My Favourite Window

March 6, 2011

Escapism

A fair somewhere; out in the country, beyond havoc under a Max Parrish sky.
Things to see, to do, to buy. For a gold coin here and another there I could enter the gate, support a heritage group, buy a plate...  some books.  I could listen to
my daughter singing; her hair blowing
in the wind.  I could marvel at heavenly meccano and shelter from the icy blast with a cuppa and a friend.

And somehow the escapism was catching, because back home I was co-erced into joining Kitty's Masquerade.








Just to bring me back to Earth,








I felt the call of the potato patch.  This is no carefully constructed garden bed, but a wasteland of twitch and buttercup and my unruly tipping place for kitchen and garden waste.  Here I can tease the potatoes from the underthatch with my fingers - I barely need a fork - and a pumpkin rolics over my fine mown edge.  Feral food!
My new jumble sale books need a mention because they are gardening books and desirable.

Garden Design Workbook by John Brookes published by Lothian.  I find John Brooks approach to garden planning - proportions, scale, surveying - easy to understand and well presented.

Creating a Garden by Mary Keen published by Conran Octopus.  With its lush photography by Andrew Lawson, this is a lovely - and inspiring - record of the making of an English garden.  This book is the Yin to John Brookes Yang: emphasising the understanding of place in making a garden personal. 

Potatoes  Solanum tuberosum

6 comments:

starfyre said...

There is not many things more beautiful than the view down your hallway to your front door.....

Dyk Jewell said...

Agree about your front door, plus what a magnificent orrery. Very difficult to do that in Meccano. Maybe not anatomically correct but they have got the inclined axis of the earth about right and this will illustrate the changing day length of the seasons. I love the sun - looks like a demented kina.

Lady Mondegreen's Secret Garden said...

Thankyou Starfyre and
Dyk for your kind comments about my hallway. I would have to say that for me, the door open to the view of the willow just beats the light- chamber for beauty.
And thankyou too Dyk, for naming the structure, but surely you mean astronomically correct? The demonstrator assured me that the full planetry spectrum can also be accomodated!
By the way, a man who can add a new word to my vocabulary (will I ever be able to utter it?) is worthy of an interview. May I? How about this weekend?

the fly in the web said...

I've just come over from Hadriana's Treasures...and found another one here.

I live in an earthquake zone....two years running villages have been engulfed in mudslides following quakes...two years running government help is inadequate and slow and two years running it is local people who do what's needed.

The rescue services are dedicated, skilled and professional...but the agencies who are supposed to help people pick up the pieces once the rescue work is done sit on their hands having meetings leaving people to cope in emergency shelters.

Hadriana's Treasures said...

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments over at mine. What a beautiful blog you have here! I am hoping you'll be able to see those old streets again. :)

Lady Mondegreen's Secret Garden said...

Golly two international comments. I'm not used to this. Thanks so much for looking Fly in the Web and Hadriana's Treasures. One thing that I am accutely aware of amidst the destruction and sadness and social effects here in Canterbury NZ,
is how well prepared the people and the country is to deal with this situation compared to almost any other earthquake prone territory in the world. But communities looking after each other is a huge part of the restoration process too.
Hadriana, I owe Haltwhistle a return visit, because all I did there was shelter in a tent from about a week of rain! And Vindolanda was closed. Will get back to your latest posting on the museums there when I'm not dashing to catch a plane! Vale.