I hope that everyone has a peaceful and relaxing Christmas.
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My autumn garden – 29th of October
The leaves that are still on trees have been raining down on us over the past few days, the frost has left them unable to cling on any longer, but these photos are of my garden as it was on the 29th of October when the acers were at their most vibrant. A last loud hurrah before they have a rest.
Below is a much smaller acer, a pieris and a conical evergreen which I love but can’t remember what it’s called, I’m really not very good with all those conifers. The blue/green one in the foreground is a creeping juniper I think.
The mystery tree below which I bought for all of two quid at Hill House of Tarvit plant sale a few years ago is great – but still a mystery. It has lovely glossy berries and its leaves look a bit cotoneaster-ish, but it’s definitely a tree not a shrub. The heather has been looking a bit scruffy until now, it is great for autumn colour though.
The bright yellow-ish conifers in the background are those ones that you can buy from supermarkets for about £1 when they’re just a foot or so tall. These ones are now five years old and although they were all the same size when I planted them two of them have had to be cut back because of frost or perhaps wind burn damage, but they’re still growing well and they have a lovely lemony scent when you brush against them.
Well, it was nice for me to be able to remind myself what the garden looked like just a few weeks ago. I hope you enjoyed it too.
Subscribers
You might know that while I was away on holiday for some unknown reason my entire list of subscribers disappeared, it’s an absolute mystery as to why. Luckily there was a backup of it and Duncan has been able to get it back, so we hope that nobody is missing from it. If you had previously subscribed and you still aren’t getting blogpost emails, please resubscribe.
Three Terms at Uplands by Angela Brazil
Three Terms at Uplands by Angela Brazil was published in 1945 and it was her second last book before her death in 1947. I think her later books are slimmer than her earlier volumes.
Claire and Colin Johnstone’s parents have been killed in a car accident in Mexico where their father had been working as a mining engineer, so the children are sent back home to England to live with their grandparents. Their young Aunt Dorothy has sailed to Mexico to accompany them back and the children make friends with some of the people on board.
Back in England their aunt and grandparents cocoon them in love and the children eventually settle down to their new life, but times are hard as money is scarce and Aunt Dorothy who had been keen to study art in Cornwall with some talented artists ends up having to become an art teacher to help support the children.
Colin, being the boy is without question sent to the same private school that his father and grandfather had gone to. But when it comes to Claire she’s expected to make do with the local high school as there’s no money for her to go to a boarding school.
A stroke of luck leads to her getting a partial scholarship to Uplands which is apparently a very good boarding school, and so begins her journey from unsure new girl to a more confident personality who helps out with a younger girl.
This was a very quick read, entertaining and so true to life as I laughed (or should I say huffed) when Colin’s education was seen as being so much more important than Claire’s. The exact same thing happened to a schoolfriend of mine in the late 1960s – 70s. Mind you Morag did very well at the local high school along with the rest of us, whereas her brother ran away from his posh boarding school as soon as he turned 16 – and joined the Merchant Navy!
Internet/blog problems
I’ve been having internet problems over the last few days, well really I should say blog problems because I can access the internet – but not my blog! I’m hoping it’s back to normal now, keeping my fingers crossed that I can publish this and get back to normal.
Guardian links
I thought you might be interested in reading some of the Guardian articles that I’ve been reading over the last week or so.
Today I read that the new series of The Great British Bake Off begins next Tuesday and for the first time they’re going to have one week when the show goes vegan, to reflect the fact that Veganism has become so popular in the UK recently. You can read about it here. It’ll be an interesting episode – whatever.
Still on the subject of food, there was an article on The not so humble potato with lots of tattie recipes, some of which I’ll definitely be giving a go. You can see them here.
As a child I used to look longingly at a neighbour’s World War 2 Anderson shelter, still standing in their garden when we moved to Dumbarton from Glasgow in the 1960s. I really wanted one! If our garden had ever had one it had been removed post-war. I thought it would be a great place to play in, a cute wee house of my own – if we had had one. There’s an article about them here. I still want one.
There’s also an article on stone-stacking which you can read here. I first came across this modern craze for stone-stacking when we went for a walk by the Water of Leith in the Dean Village area. I absolutely hated all the silly looking stacked stones which some man pretending to be an artist (I think) had decided to ‘enhance’ the river with. I had no idea that it had been taken up by lots of other people with the result that popular natural beauty spots are being ruined. Leave no trace has always been the message for people who are keen to do things in the great outdoors. If I ever come across any more of these stone piles I’m going to make a point of kicking them over and restoring the place back to what it should be, for the sake of the wildlife as much as anything else.
It’s ages since I read an article in the Guardian about padlocks being affixed to a bridge in Paris, causing damage to the bridge, and that’s another daft thing which has spread around Europe anyway. I noticed that the stone bridge at Dunkeld has had padlocks attached to the metal lamp standards on it. I suppose the padlock manufacturers are happy about it though!
Cafe Society – the film
On Friday morning we decided to go to the morning viewing of the latest Woody Allen film. For me there’s something quite decadent about going to the flicks in daytime, I feel a wee bit guilty about wasting all that daylight I think. Anyway, there were only about thirty other people in the Adam Smith film theatre in Kirkcaldy, which was a definite plus as the more people there are there the more likely there are to be those annoying rustlers who can’t go any length of time without stuffing their face with sweeties.
Cafe Society turned out to be an art deco feast for the eyes and ears, gorgeous settings and costumes as well as the music of the 1930s. There are a few funny forays into the more mundane society of the Bronx in New York and gangsters.
Bobby is in need of a job so makes his way to Hollywood where his Uncle Phil is a hot shot agent to famous film stars. After getting the run around from Phil for a while he’s eventually given work as a bit of a dogsbody around the studios. Phil gives Vonnie his young secretary the task of showing Bobby around town and of course Bobby falls in love with her.
The actual storyline is predictable but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. It was an eye candy fest of gorgeous clothes and accessories, art deco buildings and cars as well as beautiful trees and planting in the Hollywood gardens.
My only gripe is that the ending was so abrupt. It’s as if Woody Allen just got fed up and said – that’ll do. It was quite disconcerting really. At first I thought that probably he would make a sequel to the film because it seemed so weird an ending but I suppose that was it!