Blooming Gardens

BLOOM 1

I can understand why teenagers are constantly tired.
They are in the novitiate of life, and it's all exhausting.
I know, because I'm a novice at the moment.

This year is Yeats2015 - it's the 150th anniversary of the great poet's birth and there are events going on all over the place. You might have spotted one near you - Harp Concerts every full moon, Yeats on the London Underground, poetry readings at 1pm every day in Hargadons in Sligo, Yeats at the NLI in Dublin - and tomorrow he might pop up in Paddy's Day celebrations anywhere in the world, who knows!

I seem to have been living and breathing Yeats and I haven't even been to a concert or a reading yet. I haven't had time.
I was asked - last year - to design a Yeats Garden for Bloom 2015 and, knock me down  with a feather, it's been accepted and now I have to make it happen!
That's where the novice bit comes in.
Much as I love all things to do with gardens and garden festivals, I've never been involved in building a show garden before.

I've had plans, lists, phone numbers, websites and emails coming out of my ears.
I dream in square metres and my heart beats to the rhythm of plant names in Latin.
I am no longer seeing landscapes and backyards - everywhere I go, I am eyeing up possibilities and potential specimens.
And discovering how incredibly generous people are - with their time, their support, the contents of their flower beds...

Today, stomach muscles clenching in case I was making a mistake - I appointed a contractor. I wanted to appoint two - well, three actually. All of the ones I'd approached.
I think they'd all do a fantastic job, and each had something special to bring to the (potting) table. But of course it doesn't work like that, so I had to choose. I wish they knew how hard it was to make the decision - I'd much rather we all mucked in together, but life isn't like that unfortunately.
I hope I've chosen the right one. Time - as in all things - will be the judge of that.

And meanwhile, my own garden is abandoned and neglected.
It will forgive me, I daresay. In fact, in my absence, it will party its way through Spring and early summer, inviting in all the less salubrious types to dance through my borders and stay for indeterminate sleep-overs - you know, the docks and dandelions, the goosegrass - oops, sorry, the rumex obtusifolius, taraxacum officinale and galium aparine, I ought to say...

It'll be nice when I get past the tired and stomach-clenching bit.
Maybe that should be 'if' - 
My contractor said: 'It'll get worse before it gets better', and he ought to know.
Yikes!
But there again, by his own admission, he does go back and do it all over again year after year...   
Hmmm.
I'll keep you posted.

Bah, Humbug, New Year!

I'm not really a New Year person.
Despite the In-Charge's cousin talking me through 'the year is a circle, New Year joins seamlessly onto the end of last year' - that still doesn't work for me.
It's always seemed like a straight line, the year - so 31st December appears as some sort of awful cliff that you fall off, willy nilly. Yet another leap of faith.
Sadly, I guess that makes me a member of the flat-earth society.
I'm not proud.

I have tried.
Indeed, I do try.
No doubt my family, at this point, would say 'you're very trying' - but despite all, something isn't working.
It's all a bit like this really, New Year:

Whatever, this circle thing just isn't happening for me.
It's about colour somewhere along the line. (There you go - 'line' - see what I mean?)
Colour, whether I like it or not, is the be-all and end-all.
Christmas teems with colour. It jumps out and socks you one, grabs you round the neck and sucks you in until you drown in it, until colour has replaced the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, the thoughts in your brain.
New Year isn't about colour. It is clean and cold and brightly, icily blue.

Or - as in today's case - wet and grey and rather down-at-heel.
But whatever the reality, it's a chilling contrast to the warmth of Christmas, and definitely outside my comfort zone. It's all about new beginnings, starting all over again - like Maths homework that you got wrong the first time round. 'Return to Go' and definitely do not collect 200...
It's the point when, were it not for the chocolates, empties and new socks lying around, you'd wonder if Christmas had just been some sort of tantalising dream.

Sorry, all you New Year fans out there.
Please tell me, where am I going wrong?

We went to some lovely parties over Christmas, and even had one here, but last night was a quiet night in.
I didn't go to bed - I couldn't be that Scrooge-ish. We watched a movie (an excellent, if rather distressing one, as it turned out - The Flowers of War, with Christian Bale), but then we had an unexpected treat.
Queen and Adam Lambert live at Central Hall, Westminster.
I've not exactly been switched on this last while, so Adam Lambert and I haven't been personally introduced until now. As with most things, I'm behind the times, but it's never too late to catch up.
Last night's gig was, to quote an old friend, 'bloody-marvellous'.
Freddie Mercury - sleep on, sweet singer, rest in peace. Miss you as we do, your legacy is in safe hands. Adam Lambert is a worthy heir.

And just in case you missed it - here's a little snippet for you

And if you need any more convincing:

Still not sure?

Here's one for the road:

Oh, and London's New Year fireworks were amazing too.
Queen thoughtfully paused to let them take centre stage at midnight.

Happy New Year everyone, from rather a dark, damp, colourless west coast.

A Trick of the Light

I have been dreaming in Panavision, Technicolour and 3D recently.
Well, not recently exactly - my dreams are generally pretty full-on.
But this last while they have been - weird.

When, over the breakfast cups, I casually say: 'I had the strangest dream last night,' the In-Charge rolls his eyes and pulls a face that says: 'Here we go again'. 
But then, as I don't hesitate to tell him, he hasn't an ounce or romance in his soul.

Last night I dreamt that I flew to London and checked in to a hotel. (Why would I do that? I have lots of friends in London.) The American woman in front of me at Reception was having her earrings minutely examined by the girl behind the desk, and I nosed in just in time to see the eagle-eyed Receptionist remove a tiny, pin-head antennae from the top of each earring.
The American was mutely astonished and allowed herself to be led away.
As I say - weird.

No sooner had I got upstairs to my hotel room than the extremely over-efficient girl from the foyer came racing up to accuse me of having flown to London with a knife attached to my keyring. The knife in question was a miniature (and I'm talking doll's house here) folding penknife.
How did she know? And what had it got to do with the Hotel Receptionist, anyway? If the airline didn't care, why should she?
I admitted this gross misdemeanour and was immediately locked in my room pending an investigation.
In my dream, this seemed an entirely logical step, and I acquiesced without a murmur, just like the American..


But I was concerned about the dogs being locked in with me. They were looking anxious and had their legs crossed, so to speak.
(Did I not mention the dogs? That could be because it was only at this point in the dream that I realised I had all three dogs with me - Top Dog, Under Dog and Model Dog.)
Obviously I was dreaming in the past. I dream in the past more often than not.
Maybe everyone does.

You don't really want to know any more.
It got weirder and weirder as the night wore on.
I believe our dreams can happen in a very short space of time, but while you're dreaming them, it feels as if they go on forever.
And in some ways they do. This one has lingered around me all day, like my shadow - perpetually just out of sight.

I sometimes wonder if dreams are actually reality and our day to day lives are the dream.
I rather hope not, as in that case, my life is very odd indeed.
But not as odd as my sister's. She once dreamt that she was half a glass of water on the moon.
How does that format itself into a dream, exactly?
I've never been able to work it out.

I often wonder why it is that in my dreams I regularly revisit places, houses - streets, even - that I recognise but which bear no relation at all to the actual places they purport to be. Yet frequently they are the same from dream to dream.
So the same as what, exactly?
And I remember other places I have dreamt about, with that strange, intangible clarity that attaches itself to childhood memories. Pictures that cannot be described. Atmospheres devoid of words.
What weird games the brain plays on itself.
Like juggling with a trick of the light 
But why?

Run, Chicken, Run!

Last night I dreamt that I ran away with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Honesty compels me to confess that the whole affair was more indecisive than in flagrante – I haven’t yet been able to recall exactly where we ran to, but never mind.

When I relayed this interesting snippet to my husband across the breakfast cereals, he rolled his eyes to heaven, shook his head sadly and left the table.

I’m still not sure whether that was a tacit comment on my penchant for fanciful dreams or on the improbability of my securing so eligible a parti as the alliterating-chef.

If  pressed, I would have to say that while I’m a great admirer of Hugh’s, he’s not the heart-throb pinned inside my wardrobe door, nor does he feature on my list of elopement candidates.

It must be about chickens.

As far as chickens are concerned, HF-W and I are as one.

Well, nearly as one.

You may recall that some years ago, Hugh inaugurated the 'Chicken Out' campaign - to alleviate the lot of commercially reared poultry. (Let’s all raise our glasses to him!) I don’t know about you, but it made me weep. Admittedly, it doesn’t take much, but the way Britain – Ireland - America? – the world? - rears chickens for human consumption is despicable. In fact, let’s not beat around the bush here, the intensive rearing of any animal is despicable. The way we produce food is deeply, deeply flawed.

And it’s not just meat. Take milk. I know it’s so normal, we don’t even think about it, but to me there is something completely wrong about taking a calf away from its mother as soon as it’s born so that we get the milk – while it gets fed from a bucket in a shed somewhere else. How can that be right for the mother or the calf? The de-facto birthright of an animal to be with its mother doesn’t even register on the scale – with cows or chickens. We have turned them into machines.

Sorry – I’ll get off my soap-box now.

Mercifully, vegetables are less emotive, and with more and more people growing their own, it’s easier and less expensive to be choosy about how they are produced. Isn’t it funny, how time and perspective change everything. I remember once, years ago, standing in my local greengrocer’s in London and looking with amazement at the produce on show. It was spectacular, and everything had been proudly labelled by the owner – oranges from Israel, apples from New Zealand, cherries from America – everything came from somewhere else. I was deeply impressed at the time – the first glimmerings of the global village back then, I guess. Now I stand in my local Country Market, Beltra, and it gives me huge satisfaction to see the variety and quality of local produce, to know that it comes from within a few miles. It is good to be part of the new (and oh, so old) approach to food that Country Markets epitomises with its message: ‘Buy local – buy Irish – buy well!’ It’s good to be in touch with the food I eat, to know how and where it’s been produced, that the producer has been fairly paid for it, but it hasn’t ‘cost the earth’ in any sense.

Which brings me back to the chickens.

(I’ve been trying to avoid the chickens. As always, I’m uncomfortably on the edge here.)

Like Hugh, I’m very fond of poultry. I have a small flock of them myself.

In fact, I should probably introduce you to Napoleon at this point. You will see for yourself why he’s called Napoleon.

Napoleon and his first wife, Josephine

 

Isn’t he gorgeous? (He causes my husband more rolling of the eyes, but I know that’s just because he is jealous) Sadly, his first wife, Josephine, pictured beside him, beautifully clad in speckled grey, is no more. But happily a friend supplied Napoleon with a second wife, Marie Louise – very tiny, but every inch the Empress.

The Empress Marie Louise

Apart from the two royals – referred to for some reason by my husband as ‘your babies’ – we have 17 other, lesser creatures – Wellington, his girls and Henrietta. 

Henrietta is an impudent, determined, irascible, bolshy little hen with a will of iron – what you might term ‘a hen with attitude’. Back in the spring, she turned clocky on me. Dreaming of the joys of motherhood, she took to her bed of straw and refused to move. Equally determined, I removed all the eggs and told her that she was wasting her time, keeping a fruitless vigil.

Henrietta Hen

Now, as you may know, it takes just 21 days for an incubated egg to become a chick. Had I known what I was up against, Henrietta would have won hands – or rather, wings-down and we could have saved a lot of time. Instead I held out for 3 long months, at the end of which I felt like a beast and she, thin and bald-tummied, hadn’t once emerged from her empty nest, except when I’d physically thrown her out of it.

I gave in. As a result, she is the proud mother of 6, which is all fine and dandy, except that 4 of them – inevitably – are cockerels. 

Now this is no doubt why I have been dreaming of HF-W, who manifestly believes in giving an animal a marvellous life and then turning it into several marvellous meals. Totally logical. In fact, best practice. So what IS my problem? I just need to start thinking: yum-yum, start calling my cockerels Coq-au-vin, Chasseur, Drumstick and Sunday Roast.

Pathetic idiot that I am, instead of my taste-buds tingling whenever I see them, instead of bisto-whiffs passing beneath my nose, I find myself thinking: who needs meat? Who even likes chicken? Cheese-on-toast is very nice, laced with pickle and mustard. 
Hugh would definitely not approve. These birds have, after all, lived the life of Reilly – running wild all over my garden, bullying their smaller sisters and daring the cats to one-to-one combat.

I need to take a leaf out of Henrietta’s book and become determined.

I need to overcome this – this chicken-heartedness.

Wellington will certainly not be so lily-livered. If they grow much bigger, he’ll take matters into his own hands. Or the cats will. Or M. Reynard, who nightly prowls the orchard.

Besides, we will get fed up with cheese-on-toast.

Eventually.

Let’s hope that in our brief encounter last night, Hugh gave me a jolly good talking to!