Helmingham Gardens: Walled-In Heaven

I've been in Suffolk, on the far eastern side of England.
Beautiful Suffolk, with cloudless blue skies full of shrieking swifts, endless fields of ripening, golden corn, stately trees marking horizons and hedgerows, and picture-postcard cottages straight off the lids of chocolate boxes.

Picture postcard houses

It was lovely to be there again - pottering in my parents' garden; listening to the church bells; visiting antique/vintage/junk shops with my sister; and whiling away scorching afternoons beside the open French windows, chatting with my mother over some gentle crochet.

Not to mention being almost entirely off-line.

Now I am back at home - to a rapturous welcome from Model Dog and the TeenQueen, it's true - but to the less enjoyable realities of normal life as well. My dear friend has been in a car smash and is in hospital with two broken ankles, the TeenQueen, in an enthusiastic but misplaced attempt to defend her home from canine intruders, has bitten another friend's lurcher, and the rain it raineth every day.

At lunchtime I rushed out to feed some roses and young blossom trees - a job best done in wet weather - and it was only as I changed into dry clothes afterwards that it dawned on me: a week ago this very afternoon, I was visiting one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen - the walled garden at Helmingham Hall.
How I wish I'd had my camera. My phone isn't the same thing at all. Apologies, Helmingham, for not doing you justice.

Side view of Helmingham Hall

It's not very far from my mother's village, but for some reason I've never been there before.
I shall certainly be going there again. In fact, I'm wondering if I might move in without them noticing.
There are several gardeners there, but I'm sure they could use an extra pair of hands, and I'd work very hard.
The Head Gardener, I was told, has been there for 50 years, since he was a boy.
It shows.
And the lady of the house is a garden designer.
That shows too.

I'm sure the walled garden at Helmingham has always been a thing of beauty, but now it has reached the peak of perfection.
You have to walk around the lovely Tudor Hall to get to it - along the side of a moat on which water lilies drift lazily in the afternoon sunshine. At the end, a notice on the gate says something along the lines of 'For the sake of the deer, please keep this gate closed', and there is a half-wild, half-mown path with topiary hedges that entice you ever onwards.

Even then you only catch glimpses of the joys ahead.
Have you ever noticed that about the best gardens? They lure you bit by bit. Never is everything revealed at once, and just when you think you have arrived at the pièce de résistance, a path - or a doorway - or an arch cut into the hedge tells you that there is more - still more - to come.

So it is at Helmingham.
After the moat, the topiary hedges, and the casually thrown out lure of a dappled apple walk, finally you arrive in a walled enclosure, with trees, urns overflowing with white cosmos and lavender-edged flower borders that look  like oil paintings, in which hide covered seats where you can sit out of the sun yet still smell the hot, sweet scent of roses.

The ante-room

But it's only the ante-room.

Huge pillars entwined with roses and topped with winged horses' heads mark the entrance to the actual walled garden. They hold massive wrought iron gates of which I am deeply jealous.
Although to be honest, it wasn't just the gates I lusted after.

Someone once said to me: 'One garden is much like another.'
Wrong.
Gardens are like books. They are all different, although some may fall into the same genre. I have seen gardens that leave you depressed, others that leave you unmoved. There are many that disappoint and many that surprise and delight. But the best of gardens take you to another place entirely, a place that I, for one, never want to come back from.

Inside its high, aged brick walls, Helmingham's rectangular garden is broken up geometrically. A central grass path is edged with wide herbaceous borders backed by fences, railings or obelisks supporting endless roses, clematis and other climbing beauties.

The central path

And at regular intervals there are other paths leading off to the sides.
Some of these are arched allées - covered with runner beans, or wisteria or sweet peas.

Sometimes there are just more grass paths, with more herbaceous borders.

And hidden away in between are long rectangular beds of vegetables, or cutting flowers, or lavender.

Set against the outer walls, in between the planting, are benches and amusing topiary specimens.

The Snowman

The armchair so you can sit and watch your leeks grow

And there are side gates - of which I'm also exceedingly jealous.

Exceedingly jealous.

There is also the Coach House Tea Room serving delicious cakes to revive you for part two - the knot garden, the rose garden, and a newly planted garden with lots of trees...
Or maybe just a second, leisurely tour of the walled garden, where you can sit and watch the bees falling over each other to get at the veronica and the allium and the honeysuckle - and everything else. I've never seen so many bees in one place.




It was so hot last Wednesday that I was glad to slip out of the back gate for a moment in the shade, where a sort of secondary moat - or perhaps it was originally a carp pond - runs around the outside of the walled garden, dividing it from the Apple Walk and the Deer Park. It reflects the magnificent, graceful trees, and does what water always does. It brings heaven into the garden.

As if it wasn't there already.

Behind the walled garden

Between the Apple Walk and the Walled Garden

What else can I say? Except hie thee hence to Helmingham.
It's part garden, part oil painting, and part heaven.

Easter Sunday

It is snowing outside.
When I think back to all the days and weeks when I'd have given anything for a bit of snow, and we never saw a single flake! It was too busy blanketing most of the UK and Europe to give us a look in.
And now, on Easter Day, when you want the sun to shine and the daffodils to sing in the garden, what happens?

I don't think it's going to settle, and I have no expectations of waking up to a winter wonderland either, which is a shame - if it's going to snow, it might as well do it properly, and April Fool's would be an appropriate occasion.
But whatever I wake up to, I won't be sorry to see the end of March.
What a month its been.
A month full of buts.

The sun has shone - pretty well continuously - but the east wind has been like a scythe.

Benbulben and Knocknarea, Sligo's iconic mountains

Benwisken and Benbulben bathed in hazy sunshine

We've had the lowest tide of the year, but you had to be dressed like the Michelin Man to enjoy the beach.

The biggest beach of the year

The daffodils are in full swing in the garden, but for the first year I can remember, the Shirotae isn't even thinking of poking its nose out. And who can blame it?
So no white blossom this March.

SuperModel has been to be spayed, but now she's back to wondering if she can trust us. I suppose, when you think about it, it's not surprising. Hopefully we'll catch up to where we left off when her wound heals up and stops hurting.

Poor baby - feeling very sorry for herself

My gorgeous son flew home for a brief visit over St Patrick's weekend, which was heaven, but now I don't know when I'll see him again.

An Englishman in New York

My sore throat and cold have gone but the cough has settled in comfortably for the duration.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

But on the plus side - I've done lots of work in the garden and everything hasn't QUITE spiralled out of control as it usually does at this time of year.

The TeenQueen (pre-op, anyway) really was starting to think that life in this tiny corner of Ireland might be rather wonderful after all.

What a looh-la. The TeenQueen, when she thought I wasn't looking, squashed into the cat's bed

At last! Behaving like a proper lurcher!

We've made the mind-boggling decision to actually go on holiday later this year - life, debt and the state of the nation notwithstanding - and that is definitely one for the books. It's been 5 long years, after all, since the last Great Escape!

Yesterday's Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt was a ball at Beltra Country Market, and later on I got rid of a load of household clutter by taking it to a Jumble Sale in aid of local animal charities. Definitely a Win/Win, I'd say! I hope they raised lots of money.

My friend DodoWoman

Wondrous bonnets

My friend Axe-Woman, who (understandably) won first prize

The Stitch & Bitch group I wanted to start has started, and it's not only huge fun, but we're all learning masses. Can you believe I've managed to crochet daffodils (even though I've now lost my crochet hook!)


And I've even achieved my ambition of being a lot thinner by Easter!
But that was before I ate three doughnuts on the way home from Ballina the other day.
(Don't even ask.
I have no idea.)


All in all - a bit of a mixed month. Like most months.

But today is Easter Day.
So I'd like to leave you with something special.
There's no chocolate to speak of in this house (and certainly no doughnuts) but I have something far more beautiful to offer you.
Alas, it was not made by me, it was created by the incredibly talented, clever and crafty lady of Attic 24 fame. I hope she won't mind me sharing it with you. It certainly deserves to be shared far and wide.
(Now you understand why I HAD to know how to crochet daffodils!)

So, snow or no snow, thin or fat, with family or without, gardening or otherwise - I hope you're having a lovely Easter.

Lions and Lambs

It's been a quiet sort of month.
A heads-down, getting into the rhythm of things type of month. And largely unsociable.
Some ups and downs - like my poor Mrs Smith - but a good month nevertheless.
A month of measured days and new beginnings.  

When we first came to Ireland, someone described March as 'coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb'. It wasn't an expression I'd heard before, but it described that deeply petulant month perfectly.
Twenty years later the climate has adjusted to a different set of rules, or perhaps no rules at all, and now it seems that February has taken on the mantle of March - and this year it did indeed come in roaring.

We didn't have the snow that much of Ireland and most of Britain had, we just had hail and gales and rain, rain, rain. Everywhere squelched and water poured off every inch of the land. But for the last two weeks it has been as dry as a bone. Oh blessed relief.
We've had thick white frosts some mornings, and often an easterly wind like a knife, but I have spent hours of every day gardening with great satisfaction, protected from the north and the east alike by my ten foot, 200 year-old walls

TeenQueenSuperModel likes gardening. In fact, she tells me it's her most favourite thing of all.
Except for racing in the orchard. And breakfast. And walks. And cuddles. And snoozing on the fluffy bed by the fire.

Snoozing after a hard day's work

But apart from those, gardening is what Tiggers like best.
Model Dog also likes gardening, but then she likes doing whatever I'm doing.
It's rather a case of 'Wherever I go, there's always Pooh, there's always Pooh and me,' and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'd be lost without my Model Dog.

So, a-gardening we have gone.
The herbaceous border is practically done. As are my back and general muscle-system, but nothing's free, after all - and the pleasure it gives me to see the bed looking spick and span far outweighs the minor inconvenience of hardly being able to straighten up.
Now I can re-plant the things that have been heeled in here and there around the garden, mulch it as soon as the rain returns (which it will, it will), and then stand back and watch it all burgeon.
I will keep you posted.

Unfortunately, TeenQueen's gardening means that the lawn adjacent to my flower bed (although 'lawn' is perhaps a rather a high-falutin' name for that particular patch of grass)  looks like a graveyard. Or perhaps a charnel house.
It is littered with bones. Mostly just the remains of bones, and there ain't many remains.
While I dig, the dogs lie on the grass and munch their way through any and every marrow bone that Paul, our lovely butcher, can throw their way.
Model Dog used to be happy just lying on the grass, but since the advent of the TeenQueen - with her sharp young teeth and adolescent attention span - it is necessary to keep her constantly amused so that she doesn't get into mischief.
Bones are definitely what Tiggers like best. She demolishes them with indecent haste, and prances with excitement when she sees the gardening bucket come out.

But it hasn't been all gardening this month.
I've been writing again - getting back into my book; and enjoying the last days of winter sunshine in the woods; and the crisp blue days by the sea; and helping a friend; and doing a bit of crochet here and there; and knitting my patchwork squares; and loving the lighter mornings, the longer evenings, the end of the snowdrops and crocuses, and the start of the daffodils, primroses and violets.

It's that moment of the year when the winter is behind you and the joys of spring and summer are all to come - all still to come.

Hooked

The CrochetQueen, having taught me the basics of her wondrous craft last week, afterwards sent me a link on facebook.
And then, at the market yesterday, I had coffee with a GrandeDame of the art, and we sat happily stitching together while she further instructed me. She too sent me away with a link in my ear.
I'm not at all sure that either of them have done me a favour.

For one thing, I have burnt my knitting needles.
Knitting?
Who wants to knit when there is crochet out there waiting to be knotted?

You see what I mean?

I am not an owl by nature, but long after the In-Charge had carried his bad back off to bed last night, I sat up perusing the crochet-idyll of cyberspace. I stayed up until the candles guttered in their sockets and my screen flickered with the effort of staying awake.

But oh joy, oh rapture, oh itchy fingers!
Here are some of the treasures I found.
I hope no one minds me sharing them with you. Who knows, it might inspire you all to go out there and buy a hook!

Totally thrilling

Much too good to eat

    

Right up my street

If I had these, I'd leave all my clothes in a heap on the floor so I could see the hangers

How pretty is that?

BUNTING! I knew bunting was just WAITING to be made

Bored with making cupcakes? Iam. Maybe I'll give these a try instead. The more you eat, the thinner you get

A touch of Morocco

And some of you may remember this beauty on my blog last year.
I wanted it very badly indeed.
(I still do.)

Well, for all you mad cyclists out there - how about this instead?

Or compromise. Have a rickshaw (probably safer on city streets than a bicycle, and there's room for the shopping too).

Small wonder I lay awake in the small hours wondering if I can spare the time to sleep at all?



Do you think, if I'd learned to crochet at a young age, my life might have taken a different course?

Well, be that as it may, I am well and truly hooked now, at any rate.

The photos on this post have come from:
For the Love of Crochet
Comunidade De Arte E Artesanato
Colorful Arts And Crafts
 

Or if you prefer pure art, have a look at Prudence Mapstone's website

Sighs of Happiness

Oh joy and rapture!
My friend, the CrochetQueen came round today and taught me how to perform her wondrous and beautiful art.
How patient she is! What a fantastic teacher.
Lo and behold the puzzling complexity of knots that seem to grow tighter and - woefully - less numerous with each passing row are, it transpires, neither puzzling nor complex.

They are logical and and do what they say on the tin.
Even to a non-mathematical brain like mine.


I have just finished knitting a patchwork blanket.

The blanket before completion.

It is a cornucopia of colour, a feast of textures, a joy to behold - even if you do need sunglasses.
(And although it will probably take me as long to finish off the loose ends on the back as it took to knit the entire throw, how happy a dog will be when it is eventually bestowed.)

But now a whole new world has opened up before me.


Who would have thought I could learn to crochet entire squares in a single day.
I am hugely impressed - not with my own efforts, but with the skill of my teacher.
And if you are wondering, it is totally simple.
Grab a needle and all you have to remember is this:

'Roundabout, In, Out,

Tiptoe through the Tulips,

Through the Dusky Bluebells,

One for the Road - and Two for the Corner!'

Honesty compels me to add that there are one or two little, small, insignificant other things, but truly, it's like falling off a log.

How you would love to see the fruits of my labours, but alas, you cannot.

The In-Charge has gone off the with the only camera we possess.
You will have to abide your souls in patience. Like the CrochetQueen did with me today.
But don't worry, I will share the thrill with you as soon as possible!

Meanwhile, I've another square to finish.
Now, what colours will this one be...?

So much choice. So little restraint.