,

Book Sale at St Andrew’s and St George’s Edinburgh

14 May 2013 23:56

We got up early on Saturday morning so that we wouldn’t be too late in getting to the book sale in St Andrew’s and St George’s Church in Edinburgh, the proceeds all go to Christian Aid. It was Linda from Edinburgh who reminded me of the sale, so a big thank you to Linda!

St Andrew's & St George's Church
By the time we got to the church it was really chucking it down with rain and the books outside the church all had plastic covers over them and everbody had packed into the church – it was heaving with folks and it made it very difficult to see the books, but I persevered, and we went our separate ways. I ran out of money, had to find Jack, found him in the crowd, waved madly, he didn’t see me, he went in the opposite direction, the woman at the stall seemed to think I was going to nick her books, but in the end it was all sorted out and the upshot was I spent a lot of money and Jack didn’t spend nearly as much, that’s usually the way of it. As you can see from the photo above, by the time we got upstairs the rain had stopped and the crowd had thinned.

I couldn’t resist taking this photo of the newly redecorated church, it has had a lot spent on it recently and the organ has been refurbished.
St Andrew's & St George's Edinburgh

It was the ceiling which really attracted me though, beautiful, but I’m glad I didn’t have to paint it. Internally the church is really lovely with pale wood, maybe golden oak and the pews all have blue velvet buttoned cushions, I’m sure in my young day that would have been seen as being un-Presbyterian and just too comfy for church-goers. How times
change!
St Andrew's & St George'sChurch Edinburgh

Anyway, to the books, here they are.

books

The three in the middle are:
The House That Is Our Own by O. Douglas
The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford. I’ve read it, but it was over 30 years ago I’m sure and was a library book.I want to read it again.

The other one which can’t be seen very well is:
We Are Still Married by Garrison Keillor. I’ve never read anything by him but I enjoy listening to him on Radio 4 extra on Sunday afternoons whilst cooking the dinner.

Two of the vintage crime Penguins I haven’t even heard of.

The Content Assignment by Holly Roth
Comes the Blind Fury by Douglas Rutherford

The third Penguin is Captain Cut-Throat by John Dickson Carr.

The Things We See is a Penguin book which just screams 1950s at you and is about design. It has some lovely photos and even the endpapers are 1950s design.

Civil To Strangers by Barbara Pym. I’ve read quite a lot of her books but most of them so long ago, I can’t remember if I’ve read this one or not. If so, it’s due a re-read.

Anna Buchan and O.Douglas by Wendy Forrester is a book which I’ve been looking for.

The Prince and the Pilgrim by Mary Stewart is one I’ve been meaning to buy for ages, it’s the last in her Merlin/Arthur series and I’m going to read it for the up and coming Mary Stewart readalong at Gudrun’s Tights.

Oasis of the North by Dawn MacLeod is about Inverewe Gardens in the north west of Scotland.

Scottish Highland Watercolours by Sutton Palmer is a collection of 16 watercolours of the Highlands, all very scenic.

I could have bought a lot more books and this week I’ve been restraining myself from getting on a bus and going back for another look because I really didn’t get a chance to look at the many gardening and craft books which were on sale. But I think I’ll be good and resist the temptaion, particularly as there is another library book sale locally on Saturday. The George Street, Edinburgh book sale continues until the end of the week.

18 Comments »

Categories: Architecture, Books

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Shetland Folk Festival 2013

13 May 2013 23:16

Well, the Shetland Folk Festival has come and gone, if you want to see and hear some of the music which featured in it – have a look here.

I’m not a crazy folky myself, although I do like it I wouldn’t go out of my way to hear it. One of my brothers absolutely despises (his word) all Scottish music, and just about foams at the mouth at the first squeeze of an accordion, it’s hilarious. But he is a massive Stranglers fan and follows them all over the place, even abroad. I must admit that I would probably choose to listen to The Stranglers rather than the old fashioned kind of traditional Scottish music.

2 Comments »

Categories: Music

Tags: , ,

Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys

13 May 2013 00:54

Well, I don’t know who to thank for pointing me in the direction of Joyce Dennys, but it was definitely a blogger, not that that helps much.

Joyce Dennys was a doctor’s wife who wrote comical articles for Sketch, and she illustrated them with cartoons. Her first article went down so well that she was asked to contribute regularly.

Her character Henrietta is really a thinly veiled version of Joyce herself, as she admitted she sometimes didn’t know where one ended and the other began.

The articles are all in the form of letters from Henrietta to her old schoolfriend Robert, who is doing something in the army – somewhere. Bloomsbury has reprinted them and I have to say that they are a hoot and must have fairly cheered up people in desperate times.

The usual wartime themes of rationing, and queueing, a lack of elastic and clothes in general are to the fore as you would expect. The small town in the west country, near Exeter, where Henrietta and her husband Dr Brown live, is inundated with evacuees and soldiery and it’s all jolly good fun! However, there is a serious side now and again, such as the complaint that women who were caught up in bombing raids and lost legs or whatever were given less compensation than a man with the same injuries. Mind you, it was news to me that anyone got compensation at all, I thought it was just put down to tough luck and there’s a war on you know!

You can see some of her cartoons and illustrations here.

And there’s more of her work on the BBC Paintings site here.

8 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , ,

Pieris in my garden

11 May 2013 23:36

pieris and azalea

I have quite a few pieris plants growing in my garden but this is the only one which is growing in a container, rather than directly in the ground. It shares its space with an azalea, as you can see and they have been growing happily together for quite a few years now, with just the odd scattering of plant food into their container to keep them healthy.

I love pieris, later in the year it will have beautiful flowers on it, similar to lily of the valley, but I have to admit that I’m not too keen on the azalea. This was a lesson to me not to believe the descriptions which go with the labels on plants when you buy them. I now wait until I see the plants actually in flower before parting with my cash because so many times I’ve been disappointed when the descriptions don’t match the reality.

It doesn’t look too bad in this photo because the colour looks lighter than it actually is, but this azalea reminds me so much of dried blood and it has a sort of waxy shine to the flowers too, which I find a bit off-putting.

My garden isn’t looking too bad at the moment, considering the awful winter we had, I hope to get a lot more photos sorted out soon.

6 Comments »

Categories: Gardening

Tags: ,

Take Two at Bedtime

10 May 2013 23:27

The American version of this book seems to be Deadly Duo, why do they give books in the UK and the US different titles, I can’t help thinking that they hope we will end up buying the same book twice.

Anyway, the two taken at bedtime are novellas, or long short stories if you prefer. The first one is called – Wanted: Someone Innocent and this one was my favourite. It’s set in London where a young penniless woman, Gillian Brayton, who has no family is trying to earn her living making hats, but she has realised that she has no talent for the work.

Whilst at a school reunion she gets an offer of another job, as a sort of housekeeper/secretary for an old schoolfriend who seems to have married very well. And so the mystery begins!

Last Act, the second novella didn’t appeal to me so much, mainly because I disliked Madame Zoffany, who was a bit of a diva but apparently everyone ended up adoring her, no matter how bad her behaviour was. Well that everyone didn’t include me but apart from that I felt that there were just too many characters, but that might be because I haven’t been able to concentrate much on my reading recently. The blurb says that – this is a fascinating study of personalities, as well as an absorbing mystery.

4 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , , ,

Grasmere Gingerbread

9 May 2013 23:51

The village of Grasmere is famous for its gingerbread and I first tasted it when we went there recently. It was a bit of a surprise as it isn’t gingerbread as we know it. It isn’t cakey at all, in texture and consistency it’s more a cross between shortbread and flapjacks, and it is very good. As it’s quite robust it would be perfect for picnics or packed lunches. I knew I had seen a recipe for it in one of my many cookery books and at last I’ve just got around to trying it out.

Unfortunately Flickr has gone all wonky tonight, I hope I can add my photo soon.

Edited to add:- OK today; so here it is.

Grasmere Gingerbread


Grasmere Gingerbread

175g/6 oz wholewheat flour

50g/2 oz porridge oats

1/2 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 level teaspoon cream of tartar

2 level teaspoons ginger

175g/6 oz margarine

175g/6 oz brown sugar, muscavado gives a good flavour

50g/2 oz mixed dried peel finely chopped (optional)

Method:

1. Put flour and oats in a bowl and sift in bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and ginger. Mix well.

2. Rub in margarine, stir in sugar and mixed peel.

3. Press mixture into a greased Swiss roll tin, 28 by 18 cm/11 by 7 inches.

4. Bake in a warm oven, Gas 3, 325 F, 160 C, for about 30 minutes until brown.

5. Allow to cool in tin for 5 minutes then cut into fingers.

I did add the dried peel but 2 oz is an awful lot of peel so I added about half of that amount. It gives a lovely tang to the biscuits but even at half the amount it is very orangey, next time I think I’ll add some crystalized ginger too as I know that that would go down well with Gordon, our youngest son, who says that it isn’t possible for something to be too gingery. I’ll have to think of a new name for it then.

I made the dried peel myself, it’s a bit of a faff to do but I couldn’t find it in my local supermarket. I usually have an orange every day so waited until I had about a week’s worth of peel stored in a tub in the fridge before making it.

Dried peel is different from candied peel, which as you would expect has sugar added to it.

To make dried peel pare the bitter pith from the skin and cut the skin into strips, spread out on a baking tray and dry in the oven on a very low heat. Half an hour should do it but keep an eye on it as it will burn easily. It will keep well in a jar. Mine was very dry and brittle, maybe a wee bit overdried but it made it very easy to break it smaller, by putting into a small bowl and bashing it with the end of my rolling pin.

This is linked with Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking

10 Comments »

Categories: Recipes

Tags: , , ,

« Older Entries