Growing and Going

All those months trying to sell our previous house seem like a different age now. Home, in the end, is where the heart is, but as physical places go, this feels like somewhere to settle. We make bread and bake cakes, there’s homemade marmalade in the kitchen cupboards and we’re gradually sorting out the garden.

A year ago we discovered that seedlings don’t like to go in the ground too early here – the poor runner beans suffered especially in the cold, but now we’ve begun planting out in earnest. I was very excited this week (not sure what my younger self would say about that) to find trays of poor, thirsty, neglected bedding plants at B&Q for 10-50p per tray. We went a bit mad and spent three pounds on what should have been thirty-three pounds worth of plants; not all of them plants I’d normally choose, but we’ve rescued them and they’ll make a lovely splash of colour.

Marigolds to zap the carrot fly.

Bargain bedding plants.

The hedge is busting out all over.

The new shed in the sunshine.

Those red hot pokers are back.

Where the wild things are!

In other news. Tom and I are off to the Millennium Centre this Saturday for a big ol’ chunk of opera. Yes, it’s Tristan und Isolde, payback time for making Tom endure so much Puccini. 

And on Monday, my younger daughter, Rose and I are off to the Hay Festival where we’ll be helping to celebrate twenty-five years of the remarkable Honno Press. I’m so looking forwards to catching up with old friends and meeting lovely Juliet Greenwood there. Hurray!