Focusing on Spring

  

I do love this garden in the Spring.

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Inside and out

My little kitchen in the hills, with views into the back garden and across the fields. Nothing special. A bit messy but bright and cheerful. It’s full of light and garish colours, unlike the rest of the house.

Blogging a lot, saying little. Not sure what that’s about. Maybe wanting to be somewhere I’m not.

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I’m here

Just after nine in the morning. I’ve already walked across the park, had breakfast and coffee. No work until tomorrow.

I say goodbye to the Girl today. When I next see her, she will have finished her degree. It feels as though it’s barely five minutes since she started secondary school… lost her first tooth… was born. The Boy is dreaming of going to Australia.

And I am here.

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Narcissism

There’s something so lovely about a daffodil. They are so welcoming and so joyful, and so totally appropriate for Spring.

One of the lovely things about this garden is the sheer variety of daffodil-like flowers that appear at this time of year. I think there are about ten types of narcissi out there. I don’t know the names of any of them as I owe them all to my predecessor here.

As soon as one type has ‘gone over’ another pops up and so they continue for a few weeks. They grow in the flower beds in the front garden, on the lawn and the banks in the back garden as above, and at the back and front of the house.

I’ve just had a good rummage about at Peter Nyssen and found that I have a pretty good cross section of the different types available. Had to log out of there quickly before I bought something…

The ones I find the least successful are those that are really fancy – double headed cream-coloured ones – in the picture below, with their second flower not yet open. They look a bit washed out compared to their brighter, more exuberant cousins but it could also be that they are planted where they look a little lost in the bare earth of a bed not yet colonised by alchemilla mollis and strawberries.

At this time of year, I buy a bunch of daffodils almost every time I leave the house if I’m not in the country. They are just so cheerful that I want to fill every room with them.

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A little of what I fancy

When I was in Stockholm, I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a family who live there. This is so much nicer than staying in a hotel because you get a real idea of what living somewhere is like.

You can feel the rhythms of the day as the trams pass by and the children go off to school, instead of being stuck in the centre of town all the time.

Many Swedes have a great sense of panache when it comes to decorating their houses. I always come back full of ideas and plans for my own home.

So many months of the year are so dark in Scandinavia, that the Swedes embrace light as much as they can. Windows are rarely curtained and usually have wide shelves or windowsills, on which live lights, candles and flowers.

More than anything, the Swedes really love their ljus – candles. As you travel through cities and countryside, windows are most often beautifully lit displays of light and warmth. Of course, it helps that they usually have much better windows and insulation than we do in the UK. So draughts and heat loss through glass isn’t a problem.

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A glimpse inside

It’s cold. The sky is clear. Inside is best tonight.

 

 

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I can see reindeer

This is my contribution to the whole Christmas jumper and Sarah Lund craze. A cushion cover. Just waiting for its pad so that I can finish it off.

I’ve so enjoyed making it, although I’m out of practice at colourwork and stranding. The main difficulty for me with this type of knitting is that I have to change from the Continental way of knitting to the English in order to work with more than one colour.

Now if only more shops sold knitting needles I could start my next project.

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New House Textiles

I love it when I hear about a website that really epitomises the kind of style I love, whose stock isn’t totally obvious. For example, I love Marimekko designs but they’re just a bit… obvious. Lots of people have items made of their materials, and they’ve been round since the seventies, so they’re not in any way unique, although it’s nice to see them come back into fashion. And, frankly, I can’t imagine living with them for long – they’re a bit too bold for me.

These days it’s very hard to be unique  - you can buy the same products, or virtually the same, all over the world at places like Ikea. These items are also disposable, which I hate. Don’t get me wrong, I have had plenty of things from Ikea but in areas where I knew they won’t be needed for very long, like the children’s bedrooms and, before people start shouting, I’m happy to say that that Ikea can’t be surpassed for kitchen units and accessories. But it’s boring. Just boring to have too much of it.

I not keen on things that are totally faux either, like newly made country style pine furniture. It’s a bit… hmm, how to put it… lacking in creativity and…er, obvious, especially in the country. I’ve always aspired to a look that isn’t either totally modern or totally full of antiques. I want it to have some character and to be a bit quirky. It’s much harder to gather objects and furnishings together from a variety of sources, styles and eras and make them work together, but so much more interesting and fun to do. It can mean waiting for a very long time until the right thing comes along, but it’s always worth it.

With this in mind, I was happy to read in The Guardian about New House Textiles and to find this tray (something I’ve been needing at the cottage for a while) on their website. Actually, it was just a reader’s letter, not even a feature.

It will go well with the simplicity of the cottage’s interior and picks up countryside themes appropriately. It’s a lovely clear, clean design, which is something I always like, and it features a nice orange as well as more muted colours, tying together the bright colours of my kitchen with the more muted colours of the living room very nicely.

New House Textiles also have a blog. See my current favourite blog over there on the right.

Have a nice weekend!

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Tuesday’s post

Incredibly windy today with clouds scudding across the sky and the wind whistling down the chimney. Rapidly alternating gloom and sunny breaks meant that I had to pick my moment to be outside but I was able to gather the wherewithall with which to plant up the hyacinths with no trouble. Alternatively, it could be some kind of very vile witches’ brew.

Of course, as with all things that take place in the garden, it took much longer than it should have done because I got distracted and spent an hour or so clearing moss and dead leaves from under the slats of a funny little bench, which Lady-Vendor had built into the bank at the back of the house. It’s a really stupid construction from that point of view but, on a sunny and breezy summer’s day, it’s a nice sheltered place to sit. And it’s often windy up here in the hills.

Sad part of the day was that despite our attempts to protect them, I had to fish a dead frog out of the pond today. However, there was only one (compared to last year’s five) and we now have a little ball floating on the pond, so that, should it freeze again, we can take the ball out so that oxygen can get in and other gases escape. That’s if the ball doesn’t blow away – I keep finding it half-way across the garden.

Despite the cold, there are already some things flowering: hellebores just starting to come out and something I don’t recognise. No snowdrops yet, although shoots are starting to poke through here and there.

It was also perfect weather to gather wood for kindling. I hate buying kindling and tend to collect wood when I’m walking locally. Today, I didn’t even need to go for a walk as the winds had brought down quite a lot of branches in the garden and the lane but I went for a walk anyway.

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The lovely garden

 

Front garden - yellow

 

Lady-Vendor wasn’t lying when she said the garden was a picture. it’s going to be a challenge to keep it looking as lovely as it does now. I’m glad that I’ve started with it in this condition, because now I will always have to try and live up to this. Click on the picture on the left – it enlarges so that you can see how lovely it is at the moment.

It is small enough to cope with myself, I think, apart from the 100 feet or so of hedge, which I’ll have to get help with unless I want to spend every moment that I’m here out with the hedge trimmer. I’d rather focus on the flowerbeds which have got some lovely things in – fritillaries and hellebores, two of my favourites, among them.

It’s springtime, so it will be lovely seeing what blossoms and comes up each weekend.

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