Weedless

I'm close to the point where I could issue a garden challenge: find a weed and I'll give you a lifetime supply of something or other. This is such a major achievement for me that I'm dancing with joy, in my head at least. I never, never thought I'd be able to master this garden but I have done so. Every part of it is under my dominion. It's not perfect, but it's a very satisfactory work in progress just like other gardens. And now I've got £75 worth of garden vouchers that I can spend in any garden centre. The offer came from the Walled Garden following my dispute with them over my rusty patio table and chairs. Given their initial response and the fact that I thought their final one would be the same - zilch compensation, no acknowledgement of fault - this is a real gain. I plan to buy beautiful plants that I had decided were sheer extravagance, like peonies, and showy irises. It just goes to show you shouldn't accept poor service or shoddy goods.

I righted some major wrongs today, and hopefully it's been in time to prevent disaster. The echinops, quite a good architectural plant with an acceptable flower, has taken over the centre bed in the front. When I transported cuttings to the bank behind the pond it was in a desperate bid to stop the weeds in this area from taking over. I weeded, they grew. I did the same with vinca major, periwinkle, and Japanese anenomies, all decent plants. Big no no. They spread like wildfire, the echinops by an underground network of roots that go everywhere, the vinca by laying down new plants, and the anenomies by just multiplying like rabbits. Today I dug them all out and chucked them over the fence where finally the nettles have been sprayed by Alyss and are wilting pathetically. Everything came out with no bother, the soil soft and friable after the recent rains. I'm sure signs of their survival will return, but I'm on to them. The escholzia (Californian poppies) which has taken over behind the pond has gone berserk, but I love the brightness of their colour, the sheer exuberance of their growth. Today I lifted all the pansies out of the pots in readiness for the geraniums which will replace them, and planted them in the azalea bed past the shed. I really only like them in pots, but I couldn't throw them all away, and there are still spaces to fill.

Hugo gets ignored a bit on days like these. He follows me around, even after a walk, even after he's been fed, even after he's gone to bed in the evening for goodness sake. Just before I came in, limping with exhaustion as I headed for the bath, he came out and stood beside me like a limp toy. As I gathered up my detritus to tidy away he dragged himself behind me, back and forth, back and forth, the pair of us like a couple of old crocks. He just wanted to herd me inside and then he could relax. By the time I was ready to make up for the neglect with some playtime, he was out for the count. .

At Ease

I found a tick between my toes in the bath the other day. How it got there is a mystery because I never go for a walk without wearing socks and shoes, wellies if it's wet. Admittedly one of my favourite walking shoes has a big gap where the upper has come away from the sole, and that sock frequently gets wet. But really. I pulled it away and it came intact, a tiny dot of a thing but recognisably malevolent. Now I'll just wait to see if I have Lyme disease.

My weekend guests have gone and left behind an air of joyfulness that permeates every nook and niche of the house. We've had such a lovely time, relaxed and easy, and the weather was in our favour. On Saturday we had lunch in the near-deserted garden at the Westleton Crown, followed by a prolonged spell on Dunwich beach. The plan was to swim, but the waves were just too choppy, the slope of the shingle under the water too unknown and potentially dangerous. So we lounged on rugs and towels in the sun, Hugo draped with unfeigned elegance across whichever body took his fancy. Dinner was cooked for me, and was delightful in its simplicity and unaffected gourmetness. We talked colourfully and at length, moving into the sitting room eventually so that Hugo could sit at our level and be one of us. In the heat of the day while the sun beat down on the stones and pebbles he mastered the art of drinking from a cup, no easy feat for a dog with a long muzzle. After that he eschewed every doggie bowl we came across regardless of how thirsty he was.

On Sunday we had planned to visit the gardens at Helmingham Hall, figuring they would be looking at close to their best. But they were hosting a plant and craft fair, and none of us could bear the thought of crowds, and noise. So instead we took ourselves off to Wenhaston Grange, a beautiful old house just outside Walpole whose gardens are open once a year as members of the NGS. It was a good move, made all the more daring by not having a Dogs Welcome sign on its entry. We thought we might be able to persuade the owners to let the boy in, but in the event he was given the thumbs up at the gate. As the only dog there, and with a bandage on his leg to boot having swerved across the gravelly lane earlier in the day, he was made much of. The gardens were lovely, and I came away with plenty of inspiration. The owners three beautiful young sons, floppy fair hair and beautiful manners, served us tea and cake. Hugo was given a glass of iced orange-flavoured water, and he drank with importance and dignity.

My guests left behind two huge trays of potted plants, the overspill from the giant annual order delivered to Queen's College which gets distributed amongst the dons. White lobelia and osteospurmum which will decorate the edge of the pond, and infill spaces in the beds. I was promised cosmos too but they all got used up apparently. Sniff. But a generous gift, and just what is needed. And they took with them a bouquet of flowers from my garden, delphiniums, lupins, roses, gladilus byzantium, stocks. In fact almost identical to the flower arrangement on my kitchen table which inspired awe when they first walked in. Huh! Thought I was a flower philistine eh? See below.

Lounging in the sun

From my garden

Clear pond, lilies taking off

Beach bum

Fields of barley

Special Things

It seems that we, the huddled masses, love to be entertained. Storyteller, musician, singer, dancer - we become transfixed by those who can do what we cannot, and we give ourselves up to their performance. Tonight, by the most ridiculous serendipity, I travelled to Bungay to hear a magical voice that I caught in its final moments by sheer chance in Trafalgar Square on Tuesday. A minute later and I would have missed her. Lovely young girl, beautiful voice. She's only 24, and just starting to try and make a living from her music. Just eleven of us piled into the Fisher Theatre cellar to hear her, and three of those were staff. But she loves to sing for people who want to hear her, and she gave us her all. Magical isn't too strong a word for it. People with these awesome talents seem to have a direct line to a special place, and I think that's part of the attraction for lesser mortals. Here's a video on YouTube of her and fiddler Ciaran Agard. He is only 21 and already a legend. How did he ever learn to play like that? https://youtu.be/Qd-4gpmmoXc

It was very hot today, and I decided to trim back the hedge with my electric hedgecutter.It didn't require too much movement in the heat. All went well until I came back out after lunch and started it up again. Immediately I cut through the cable and the thing went dead. It's a straightforward repair job to put things right, but it was nearly two hours before I could continue. First I had to go into Fram to get a connector, then I had to attach it to the two separate wires. Dead easy? Nope. I put everything together without first attaching the casings into which the fitments slip, so I had to take it all apart again. Then I'd got the casings on the wrong ends, and off it all had to come again. Fiddling with those tiny wires in a confined space was tricky, and I kept losing the miniscule screws. What a waste of bleedin' time. In future I'll pay more attention.

When I drove home from Yoxford the other night at nearly midnight I saw a lot of small lights in the field beside my house. Curious, I slowed down and the lights became the eyes of half a dozen or so deer that had slipped across the lane from Sarah's garden and were heading off across my field towards Bruisyard. One tripped gently in front of me as I watched with slack jaw. God, but they are a magnificent sight. I love that they take over the land when we are asleep and can't interfere with them. Long may they survive unmolested in these parts.

Connections

One event stood out for me in a very enjoyable day in London yesterday, and it lasted less than a minute. As I walked through Trafalgar Square to meet a friend for tea I heard the voice of Joan Baez ringing out across the wide sunny plaza. I stopped in my tracks, stunned, and there was a young girl busking while an unkempt man sat cross-legged on the ground not 20 feet in front of her, conducting her with wildly waving arms. I couldn't believe her voice, as pure and soaring as Baez's was in her prime, and still is. As luck would have it Saskia was just finishing, but we had a chat before I had to disappear off. I took her contact card, and told her what I thought of her voice, no holds barred. She really was magnificent. This morning I looked her up and discovered that tomorrow night she is playing at the Fisher Theatre in Bungay. Talk about providence. Of course I rang the theatre right away to book, and they said only five tickets have been sold so far and they are pinning their hopes on people just turning up on the night. If there are too few attending she might not perform. So this is an appeal to anyone within flying distance of Bungay: please get there tomorrow night, 8pm. She really is worth it. You won't be disappointed. But if she cancels I'll be devastated.

The day was fun despite the awful blackness of the night before in Manchester. The Hockney exhibition was so much better than either of us had anticipated, covering his work from college days in the early 60s to his more recent paintings and images of the Yorkshire Wolds. The imagination that has conjured totally new styles, new ways of working in ever-changing mediums over the decades is impressive, to say the least, and we came away with an increased respect and enjoyment of his work.

Paintings, friends new and old, lunch, tea, Saskia, all brought great pleasure, but the highlight of my day was visiting the office of the head of comedy prior to going out for dinner with her, and watching this gorgeous, glamorous woman making just a few last minute calls to clinch deals, or requesting urgent copies of scripts before deciding whether clients should accept parts or not. Thirty eight years ago on Sunday she came into the world, a tiny, pretty little scrap, and now look at her. The gloss is as natural and becomingto her as it's certain it didn't come from me. But a cat can look at a queen!

Well Met

I took Hugo into the college field when I collected him after work yesterday as both Penny and Roger are nursing bugs and hadn't really taken him out much. The sky looked threatening but there was still sunshine so we enjoyed pootling along, looking at the swollen stream where at one point a waterfall crashed down several feet. The last time we were there it was bone dry. A groundsman in a tractor appeared just ahead of us and parked. As we approached I asked him if he was the man who sells firewood, and he agreed he was. "Are you the woman stopped me once in Cransford when I were delivering a load?" he asked me, crinkling his eyes against the sun. I agreed that I was, though he told me then he had all the customers he could handle. "My son used to work for you in that garden o' yours couple years ago, young Ashton." Gosh yes, so he did. I suddenly remembered the connection, and asked how he was, and if he was working as an engineer now as planned. "He work for me now, doing the groundswork and that," he said. "Nobody answered none of his letters for jobs. That got him down, and then this job come up." I felt a stab of disappointment for Ash. He would have been the first in his family to get GCSEs never mind go to college, and he was bright and ambitious. We often talked about his plans. How cruel that his attempts to get into a profession should be thwarted. His father might have noticed my face because he told me Ash intends to go into management and is already attending courses to that end. "He won't just be a groundsman like me," he grinned. God knows there's nothing wrong with doing manual work, especially gardening. But it should be a choice. Anyway, I'm having a truck load of logs delivered right into my woodshed in the autumn, and Ash will be given my very warmest wishes. What a lucky encounter.

It's been a day of very mixed weather, hot one minute and freezing the next. I hate days like that where you are constantly pulling on and off sweaters and jackets. At one point I went and got my lined winter trousers, and then I couldn't wait to peel them off. I'd finished the crossword by 11 so my usual Saturday practice of dipping into it throughout the day was spoilt. In the end I brought my bedtime reading down and stuck my nose in that for an hour or so. Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, her first novel. Her biography of Gabriele d'Annunzio, called The Pike, was an unexpected bestseller a few years ago (plucking the Costa prize from another on the shortlist, a certain Ms Laing). It's an ambitious book, fat and chronologically challenging, but quite gripping. Until I fell asleep. 

Track cleared all around the fields

Johnson's Blue geranium

Chives in flower

We had our third walk of the day around the fields, me constantly looking back at the house to view it from different directions and feel a small swell of happiness in my centre at the sight. Hugo had his eye on other game, and soon he was after a small reddish hare that led him a merry path through the barley. He'd disappear and then leap into the air, unable to run through the tightly-growing crop and thus giving the creature a sporting chance. His bouncing progress was comical and there was no danger of him going near the road. When he finally returned to me he was soaked through. When I'd seen him fly over the ditch, now full of water with the banks obscured by a lush growth of cow parsely, I thought he'd misjudged it. His face was covered in spittle and he was panting crazily but he'd had a good run, and I'm sure the little hare got away. Win win.

Hidden Meanings

I stayed in a B&B in Co Antrim once, an unprepossessing looking place from the road but with a stunning surprise from my bedroom window. Beyond the few lush, buttercupped fields where the owners kept cattle was the sea, and I remember gasping with pure delight when I saw this view. It was a summer evening and the sun was still high in the sky. It bounced off the water, and the rocky outcrops of the tiny island that I could see  just off the meadow, moored to the land by a rope bridge. Carrick-a-Rede, owned by the National Trust. I drank it all in, elated at such a glorious sight. "How do you get anything done when you could just sit here and stare all day?" I asked the owner, a down-to-earth farmer's wife. "Sure I never notice it at all," she said. "I've lived here all my adult life. I never even look at it." I know it was an obvious, understandable response, but still I was shocked. How could you not be drawn to this scape, gloat over the scenery, breathe it in, let it fill your heart and soul and mind and put into perspective all the troubles of the world, and your own too? I mention this because I never walk in my fields, work or sit in my garden, or catch a glimpse of the view from a window, on a sunny or rainy day, gloomy or bright, without thinking I'm the luckiest person alive to be able to live here. I realise it's early days, but it would make no difference if this was my natural habitat. To not be susceptible to the beauty, the brilliance of the natural world in all its forms and phases would be to not live, as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps that tough old bird got her inspiration directly from a Higher Power. I noticed a bowler hat on a coat stand in the hall when I arrived, and I knew exactly what that meant. Each to his own.

I've been back here several times but have never yet been able to step onto the bridge

Talking about tough old birds, as I lay supine on my recliner enjoying the hot sunshine this morning and ignoring my inner voice - "Get up! Do something!" "I won't! I'm ill. I need to get better." "Rubbish! Do something! Pick up a hoe!" "I'll just lie here for a bit, it's lovely and hot." "You're wasting time! Lazy!" - five geese flew over squawking loudly. They were not in a tight form but all over the place, one veering left, three together, and one way to the right. I watched as they went past, and a minute later they were back, going the other way. For over five minutes I observed them flapping all over the place, trying different directions, and I realised they were lost. They might have been Canada or Brent geese that got separated from the flock. I felt really disturbed witnessing what was obviously their distress. Eventually to my relief they disappeared and I hope they found what they were looking for. They quite churned me up. 

Melting

I looked back at pictures of the garden this time last year and could scarcely believe the difference between then and now. The beds were bare, for heavens sake, the shrubs tiny! Only when the perennials got going did it start to look mature. It's quite a different picture now. Most satisfying for me is the area at the bottom of the garden, and the pond. By comparison with last year it looks as if the triffids have taken over now. It's interesting what has self-seeded, and what has spread itself out. In the front garden there are now dozens of the lovely, delicate gladiolus byzantius, the mauvy-purple variation on the huge, vulgar things that Edna Everidge throws into her audience. I made a mistake last year and bought what I thought were the same type. When they grew tall and ostentatious with fat yellow, orange and pink petals I knew they had to go. This year there are loads of the originals, and they are beautiful. I don't mind how many come up, or where. Otherwise it's still hit and miss. I'm no garden designer, and nor do I have much of an eye for what would do well where, what less well. But it's all good fun, and it's becoming a really lovely place to be in.

My head continues to ache, and I've barely been able to walk Hugo to the end of one side of the field before turning back exhausted. At the risk of anthropomorphising him, I do sense his surprise, and disappointment. But we're managing. He still hates the heat, and so he drags himself around after me, tongue hanging loose, panting pathetically. "Go and have a drink!" I tell him, and he walks obediently to his bowl and laps a little, then staggers back to my side. I put his bed in the garden room where it was nice and cool, but he wouldn't stay there, preferring to suffer under the sun. As I lay on my recliner under the shade of the umbrella and he stood drooping next to me, I ordered him back to the house. He zigzaged up the lawn, turning to look back at me reproachfully with every step, until he climbed the step and collapsed into his bed again. Oh dear, what a pair we are. And it's only May.

Soulful

I've been feeling rough today, rougher than yesterday. I woke at 5am, hungry, and since I didn't get back to sleep I got up just after 6. Insomniac friends welcome me to their club, but it's no good for me, getting up this early. I'm useless until I've caught up, which I have to do quite quickly or I lose the whole day. Even now I struggle to remember, but I think I took Hugo up to the Woodland Trust for a canter but had to turn back quite quickly. Immediately he stepped in beside my legs and walked quietly with me. Heartbreaking, but I was all over the place and could hardly walk straight. Back home we came, and the two of us fell asleep in the garden room. And then the summerhouse. It's been like that since Friday. If only my head would return to normal.

I got quite excited at one point because a man with a ride on lawnmower appeared in the field beside me. As he came into view I waved, and indicated the nettles along my boundary, with raised eyebrows, thinking that's what he'd come for. He nodded affirmatively, and said he'd try not to fall into the ditch ha ha ha. But then he just cut a swathe along the edge of the barley, several feet away from the nettles, the entire way around the field, and left. Oh well, there are worse things than nettles. Hugo and I walked along this new path, him off the lead for once but just sniffing the ground quietly and trotting behind me. But the smell! Crushed nettles, mown grass and the ever-present scent of hawthorn which is driving me crazy this year. It's a blissful bouquet, no doubt enhanced by the smell of cow parsley which is abundant just now, and all the other growing things. Mark had a bonfire, and the sweet aroma of burning wood  brought the final Proustian moment. Perhaps I indulge my senses more than my intellect in these pages. Perhaps I do in life. But to live in the moment and experience to the full such occasions as these seems to me to be more important than anything. Salva animam meam.

Ups and Downs

I'm thrilled to discover that I have three little newts in my pond. Heaven only knows where they came from - staggered up the hill from the River Alde in Bruisyard? Hopped along the lane from Ben and Dorothy's pond? Or nipped over from Sarah's very big pond, the most likely scenario. It's a mystery but they are here. It's wonderful to have creatures living in there. If it was a choice between frogs and newts I'd go for the latter, though I welcome all amphibians. I'm surprised they've come so early because there is very little cover for them to hide beneath. The lilies might not have survived the transplantation from old to new pots as they are putting out precious little growth. They may have to be replaced. The area at the back of the pond is packed tight with plants fighting for space, but on the other three edges it's a bit sparse. A lot of things have not come up again, but I do have a load of platycoden to go in there, and they are delightful. I also have 50 freesia bulbs, but they may do better in pots.

I decided to pursue my issue with the Walled Garden despite their insistence that they bear no responsibility for my rusting table and chairs. I bought them two years ago, and within a year rust started to appear but I was too busy to do anything about it then. Two days short of two years I went down to see the Mountains, armed with photos of the decay. Marion was fine, polite and friendly but insistent that I should have taken better care of them. Her husband was downright rude. Apparently I was meant to paint them with Hammerite to protect them, even though I brought them into the shed in the winter. I didn't realise this, I told him, so perhaps you should have put a label on them to that effect. "Should I also put labels on all the plants warning that one day they will die?" he asked sarcastically. I was dismayed by this response. The Walled Garden is my favourite nursery and I have spent countless hundreds of £££s there over the years. I love the place. But I am not going to accept this attitude and have written a formal letter to them as advised by CAB. I will take it as far as I need to. Their customer services appear to be non-existent. People can be disappointing.

So Sweet

From my garden I can hear the church bells from Badingham, Framlingham and Bruisyard. These churches are all on much lower ground than my relative hill-top position, and the sound carries up. I just point my ear and I know from whence it haileth. They get you like that, the church bells, make you go all biblical. I was in that other theological construct, heaven, last night when I went to see Der Rosenkavalier. Renee Fleming and Elīna Garanča were singing the roles for the last time which made the performance all the more poignant, in an opera whose chief characteristics are poignancy and nostalgia. Their singing, along with that of soprano Erin Morley, was pure, soaring, beautiful, painful, sweet as nectar. It was my fourth DR, though I used to play the CD a lot, and I've never enjoyed it so much. Time seemed to slow down as they sang their long duets, every note, every phrase sublime. They were singing their hearts out because that's what they do, but those two in particular knew they wouldn't get to perform Strauss's masterpiece again. The final trio, the piece of music that millions of people want played at their funeral along with the Four Last Songs and Dido's Lament, was less the icing on the cake, more the icing on the icing. My sense of amazement at and gratitude for the glorious power of music and the effect it can create remains undiminished, I'm very glad to say.

I have sniffing rights to Sarah's garden across the lane, that is when she has something ravishingly scented draped over one of her trellises I am allowed to lose myself in it without permission. But when Hugo and I sauntered down the lane under a beating sun a bit earlier, it was a couple of lilac heads hanging from her hedge that caught my attention. I buried my nose in them and breathed in deeply, so deeply I nearly swooned. Lilac, my number one absolute all-time favourite garden shrub. Mine has been in the ground for two years now, it's even put out a baby, but still no flowers. They'll come, I know that. Soil too rich or something. But in the meantime when the scent from Sarah's two monsters is not coming this way I can seek it out whenever the need takes me and indulge myself. For now, though, I broke off that dangling branch and the scent is filling my kitchen with sweetness. Mmmmmmmmm.

Signs

By the time I'd put away my gardening tools and walked Hugo last night I couldn't face cooking my planned supper of Nigel Slater's asparagus and lemon risotto. Instead I resorted to a pre-cooked meal that I've been alerted to and recommended, namely the Cooks range which is sold in the Co-op. I've ignored the heads up for ages, but I had eventually bought a roasted vegetable lasagne for the freezer, and this I cooked last night. I can report that it was excellent, putting the very good Charlie Bigham meals to shame. I scoffed it all very quickly and then regretted that I'd bought the pack for one and not two. It'll be the risotto tonight then, if I can drag my aching body to the stove and keep it there for 20 minutes. I seem to be developing something, with a heavy, sore head and tingling in my nasal tubes. I'm sleepy too. It will be with a heavy sore heart if I have to cancel my weekend plans too. Der Rosenkavalier tomorrow night, Renee Fleming, the Met, say no more. Though I'll have plenty to say if I have to miss it.

There's been a lot of bird activity in the garden. Bright scarlet bullfinches dart through the hedge, their slightly paler cousins the chaffinches flit about, and the quicksilver red, gold and black goldfinches flash their colours as they lurch from tasty to bud to bud. There are yellowhammers too, their telltale call resembling muted blacksmiths at work on the anvil. A tiny wren nests on the ground behind my field maple. And of course there are tits of all kinds and robins. No sparrows though. Funny that. Blackbirds will always be my favourites, especially on a sunny evening. Their call is sublime, though someone recently said on TV that it couldn't be perfected. Actually, that last bit of each sequence, the scraping, cawing finale to each clear song, could go as far as I'm concerned. Nick had heard a nightingale as he cycled up from Peasenhall on Wednesday. He said they are out in the daytime too, but it's generally too noisy for their song to be heard. All of this is very encouraging. A few years ago after a trip to noisy Sussex I feared we'd lost most of our songbirds in Suffolk. 

Gardnin'

My hands look as if I've dug the Channel tunnel using my fingers instead of a spade. If I ever had cuticles I don't anymore. But what a lot I've achieved in the garden. I've tamed the rambling rose that grows up the trellis outside my kitchen window, forcing the very pliant stems to stick to the wood rather than just reach for the skies. I can't remember its name, something like Arabella. Naturally my hands are all scratched now too. I planted out six huge pink dahlias in the perennial bed where they will have to fight with everything else for space to bloom. I also put in a new rose, very dark red/nearly black, it is. I have a load of aquilegia and several platycoden to find spaces for too, though the other beds are not so crammed. Trying to decide where to put the rest of the dahlias is proving difficult. They are red Bishop of Llandaff, and several yellow/orangey ones which I loved when I bought them but am not sure now, both lots with dark leaves which I do favour. Should I mix them and have splashes of red and yellow together, or keep them separate? I don't know yet.

I waylaid Mark and Sharon, my neighbours, as they set off on a bike ride together, and asked them if they knew about the concrete in my garden. It seems that a previous owner had several chicken sheds in that area, and it looks as if they left the concrete bases behind. I hate concrete, smothering the earth beneath. When people do it to their front gardens to make parking spaces I want to weep. Nick was pretty confident that the new tree will be fine where it is despite the obstacle 18 inches beneath. I'm happy with its position now too. I'm plotting a third tree. If only it could be an acer or a robinia, but my garden is just too exposed to the north winds.

Handiman Joe, he who painted the Woodbridge flat, is coming to blacken my garage next week. We used the wrong stuff on it last time, an acrylic paint which is now peeling badly. Ronseal wood treatment, Tudor Black, is what I should have used. Joe will get the old stuff off and make a good job of it. Then I can keep it topped up when the hot sun bakes it off again. Just like that.

E la vita

Tea at the Old Rectory yesterday, my second afternoon of cake. I could do with it every day at 4pm prompt, but all that sugar! We talked about everything, but then there were a few sad and unpalatable facts. Joan and John are in separate homes, him in Rendlesham and her in Campsey Ash. They'd been married for over 60 years, for goodness sake. How can this be allowed to happen? Then we got onto the chicken factory, and Patrick told me that each of the three sheds holds 12,000 chicks. They come at just a few days old and stay for 12 weeks when they are carted off to be used in processed food for humans and animals. During the three months they are there the sheds are not cleaned out once. The chicks stand on a thick and ever growing layer of manure. Roughly one third of them die. In the old days the dead chicks would be chucked outside in a pile, and the stench was terrible. We have to get rid of this awful place.

After tea I went home for Hugo and took him up to the Woodland Trust. Caroline told me that she remembered when the trees were planted 25 years ago, after Pound Farm was given to the Trust. Before that it was just open fields and meadowland. As far as I'm concerned what they have done there is brilliant. We went much further afield than usual and discovered a whole new part of it, though chalara (ash die-back) has forced them to close up some parts to contain the disease and reduce the chances of contamination. It's so sad to see these diseases taking hold and felling huge numbers of our trees. Though if the Woodland Trust are in need of healthy saplings I could offer an endless supply as my front garden is a breeding ground for the little sods growing from the seeds of Sarah's large tree.

On the subject of trees, Nick planted my silver birch today while we tried to speak Italian in the summerhouse. He dug down a couple of feet into the lawn and then hit solid concrete. Should he dig another hole in a different place, he asked me? But intoxicated by my ambitious answers to the question "What are you aspirations for next month Denisay" I waved him away with a casual "Whatever you think Nick." And so I lost a golden opportunity to plant the tree where I really wanted it to be and not where my friends thought it should be. Ah, c'est la vie, or as we say in Italy, e la vita. 

Look Before You Leap

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but my goodness you can't stop a young dog getting up to his old tricks. I must have forgotten to put a chair against the larder door last night, because the sight that greeted me this morning was all too familiar. There in Hugo's bed were a box of five eggs, lying upside down but with none broken, a few packets of paracetamol, untouched, a tin of sardines, and two empty packets of, respectively, brazil nuts and hazelnuts. Thank heavens that the large packet of chocolate buttons, a wry gift from a friend yesterday, had been placed on a high shelf. How I would love to have seen him nosing open the door, and then delicately lifting out a nearly-full box of eggs and the other items. I wonder how he is feeling with all those nuts inside him. I haven't asked him as he's in disgrace at the moment, sent to his bed with no kind word. He is looking very sorry for himself.

The wind has dropped at last, though there is little warmth in the air. I took advantage of the lull, if that's what it is, to give all the plants a good soak. As the day heated slightly I tossed my hat onto the grass, and straight away a long, fat whippet turned himself into a tiny ball and curled up on top of it. Not much of him was actually on it, but he didn't seem to notice. He does love a comfy bed. But soon the breeze got up again, so slightly I barely noticed, but Hugo did. The next time I looked around he was standing at the back door, shivering. I let the wimp in, and then began to tackle the front garden which has not received its share of my attention so far this year. It's in remarkably good shape, and I set to with secateurs and loppers trimming back the hornbeam hedge, and pulling up nettles and other easy weeds. When I'd had enough of that I turned my attention to the garden bench which I had already stripped clean with the power hose. I started to apply a second coat of teak oil, but I'm a bit disappointed with the results. I preferred the wood when it was scoured and bare. When I checked online, a bit belatedly, to see what the experts recommended I discovered it was to NOT apply teak oil. Now follows a long silence where I internally shout every expletive known to me, especially the best one.

F*********************************!!

I've moved this lemon-scented azalea out of the wind for protection  pro tem

Poetic

I'm watching an avian roller-coaster out of my window. From where they perch on the perilous ends of thin branches in the heights of the ash trees across the lane, fat wood pigeons are being bounced up and down with sickening speed in a buffetting wind that is showing no mercy to any living thing. I know this myself because I've tried to water a few newly-planted  and fragile seedlings but the strength of the wind forced the spray back on itself, and all over me. I don't know if the birds mind this brutal treatment or are getting a thrill. Every now and again there is a mighty fluttering of wings as they try to regain the hold that has nearly been shaken from under them.

We experienced the wind at Walberswick beach today as it hurtled aggressively down the coast from the north. If it's not the north then it's the east. It's been going on for weeks now with no end in sight. I hate it with a vengeance because as well as being piercing and unrelenting it's bloody cold. But then that miraculous thing, the clouds dispersing to allow the sun through, made everything different. It wasn't chilly! It wasn't gloomy! We could relish the joys of being by the sea and being warm again. It reminded me of a poem I used to recite to my children when they were small, and which never failed to make us all laugh. I used to leave a long dramatic pause after "THEN", my eyes wide and gleeful, and their eyes would nearly pop with expectation:

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And there seemed to be nothing beyond,
THEN
Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone's face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
'Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He's crawling out of the duckweed.'
Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft
And is sounded as if the old drake laughed.

O, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond
WHEN
Daddy fell into the pond!

Lush

I've been lucky with my farmer. Others have had awful experiences and tell terrible tales. When your garden is mainly surrounded by crops you're rather at their mercy. They can spray the fields with deadly fertilisers or pesticides when you're sunbathing outside, and all you can do is run indoors with your hand over your mouth and nose. They could, like mine did a few weeks after my new summerhouse was built, put a gas gun right beside it to scare off the birds and nearly make me jump out of my skin (they don't work, but farmers don't seem to have noticed). I dashed around to see Alyss, all hot and bothered, and she calmly shook her head in disbelief and said it was done by a thoughtless farmhand and she'd tell him to move it. Oh, right. My relief was massive. This time it's nettles. They are on the outside of my boundary, growing thick and lush against my fence, and in the more than three years I've been here it never once occurred to me to mention them to Alyss. So I get Did up with his sprayer and he tackles them as best he can while I pay. But it's not my land, it's theirs! So I rang Alyss, told her my problem, and she said (calmly again) "I'll come up with the knapsack and give them all a good dose." Er, OK then. I thanked her profusely because she is so nice and her attitude is so positive. Not like the farmer neighbour of a friend of mine who can't get the plough into a tiny tringle of land against her boundary but will not sell it to her for less than £25,000. It's smaller than my kitchen for heaven's sake!

In other news, I've put a new catch on my gate. Almost since I've lived here it's been loose, and twice I've put new rawlplugs into the holes to tighten the screws, to no long-term avail. Almost every single man (and not a few women) who has come to my house has felt the catch and said, let me just get a screwdriver out of my car/get me a screwdriver and I'll fix that for you. Then, a few minutes later, there you are then, that's sorted. I've never had the meanness to say, thanks superman but it won't hold. I've tried that already. Duh.

I would now appear to be the Neighbourhood Watch person for this half of the village. And Patrick and I are spearheading a village-wide campaign to get rid of those wretched chicken huts once and for all. We are determined not to let this opportunity slip. Between us we are going to galvanise our neighbours and bombard the council with letters and emails. I'm also involved in another small action group, the Gang of 4, who are about to put a small rocket under another large organisation, albeit one with a much friendlier, gentler face. I thought my militant days were over but it seems they have been reawakened.

Hugo amazed me the other morning. While I prepare his breakfast he sits nearby and waits until I've placed the water bowl on his mat before looking at me for the signal to eat. Yesterday he sat quite a way away from his mat, and when I put the food down I told him to wait while I went down the garden to turn a hosepipe off. I expected him to be tucking in when I returned, but he was still sitting there. Has there ever been a better boy?

Village Affairs

There was a village meeting last night, and obviously I went. This isn't Kettleburgh or Easton or Earl Soham or Laxfield - I could go on and on and on - or anywhere posh like that so there isn't the same middle class mafia that dominates the village affairs of those sorts of places. "They rich people come here from London and then complain there int no street lights" scoffed my most recent proper Suffolk handiman from one of these villages, and I know what he means. In our last village one well-heeled woman from Edinburgh complained bitterly about excessive lighting spoiling the dark skies, but had several "security" floodlights on her own home every night. 'Avin a laugh, she wos. Priscilla, she was called. Say no more. Last night, apart from 3 or 4 cut glass accents, the rest were properly local, the genuine article. The main point of issue was the chicken factory in the middle of the village, and the owners' proposal to remove it and replace it with housing. It's old-fashioned and not cost effective to run. If they don't get approval for housing they threaten to build a far bigger replacement. Everyone in the village wants the housing, or anything else apart from the stinky chickens. But the council say Cransford is a non-sustainable village and doesn't need half a dozen accessible and slightly less accessible houses. We're all up in arms, especially the lady who remembers the chicken huts being built 50 years ago, and knows for a fact that the farmer whose land they were built on got a nice fat back-hander for his generosity. Watch this space.

Other matters included the fibre-optic cables which have now been laid to the village and which will spring into action in a few weeks giving us super-duper broadband speeds. The clerk couldn't resist telling us with glee that it will be a different matter for Bruisyard who won't be getting the same upgrade ho ho ho! We may be your poorer neighbour Bruisyard, but watch us surf the internet ye Mighty, and despair!

One bit of sad news I heard last night was that Joan and John, the wonderful old couple whose garden is traversed by a footpath that I often used to follow on my walks, have moved into a home. I knew they were having memory troubles, him especially, but hadn't realised how bad it had got. Joan was hilariously funny even in her late 80s, and chatting to her was always a treat. I wish I'd spent more time with them and now it's too late. They probably wouldn't remember who I was.

In Partnership

I don't know why the words are not imprinted on my brain: JOHN LEWIS!!! But I forget, and spend wasted time trawling the internet for things that are unsatisfactory and unreliable, only to remember, often too late. If they sold houses and cars, that's where I'd get them. If I remembered. So when I had to buy a garden parasol to replace the one that had an accident last year, I ordered it from a very nice garden furniture supplier online. Today, 24 hours later, it was due to be delivered when I remembered UV protection. As someone who can't sit in the sun and needs serious cover-up, you'd think it would be uppermost in my mind. No. I rang the company to check the measurement and they couldn't tell me, so I had to cancel the order. Back I went to the internet trying to check the UV protection on parasols without success, until an ad for John Lewis came up. There in the fine detail for all of their garden umbrellas it showed the strength as 50+, meaning only 2% of UV rays could penetrate the fabric. Job done! I ordered my parasol. And that's when the trousers I was on the brink of sending for yesterday before I got called away from the computer also showed up, and I ordered them too. Oh John Lewis, how I love, love you do.

I spent a sleepless night thanks to scoffing a whole load of delicious salt and black pepper Tyrrels crisps. I know that things like that disagree with me, and I rarely eat them, but I served little bowls of them to go with the wine last night and they are so yummy I couldn't resist them myself. They didn't make me feel sick, or even restless. I was lovely and cosy, just wide awake. God, it was a long night. How insomniacs survive I don't know. Eventually I must have nodded off because I woke at 9am after trying to clean a disgusting grill pan in the ski lodge where I was holidaying with a lot of young people. I've no idea where that came from. The only television I watched was a recording of Carol, my second viewing, and the line "I cannot live against my grain" seared itself upon my brain. Quite so. Like eating food you are allergic to, it's very bad for your health.

In General

We watched the first swift as it whizzed up and down Shingle Street, zooming along the lane a millimetre from the ground, skimming hedges, swerving backwards and upwards through telephone wires, ever on the move like an out-of-control mechanical toy. They are always a source of wonder and admiration, these birds that live on the wing, eating, drinking and sleeping, even mating, whilst on the go and only pausing for long enough to nest. Their continuous movement can be exhausting to watch too, as you long for them to settle for a few seconds, catch their breath so you can relax.

Between short bouts of very chilly wind the sun came out and suddenly the garden was an inviting place again. I got all the bedding dry in around half an hour and then set to and planted a clematis beside each obelisk, and rows of sweet peas along all four sides. The colours are magenta and purple, and they are meant to be highly scented. I love sweet peas, though once they are out and you have to cut them every evening I go off them slightly. The same goes for dead-heading the 19 dahlias, but it's worth it for the length of the flowering season. Actually it'll be more than 19: several of the big pink ones will need to be divided before they go into the ground. I'm going to run out of space. And I never thought I'd say that! But this time they're staying put. They'll have to tough out the winter, hidden under piles of mulch and warm covers.

Sarah and Nick came for a drink this evening, and I thought we'd sit in the summerhouse which should have been toastie after the day's sun but wasn't. Instead we sat indoors with the heating on which is totally unacceptable for May 2nd. Three women together with a bottle of wine are always going to have a good laugh, and tonight was no exception. Matthew Hopkins came up, the old Witchfinder General who carried out his murderous work in this part of the country, and who Nick swears she has seen late at night on the back road to Woodbridge. She will never again drive that way in the dark. We all considered what we'd do if we got a puncture in a spooky place, and the unanimous answer was: just keep driving. The two of them happily accepted that, had they been alive in the mid-17th century, they'd have been burned or drowned as witches. Neither of them thought I would, despite my having plucked a hair out of my chin only last week. Anyway, Sarah and I have a date: on All Souls Eve we plan to drive the spooky route and see what happens. Nick has forbidden it. But at least one of us is a witch and will not be told.

M'aidez May Day

It gets worse. My Sunday lunch guest and Quint the pot deliverer arrived at exactly the same time, on the dot of 1pm. Of course they did. Which is how I came to forget that that was also the moment to take the food out of the oven. An hour later, pots safely positioned, Quint despatched with £25 in his pocket, and we two comfortably seated on the bench by the pond looking up into the garden and the hot sun, glass of chilled Pouilly Fuisse in our hands, I suddenly remembered. It wasn't ruined, but it didn't come out as it was meant to. Really, you have to laugh. A sense of humour is everything in situations like these. There were meant to be very strong winds and grey skies so I'd layed a fire. In the event it was a beautiful day, the more enjoyable for being unexpected.

Now you're talking. New pots. Taking shape

This morning I arrived at Ruth's house for our planned lunch at Orford and walk at Shingle Street. As we prepared to get into her car with the dog she said, "Just look at the two of us!" I looked, and saw nothing strange, but she pointed out that we were both wearing jeans, Guernseys and navy gilets. If I'd worn the shoes that she helped me choose a few weeks ago and then bought a near-identical copy of herself we'd have looked even odder. "We can't go out looking like that!" We did though, and nobody laughed or looked shocked. Well, no more than usual. I've wanted to see Shingle Street since moving to Suffolk. I liked the sound of its remoteness, its proximity to the emptiness and greyness that is the North Sea, and its vulnerability to the elements. I wasn't disappointed. All the promised wind of yesterday hit us as we got out of the car, and Hugo looked dazed. Still, we walked as far as the Martello tower, marvelling at how people could live in such an exposed place. Most of the old properties, including the coastguard's cottages, have been turned into holiday homes and some of them are beautiful. As we walked past one with a side door out of the wind Hugo rushed up to it and tried to get inside. Poor little boy, he couldn't believe how cruel we were being.

As evening settled down calmly, the scudding clouds of earlier giving way to a pure blue sky, we stopped off at Pount Farm for our evening walk. The intense scent of hawthorn blossom fills the air at the moment, and with it the pungent odour of young nettles which I find completely delicious. Touch them at this time of the year and you'll regret it, but take the leaves away from the hairy, lethal stems, and you have a substitute for fennel and a tasty basis for soup. Hugo tore all over the place, relieved to be in a more temperate spot, and I took him the long way round, happy to see his joy.