In my parents' garden

Difficult to believe that the last time I visited, six weeks ago, it looked like this!

It had all taken a battering in the recent storms, but everything still seems more advanced than it is over this side of the country.

Happy Easter!

Fame and fortune and deadlines

Deadlines.

Dead. Lines.

D-e-a-d-l-i-n-e-s.

I am under fire. But I’m hanging on in there. Like this rose in my garden. Despite some extremely squally showers, and heavy rain overnight, it is still not in tatters. Not yet.

While performing some routine tasks in the last couple of days, I’ve been catching up on some Radio 4. Notably Frederic Raphael’s radio adaptation of his Fame and Fortune, which is being serialised in six parts. It’s very Raphaelite – stagey and self-conscious, with dialogue that’s as contrived as can be. But it works. There’s real truth in there. The students from The Glittering Prizes are middle-aged now. Aren’t we all. It’s engaging, it grips, it flows and I love it. I’m debating whether to read the book – I’ll have to have a dip in a bookshop before deciding. I rather suspect that, having listened to Tom Conti, Miranda Richardson, Harriet Walter, Nigel Havers et al, there will be little that the novel can add to this. But I may, of course, be entirely wrong. I often am.

Watched the third programme in the Genius of Photography series on BBC4 last night. This is a truly excellent series in every way – it goes that extra mile compared with so many TV documentaries. Riveting, intelligent and visually enlightening stuff from beginning to end. And knitting the whole lot together is the ideal narration by Dennis Lawson (which verges on the seductive, but maybe that’s just me),

Although, please, why don’t good actors ever query bad writing when they’re asked to read it? There was a less instead of a fewer and a mis-use of ‘comprised’. So routine these days that they don’t even register, I suppose. Except with people like me. Which is why I was so delighted to alight unexpectedly (as one does) upon this delicious blog the other day: my grammar could hit the target from that distance . It’s for People Who Care.

That William Coles fellow, author of The Well-Tempered Clavier, has his own special WTC blog. He seems to take great exception to people getting his name wrong . Which I find mildly amusing . . .

Worrying times out here on the East Coast. Many further north-east of here, in Suffolk and Norfolk, have woken this morning to the prospect of evacuation. The Muddy Island and its environs haven't yet featured in any of the flood warnings, but we're staying tuned for further news.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. I love this site: We Blog Cartoons You can re-use Dave's cartoons on your blog free and gratis. I shall be unable to resist posting some more from time to time.

Better get on with my work.

Blackberrying bliss

On Saturday, My Boy and I picked blackberries and sloes in warm sunshine in our old stamping ground in Copford, while younger daughter went to Drama Group and elder daughter sat in car reading trash teen mags.

It was lovely to be back - I find I'm missing those woods and fields most of all now that autumn leaves are starting to fall - though difficult to believe that a whole year had gone by since we last filled our baskets in the same spot. And once again, I reflected on how strange it is that it should be my ten-year-old son, alone in my family, who so completely understands and wholeheartedly participates in these hedgerow foragings.

For me, picking fruit in the autumn sun is one of the finest, simplest and most delightful pleasures in life. I've recognised this since I was a very young child and my parents and sister would comb the (long-since bulldozed) copses around Odiham for blackberries and then visit my grandparents to climb their Bramley trees and harvest tray upon blue cardboard tray of fragrant, waxy apples.

The heady mix of smells, the buzzing insects, the sweet pain of bramble-scored arms and the throb of nettle stings - above all the satisfaction of watching the level in the big basket rising at each tipping of the plastic bowl. Bliss. Absolute bliss. I could spend hours and hours amongst the brambles (and often do) but on Saturday we had only 50 minutes. We gathered enough blackberries for a couple of crumbles plus some to put with sloes and elderberries for a batch of Hedgerow Jam.

The boiled-up sludge for the latter sat in the kitchen for a day or two, where I gave it a quick press through the sieve each time I passed, sending another stream of intoxicating purple juice into the big pan. Last night I boiled up the resulting six pints with some sieved apples, added the sugar and, eventually, after a l-o-n-g wait, at 1.10 am, it was ready to bottle up. No frilly lids, no labels - just two huge jars full and a dish for the remainder, which we spread with butter on fresh-baked rolls for breakfast this morning.

Back at my desk, my day brightened up considerably when I visited Scottish artist Ken Bushe's website , after Rachel sent me the link. How lovely to see such a well-designed artist's site, which sets off his work so well. He shares his painting methods and has an interesting collection of links and his biography page is rather entertaining, too. It is Ken's sky and cloud paintings which I particularly admire, though I love the 'Trees in Winter' sketch on the Commissions page.

Well, better get back to work now, I suppose. Usual round of stuff to work on this week - the good, the bad and the positively ugly - and none of it making my fortune.

Ho hum.

Autumn's here

A gloriously warm and golden day; the morning's thrilling mackerel skies giving way to clearest blue. In the late afternoon, the sun caught this Pyracantha (which is backed by a claret-coloured Boston Ivy) and seemed to set it on fire. My happy-snappy little camera hasn't captured it very well at all but it gives a faint flavour of the full effect.

Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by my window

The falling leaves of red and gold

I see your lips, the summer kisses

The sunburned hands I used to hold

Since you went away the days grow long

And soon I'll hear old winter's song

But I miss you most of all, my darling

When autumn leaves start to fall

Coming soon . . .

Wedding photos later today, I hope. Meanwhile, here are some flowers from my mother's garden (my equivalent of 'the testcard and music') . . .

Middling, pedantic and covered in blackberries

I spent an interesting couple of hours earlier today surfing round various websites which offer us freelance publishing types an opportunity to advertise our services, link up with potential clients and do a bit of networking with our fellow wordsmiths. It was fascinating to see the range of websites through which editors and proofreaders offer their services to the world. Some are incredibly slick, snappy and seductive. Others look rather like one might suppose websites would have looked had they been around circa 1972 - brown/orange/red colour scheme, bad typography, unedifying content, uninspiring layout - just plan dull, frankly.

I have concluded that my site is probably somewhere in the middle. Which is at once both reassuring and vaguely alarming. It may not be glitzy, but with luck will not bore anyone to death. It receives a steadily increasing number of hits. And it brings in plenty of enquiries, so it must be serving its purpose.

And yet . . . who wants to be ‘middle’ anything? –aged? –of-the-road? -England? No thanks!

Except that by definition that’s exactly what the majority of us are (or is, if one is being quibbly over the singularity or plurality of ‘the majority’, which I suppose, in this game, one should be).

Having very nearly resolved, as a result of today's survey, to wrench my own website to tiny pieces and put it back together in a hip, cool and trendy fashion, I decided to take time out over a cup of tea and a (very small, I can assure you) portion of you-know-what, while listening to the Classic Serial on Radio 4. Which might be taken, I suppose, as proof beyond reasonable doubt of middle-just-about-everythingness.

Suffice to say, having mused on the matter for a little while, I concluded that I might as well leave the site as it is for the time being. After all, no single provider of publishing services is going to appeal to all potential clients, and it’s generally advisable to ‘be oneself’ rather than to cultivate an image, whether online or in person, which is likely, in the long run, to mislead.

One of the sites on which I have just listed my editorial ‘credentials’ describes proofreaders as ‘pedantic people with no friends’. Ha ha ha ha. Possibly not the ideal way to encourage potential advertisers – particular since it’s a pay-to-list site – but, yeah, well, we know what you mean, although some of us are really quite nice and friendly, actually, and haven’t worn an anorak since 1968.

Anyway, in the course of all this surfing around, I happened upon two particularly memorable sites, to which I’m sure I shall return on a frequent basis. The first is Hoopoe Prints - artist and printmaker Lisa Hooper’s beautifully presented site, in which her passion for landscape and the natural world shines through her work. Her mastery of a wide range of printmaking techniques, as well as painting, and her covetable handmade books are a delight to see.

Today’s other major discovery is dovegreyreader scribbles. I am probably the last bibliophile on earth to have discovered this, the ultimate reader’s blog. So forgive me for being behind the times and feel free to say 'like, duh, hello? you are soooo last year'. But it really is tremendous. You might not agree with all her verdicts, but you have to admit, dovegreyreader sure gets through a vast number of books in a month. And there are between-book vignettes on home, garden, craft-making, jam-making and Agas, too. What could be nicer?

I had a good-ish crop of blackberries in the garden myself, which I was planning to gather in and turn into delicious things to eat and drink. And then my son had a friend round to play. And they came in from the garden after some lengthy time, completely purple from tousled head to filthy toe. They had been having a battle. Naturally. The ammunition had been . . . blackberries. Why not? A handy and plentiful supply; spectacularly messy results – absolutely ideal for the purpose. Their bewilderment at the ensuing rant from the mad mother was so disarming that I nearly stopped mid-flow. But then thought better of it and continued unabated, from 'disgraceful waste of food', through 'purple footprints on kitchen floor', right up to 'get-those-clothes-off-straight-away-so-I-can-wash-them-or-the-stains-will-never-come-out'. I am going to have to search a little further afield for bramble bushes in the next week or two.

I really miss my Aga.

A chilly regatta and some garden thoughts

Well what a cold, wet, windy day for the Mersea Regatta! Such a shame, after the few short weeks of 'real summer' weather. Stayed home, in the end, with relays of snoozing children, exhausted from their overnight camping trip. They were all recovered in time to catch the fireworks and funfair, however. By the time they returned, besmeared with candyfloss, I was exhausted and in need of a snooze myself, having spent the best part of the day at my PC, wrestling with a large legal textbook.

Brain insufficiently engaged to think of anything interesting to write, I have decided to fill what would otherwise be a blank space with some photos from my island garden. Still mourning the loss of my White Garden, which was a challenge (it was even plagued by obligingly white weeds, in the form of rampant greater bindweed) but (when all was going well) a source of great delight, I seem to be 'moving on' via a pinky-purple sort of phase - mainly in pots, it has to be said, since this is not to be a permanent abode.



'Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping.'
Shakespeare, Winter's Tale IV.iii

'I know that if odour were visible, as colour is, I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.' Robert Bridges, Testament of Beauty

'It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.' Robert Louis Stevenson

'O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies in herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities.' Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II.iii

'Land of the hill and heather; Land of the awful weather; Land where the midges gather - Scotland the brave.' (The three white ceramic objects behind the lump of driftwood, to the right of the rope, are from a dismantled telegraph pole on the Isle of Mull, 'rescued' from the side of a loch, one chilly springtime eleven years ago. This is the first time a 'use' has been found for them - and even now their utility is somewhat debatable - but I hope they will feel at home near the lovely spiky heather.)

'Hanged up in houses, [lavender] doth very well attemper the aire, coole and make fresh the place to the delightand comfort of such as are therein.' John Gerard, 1597

'To-day, red blue; bells hang happily off the mossy edge of the steep ditch across from the iron graveyard gate.' from Fuchsia by Mary Guckian

'How fair is a garden amid the trials and passions of existence.' Benjamin Disraeli