Notes from the slow lane

Back to my Roots

2011-04-14T22:57:00.001+01:00

My early April week in Norway was deeply satisfying. It has been far too long since I've been. The brilliant new [to Britain] cheap airline Norwegian.com got me there and back for under £100, and into Gardemoen rather than distant Torp. Anne-Ma met me in Asker, and we drove straight up into the mountains: suddenly we saw the Bitihorn starkly white, flecked with black shrub and trees. Her cabin just as warm and welcoming as ever; we also visited Eiliv's hut, and it was just the same, lined with books and paitnings. I found curious mementoes not hung before, perhaps Folke hunted them out: a portrait of me that my mother must have paitned secretly, i can remember the photograph, and one of Peter in the sixthform at Ardingly. She must have sent them to Eiliv before I found out about him after Cambridge. I took pictures of them, and of the paintings. And of Eiliv's chair, still there in the corner of the room. It more than anything reminds me of him. I told Anne-Ma how much I'd wanted his typewriter but had been too shy to ask when they asked me what I'd like. She must have told Folke, as when we saw him in Oslo, he said he would hunt in the attic and see if it was still about. They are so kind to me, so straightforward and easy to talk to. I really ought to try and learn Norwegian. New resolve to translate Eiliv's Skotsk jord og norsk himmel (1946), written the year I was born, and the story of his time in Scotland, kicking his heels after crossing in the Shetland Bus.

Ski-loping was more satisfying than it has ever been. Perfect conditions, blue sky, slow snow, and once I could glide along without needing to think every step, it made thinking about the Ransome Book's structure, as I needed to do, very productive. Being away from home always makes my mind work more creatively. But there's no place better than my study once I'm on a roll.

Topsy Turvy

2011-04-14T22:27:00.001+01:00

Just discovered this was entered only as a draft; wonder when it will appear in the Notebook . . .here goes. Mmmm April. Not very seasonal, but still good memories.
Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year
A cold coming we had of it, but very beautiful, and everybody got here. Gillian and Phil arrived from Venice via her sister in London on 23rd, allowing plenty of time to help me prepare all manner of delicious stuffings and sauces [mixing quince puree into the cranberries worked very well]. A good cast: Tilly and Tom and Ben [4] and Meg [1], and Tom's father Tim and brother John. Jamie and Ellie and Sam [5] and Olivia [3]. Uncle Hugh. The usual menu: A plump young Turkey of 12lbs or so, and two fleshy ducks from Alders, the wonderful Cowley Road butcher, Mrs Thomas Hardy's Christmas Pudding [from Theodora Fitzgibbon's inimitable Best of British Cooking] using dried fruit that had been soused a long age in a huge jar of scrag ends of alcohol from the drinks cupboard topped up with akavit; also Hugh's best of all chocolate and rum and raisin icecream. First toast on return from church a shot of akavit in one swallow followed by a glass of champagne. Then presents while munchin smoked salmon and chipolata suasages, and knees under around 3.30. Wonderful time had by all, made the easier by Tilly bringing Christmas Cake, Ellie roasting potatoes and preparing sprouts at her house, and Susie doing the mashed potato. Cherry on top was my first stocking in years, created by Susie and Joe. Snow on snow.

Chickens a scratching and all well with the world

2011-03-01T10:19:00.000Z

Snowdrops blanket the near lawn, and the hellebores are ramping. Cheerful sprouting of perennials everywhere, and the hens create the impression that forty maids with forty rakes rather than merely daughter Ellie [now my once-a-week gardener] have been tending the beds. Ellie is now admirably fit, as she is running the London Marathon [for a kids kidney research charity, as her little Sam has nephrotic syndrome] in a couple of weeks time. I'm much less fit, finding the present weather uninviting to tramp in, but with iron resolve I do get out at regular intervals. Not least because I need to: I'm head down in a lovely commission which unites three of my favourite things: Arthur Ransome, domesticity and boats (especially their cabins). It's for the Frances Lincoln authors at home series, but in AR's case we are making it Arthur Ransome At Home and Aboard (sic). The first part will focus around his 'Lake in the North', his composite spiritual home of Coniston and Windernere, but the second half [Of Broads and Boats] will be about his holidays on the Broads, his waterside homes on the East Coast and his cabin yachts, Nancy Blackett, Peter Duck and Lottie Blossom. Racundra will also get a look in in a section called Foreign Affairs. Over-application always mean back-ache, and the sailing season, or at least MY sailing season, hasn't started yet. Just back from four lovely days in the Lakes, based with friends high behind Kendal who kindly lend me the best little writing retreat in the world.

New Look

2011-01-23T19:26:00.000Z

At long last I have got round to editing the freshened up website that Susie and Joe have created for me. Christmas is now just a warm memory of family gatherings and love. Time to start on those New Year Resolutions. It's good to have a fresh book on the stocks

Muz-Art

2010-10-04T07:42:00.001+01:00

Our Norwegian relations invaded London in a big way last weekend - My nephew Ole-Marius had an exhibition of his extraordinary photographs at the Royal Albert Hall. It's called Muz-Art and shows members of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in surreal and very witty settings. 'They are for you to make up your own stories' he says - and it works. Forty of them are wrapped round the circular wall in the corridor just inside the hall. My phone photos are sadly blurred, but they give an idea . . .

I have just come back from another week at Surfside, in the dunes above Godrevy Lighthouse at Gwithian Towans. Work didn't go especially well, but dreaming and walking did.

Almost decided to STOP TRYING [solitude can do that to you] but reassuring thoughts from friends and family and being back in womb of home brought comfort. Good to see David Bodanis in London; his book on the Ten Commandments sounds as if it will be very arresting. Like me, he likes to tackle something utterly new. The Secret House, the Einstein book, and now Moses' tablets.

Today Anthony, experienced forester and my New Zealand neighbour's brother, is going to attack the overgrown gages and plums. More trees need to go, I fear, and the fourfold gum should be given a second wire, he reckons. But I'll still look out on woods, not dull gardenscape.

On Thursday off for a week of October in the Lakes - determined not even to TRY to write

Inglesham to Cricklade - and back via Bablockhythe to Pinkhill

2010-08-01T08:12:00.006+01:00

No, not all at once by any means, but on returns I have been disinclined to raise a finger to type. Spending days on end and the occasional night in the open air makes you feel both bursting with energy and deeply content; it also brings on sleep almost as soon as I subside onto sofa or bed. I've been keeping a handwritten log and taking photos which I will write up more fully and add pictures once I've moored [hopefully this morning] back in my homeport at Oxford Cruisers, Pinkhill.

I reached Inglesham at 8.30 on Friday 23th July, where a girl was getting out of a dormobile van - she turned out to be restoring the paintings in its ancient church. Checked out the punt in its poplar tree cave, then drove off to meet my brother John and his golden retrievers Lulu and Mimi [younger relatives and hauntingly evocative of dear Angus] at Hannington Bridge so we could inspect it - we'd been warned that lumps of crumbling concrete might make it impassable. We could see the shallows and chunks of stone, but there was a deeper central channel - very fast flowing, but sills on the side of the central arch offered places to stand on to pull her through, so we decided that it was doable. So to Inglesham, where we went into the ancient church, full of scaffolding but still arresting: box pews grey with age, delicate screen, a low relief of Madonna and child, Radio 4 sounding from the restorer's eyrie in the rafters, then got aboard Dulcibella and started upstream at 9.30. We decided to take half hour shifts - calloo callay he is an excellent punter as well wonderful company - most relaxing to share the poling; I read extracts from Fred Thacker out as we progressed. We stopped for thermos coffee at 11 tied to tall rushes. John, a long term Gloucestershire gent, knew who the neighbouring landowners were, and indeed had phoned up several of them and gained much helpful information. High banks and open meadows: the river was clearly a lot lower than it could have been. A glass of cider in a little bay by a fallen tree - cue leopard style photo to parallel my one from Iran.

Soon after this the lilies and rushes and overhead willows closed in steadily. After endless bends we reached the white water challenge of Hannington Bridge. John got out and hauled her from ahead, Father Thames style, I steadied her from the side, stumbling and twice nearly losing sandal, dogs sat nobly calm inside. Amazingly, John Eade's My Thames site actually shows a NARROW BOAT going under Hannington Bridge. Must have been a wet year - though not enough to make water too high for bridge arch. Fascinating!

Hannington Bridge

And so on and on and on - harder work now. Met canoeists coming down stream - discovered later that David Orrie of Lechlade Angling and Outdoor pursuits hires them out, taking them up to the Red Lion at Castle Eaton so that folk can come downstream, then transporting people back to their cars. The way would have been impassable by now, but freshly sawn off fallen branches and a channel through the now cross-stream thickets of reeds signalled what we also learnt later: ten days or so ago the Environment Agency had come up and cleared the route to Cricklade - in a punt, apparently. Probably shorter than ours and maybe powered?? Still arduous punting however, sometimes needing help in narrow passages where downstream flow severe. Climbed a bank for lunch at 2 pm where we had a distant view of Kempsford church - Thacker has a splendid passage on the fugue of churches that begins with Lechlade, then Kempsford, then Fairford, then Cricklade, rising to a climax with Cirencester. Excellent bacon sarnies, cheese, dark chocolate, bananas, all washed down with cider.

Off again, and unexpectedly soon we were passing Kempsford itself; lovely ancient wall with 'master gunner's window - early Lancastrian fortification apparently; now some beautiful old houses. After a short straight flanked by rolling lawns, it was back into battle again, but at last Castle Eaton church appeared: we tied up at what looked like a common, but turned out to be garden of the Crown Prince of Croatia's country pad, and climbed a haha to visit the church. Unusual sanctus bell tower, dazzling array of tapestried kneelers. And so just minutes later, the welcome sight of the Red Lion, where we we tied up [c 7.15!] and were made very welcome by Melody, its landlady. Plan was to leave the punt there for the night, so covered her in, collected my car and hurtling by ancient byroads to Miserden, where John and Emma live: I joined them and nephew Archie [who offered his muscle on teh next Saturday] and niece Aelf [with her friend Johnnie] for supper at Tatyans, the excellent Chinese restaurant in Cirencester which mother was so fond of. Stayed night with John and Emma

Kempsford Church

Gunner's Window

Moored at Red Lion, Castle Eaton [its bridge, the next day's challenge, behind]

24 July [happy birthday Susie]: We set off at 8.30, courage high and hearts aglow - it was after all only three miles now to Cricklade - even planned to meet Emma for lunch in Ciren.

Ha ha. We left a car in Thames Lane, Cricklade, noting that the river still looked passable there, although much too low under the bridge under the High Street. Got back to Castle Eaton and set off at 9.30. First challenge was Castle Eaton bridge - wider but shallower, and much wading, even by dogs, required. Some fine stretches, but much overhanging willow and the current ever stronger against us as the river shallowed and narrowed. The Thames Path returns to the water's edge from Castle Eaton to Cricklade, and it was embarrassing to note that a party of elderly walkers - one using a zimmer frame - were outpacing us. We decided to deload by one of us walking with dogs - John took first solo punt - only to come up against impassably low willow branch - he took the hoops out, but one fell overboard - stripped nobly off to the buff and deck shoes, and probed mud with feet [me: 'Is it hoopless?', ho ho, watched with interest by friendly Antipodean walkers.

Note the speed of the flow against us

Luckily located it, and tied them on safely. Shift followed shift; river shielded from view by wide banks of nettles, reeds and inaccessible thanks to high banks [due to very low water] and barbed wire stock fences. Dulcie looking rather sleek, but getting laded with snapped twigs and leaves. Insects thickening [memo:jungle formula]. We were averaging 0.5 mph. Decided to call it a day when successive shoals of gravel led to constant groundings; thick mats of weed impeded each punt stroke. But we were past both footbridges and in easy hearing of the bells of Cricklade church, and in sight of the A417. Tucked her up again, and walked on. Some parts of the river looked fine, but it was now 3.30 pm! A canoe could do it with perseverance, but we needed another three inches of water. Maybe I should have deloaded her entirely, but John needed to get back to his weekend guests. he took me back to my car at Castle Eaton, and waved farewell- I rested there - too late for lunch - over a glass of cider and perusal of Amy Woolcott's interesting Crossing Places of the Upper Thames [Melody said she had stayed there while researching and given her the book]. Nice format [Tempus] Tempting to do something similar, a modern Stripling Thames, perhaps.

26th July. Drizzly Monday am, but fearing the river was getting ever lower, I thought I must get her downstream a bit. I got to Cricklade at 6.45, gave her a through clean and bale out, ate breakfast under half the cover like a baby in her pram, covered everything with covers, and intrepidly [foolhardily?]set off downstream alone. It was much easier going downstream, but the shallows definitely shallower. Glad of sailing shoes. I pushed from the back, then leapt aboard as the water deepened. Think moguls almost covered with water. River could have been a full five feet higher, judging from detritus caught in the tree branches. Lots of reed warblers/buntings, cygnets - there will be a bumper flock of swans on the Thames if all survive] . Discovered that was best to paddle from the stern under overhanging branches now I was going downstream. I am becoming a connoisseur of rushes - great variety of colour, form and flowers.
After spending some time extricating myself from an under water post that jammed against the hull and having rather a struggle in the fast flowing water under the bridge - entailing deloading her onto two slabs of rock and then reloading when she floated again - I reached the Red Lion at 10.30 for a well earned coffee, gingerbread and cigarillo [I know, I know, but I hardly ever have them, and only on the water - somehow the scent of the smoke makes for timeless relaxation]. On again to Kempsford, where I trespassed [with gardener's permission] to gain access to the handsome church; nave roof like school at Ewelme, amazing C15 heraldic vaulting in the transept. Paused for lunch on a wonky riverside platform [another of John's friend's eyrie] - pork pie and d.white then dozed off over Guardian. Off again at 2 pm.

On and on - wind gusty, thrown from scylla of hawthorn to charybdis of rushes and willows; more under water branches than before, so definitely shallower: I was right to get down fast. Got to Inglesham, greeted by a swimmer from Lechlade, at 4.30; tied up opposite my previous mooring, and cleaned out the punt properly. She gleamed with pride. The swimmer came downstream as I was putting up the cover against a sudden shower, and admired her: 'Quite a little cruiser'. But the sun came out again, and decided to have a swim myself - as did two local residents. The river water feels warm and almost silken against your skin. So on to Lechlade, where the white duck was still in charge of her brood, where I tied up at the end of the New Inn's long lawn, next to a friendly narrow boat with a New Zealand couple on it. Enjoyed a glass of red from the wine locker, then had excellent steak and ale pie at the New Inn. Noted bus times to Swindon [plan was to collect car from Cricklade in the morning] slept like a log - looked out c 2 to see full moon and oily clack water reflecting a gliding swan and the bridge - so warm that I kept the cover looped up.

Night berth at the New Inn, Lechlade

Tuesday 27 July. I woke with a rather numb arm and brewed up tea in the Kelly Kettle, and set off to catch the bus, admiring lovely gargoyles ont eh church and Shelley's Walk while waiting. Went very well - 30 mins to Swindon, then time for tea and excellent toast in the bus station's Octagon café, then another bus to Cricklade. Church sadly closed, even at 9.15, so into car and back home to charge phone, check on Ellie, who has just had her hand operated on, and REST.

Drove over later on Tuesday to explore Buscot and Lechlade by car and make sure New Inn didn't mind punt for another night.

Wednesday 28 July: Ian dropped me at 6 am in a very misty Lechlade on his way west. Now making splendid speed in the dawn; through St John's lock - saw mouth of the Cole - progress rather slowed by experiments with new camera on exquisite doll's house of Buscot Rectory. Through the very deep Buscot lock, I tied up to make coffee then realised I was out of water - returned to lock, but no tap - but saviours in shape of a narrow boat who provided plenty of water. Brewed the Kelly, made strong coffee and gobbled marmite sandwich, banana and dark chocolate: the ideal punting breakfast. Was feeling rather solitary; I am at the edge of everybody's life at the moment, but just then nephew Archie phoned, keen to join me on Saturday. Much cheered - and Peter G to accompany tomorrow. On; noting courtesy of approaching boats: one called out 'We've heard about you'. Clearly one of the many good Samaritans who've helped has ordered general slowdown on the sight of the GP Dulcibella. Eaton Hastings moorings: nb sign which ways 300 yards to Kelmscott: Next Mooring should insert the word 'from' where I put a colon. Eventually arrived, greeted by Northern Pride, the narrow boat moored next to me at Lechlade; quite a community feel to the river.

Moored at Kelmscott

Tied up in perfect spot; even a crumbling stone stair to get on the bank with, covered Dulcie up and stepped out the genuine 300 yards to Kelmscott. It was exactly 11 am and manor had just opened for its weekly Wednesday: long queue of enthusiasts from all over the world; lady let me wander in just to see garden and browse tempting shop: limited myself to a few cards but got lots of good ideas.

Morris's potting shed

Kelmscott courtyard

Too shy to beg a lift, so walked along to the Plough, where I phoned a taxi - there is NO public transport: settled for £15 to Carterton, where I could get an S1 bus complete with free wi-fi to my door rather than £40 all the way home. Experimented with my ipod touch and did in fact download emails. Off at Tilbury Lane; very good to be home. Helped Ellie out in the afternoon; work has gone utterly by the board at the minute; too full of summer delights.

Thursday 29 July Peter arrived wonderfully punctually at 9 am and we did the two car trick - one at Tadole Bridge and other at Kelmscott. He was great company; enjoying map reading and navigating, and appreciating the little ship aspect of the voyage. Brewed up the Kelly kettle c. 11 am after Grafton lock, and arrived in Radcot by 12. Saw Tom Freeman again, and he offered aluminum poles and said D welcome any time. Cider and a glass of white for Peter, then on again, lunch after Radcot lock at 1.15.

After lunch Peter punted - very impressively too since the first time since Oxford. Lovely to be chauffeured; I fell fast asleep in the sunshine. Through Rushey lock by 3.30 and tied up just before Tadpole Bridge at 4.00 - perfect day.

Saturday 30 July. Archie arrived 8.30, bless him, and we left a car at Bablockhythe then went on to Tadpole. Off by 9.15, at hectic pace, thanks to Archie's strong arms [he reinvented the P Davison horizontal technique] and a favourable wind: I have sewn a seam in Isfahan [plastic] picnic rug so that it can be pulled over the hoop - on Peter's advice, the front one - as a sail. At times so fast that no poling possible: all strength into the steering!

We also saw the Environment Agency's Reliant, a narrow boat evidently engaged on tidying up the willows and banks - way down much clearer than it had been. They are also doing works on several of the lock weirs. Good for them.

Shifford Lock by 11.15, my kingfisher foot bridge c 12, lunch 12.30 Maybush at Newbridge, which we reached faster than the rather neat two man inflatable 'Colorado' canoe which we had seen getting ready to go on the river as we left Tadpole. Archie took some excellent photos of Dulcibella going under Newbridge - nice comparison with Gipsy's voyage of two years before.

On again, arriving at Bablockhythe at 3 pm: perfect timing to collect my car and wave Archie off, lion suit and all, to his fancy dress ball in Wiltshire.
Sunday 1 August: Jamie followed my car to Oxford Cruisers, then drove me to Bablockhythe. Took me about two hours going very leisurely, rather tired in truth.

At last the welcome outline of the boatyard with Wytham Woods behind: Graeme was on his barge and welcomed me back with a cup of tea. Cleaned Dulcie up and brought everything home to wash. Great sense of triumph.

Radcot to Lechlade and Inglesham

2010-07-20T11:22:00.002+01:00

Apologies - photos yet to come and text is, like all entries so far, hurried and unpolished, trivial rather than truly interesting: a log for the record rather than real account, which will, I hope, come later, once I've been There and Back Again and can reflect.

Watching the weather like a hawk in search of a favourable slot, I identified Sunday 18 July late afternoon into evening and Monday morning as promising: nearly a week later, but even such a fine seaworthy vessels as Weatherbird had to sit out the storms in Cherbourg. So after a fine house-warming Sunday lunch with friends in Hatford, near Pusey, I drove to Radcot with victuals and pyjamas. Dulcibella was snug and dry, and Triton, the lagoon's owner had found the note I tied to her when I checked her out on Thursday. Blessings on his head. I set off (pic right) at 5.40 pm, while other boaters were tying up, and made excellent progress. There were still a few sharp gusts, but when they passed, it was easy-going. Grafton Lock was not far, and the keeper still on duty. Apparently an otter had been sighted further up: maybe I would see him on a future overnight.

Kelmscott, where I had planned to overnight, turned up at 7.40, sooner than I expected and was crowded with boats: crews tramping to The Plough, just 300 yards up the road. I was tempted, but there was still so much light that I decided to keep going. Passed a bay full of swallows swooping and some fine moorings at Eaton Hastings footbridge: this was where my collapsing mast arrangement on Gipsy collapsed during my Gipsy on the Thames adventure a couple of years ago.

Coots and herons brought to mind the first poem I ever recited: Tennyson's 'The Brook'. I realised that I had never really understood what 'I come from haunts of coot and hern' meant. Encountered a buxom inflatable, almost spinning in circles as one man paddled ineffectually and his companion laughed at him but still making good progress with wind and current. 'I was there an hour and a half ago, I said, which cheered them. My own plan was a jar in the pub I presumed I would find at Buscot, but walkers who told me it was only five minutes on warned that there wasn't one. Lovely weir and backwater as I approached - which would in truth be the last good overnight place, but I was tempted to go through that lock too.

Considered tying up at Buscot and walking to the village, but if it was all closed, it struck me that it would be better to explore on the way down, when a National trust tea-rooms promised light lunches as well as coffees and teas. This attitude rules my upstream progress: my plan is to make lots of diversions on the way down. After Buscot, the river, for the first time since Swinford Bridge, runs in hearing of the road, a great disincentive to stop. Hoping that it would veer away, I went on and on, water still as glass now. A huge hairpin, then one back again, on which I startled two silver-haired love-birds in the cockpit of their little cruiser. Dulcibella is so silent: maybe I should start gondolierish singing as I curl around corners. Quite a few people simply don't notice her passing at all. The flowers are many and various; it is perhaps the best time of year for them. I must identify them from my book: predominantly purple loosestrife, vetches, rosebay willowherb and a splendid fat pink thing a little like a snapdragon on steroids.
Dusk falling, and I began to eye up moorings. Had just decided to go a little further than a welcoming willow cage when I saw the transom of what was evidently the first of many - and the edge of a blue LOCK notice. I poled back to a bay out of sight of them, and tied bow to an ash sapling and stern to a willow bush. A swan hove to hopefully, then veered away.

About to phone Ellie to reassure her that mother was safe and well [how roles reverse] when I saw a message from brother John, who lives near Cirencester: I'd emailed him to ask if he would like to join me for the Conquest of Cricklade, and he was very keen: he also has acquaintances who live on or near the river above Lechlade, where I could perhaps leave Dulcie securely. Put most of the hood up; very cosy, discovered that there was still a little cider to drink a toast to myself, and chomped bread and cheese and fruit until comfortably full. Bats wheeling, a half moon rising, fine cloud effects. Found torch and suspended it from the centre hoop: I have all mod cons, including a useful small bucket, aboard. Slept very well; then saw light through small mousehole in the cover.

Five am. Drank cold tea, rolled up cover, and poled off at 5.30. St John's Lock was just around the corner, Lechlade's lance of a church spire framed in its bridge very beautifully. My way, hurray - as they all have been so far. Somewhere here is the entrance to the Colne: I must see how far up it I can go on the way down. So into the wide waters meandering up to Lechlade. No hurry at all, I realised, so at about 6 I tied up under a dead hawthorn, and fired up the Kelly Kettle with a few pages from my notebook and twigs broken off the tree. Boiled in two minutes; and although tea slightly strange tasting [carbonated water? use of coffee pot for tea?], it was hot and wet. On to the peacefully slumbering town, following a welcoming flotilla of eighteen swans and a very bossy Aylesbury duck that seemed to be in charge. Under bridge, past pub where Gipsy entered the water, past boatyards and up to the Round House, as I had sailed in her. But this time I went under its little wooden bridge, and peeped into the beginning of the long-disused Thames/Severn canal, then on in tranquility [though a small cruiser with fishermen aboard was also up there]. Passed point where Thames Path veers away to the road and Inglesham Church, and found where John's connection lived: no signal for mobiles, but they kindly let me phone him. He was a bit poorly, but so keen to come later that I decided to moor under a vast poplar and start again on Friday, when weather looks once more promising. Had a thorough boat-turnout: a remarkable amount of foliage gets in; I also needed to scoop water from below the bottom boards. She is evidently still taking up slightly, Very satisfying to clean her all up: I left cushions standing at attention to dry damp underneath. Watch over her, river gods.

Tadpole to Radcot

2010-07-14T12:10:00.000+01:00

Just for the record: left idyllic under willow berth (above) for a very peaceful punt in windless conditions around the innumerable bends between Rushey Lock and Radcot Lock. Excellent lunch of baked potato and coronation chicken at The Swan at Radcot; then a swim and Martin arrived to take me to collect my car. We went on upstream in search of a safe place to leave her, as the next few days inclement and busy, and luckily met a man who offered the hospitality of his lagoon - so she is now tucked up safely there.

Up the Stripling Thames: Pinkhill to Tadpole Bridge

2010-07-12T05:42:00.003+01:00

On last Monday evening, I punted Dulcibella out of the Oxford Cruisers boatyard basin and back on to her willow-hung mooring, accompanied by the at that moment substantial Nutwood household (nephew Adam Talib, fanatic rower Felicity Hawksley, god-daughter Holly Scutt). Graeme has done a wonderful job: she gleams like a chestnut. The 1.25 inch aluminium tube, sent with great dispatch by metals4UK, and with its ends plugged with short sections of banister posts is a great success: the hand can grip on the curve of the wood tips very satisfactorily, and the extra length (5 metres rather than the usual 14 ft) means you get extra impetus at the end of each stroke. The double-ended racing pole from Collars feels heavy in comparison, although it is infinitely lighter than the usual pole.

dry; he was just poling over in a tender with a bike and a rucksack. I made better time than I had expected to, led for almost the entire length of the way to Bablockhythe by a swan. Coffee and a swim, then on again. Friendly Barnaby passed me, but I caught her up at Northmoor Lock; shortly afterwards I caught her up again as she had stopped for lunch - and called out an invitation. Realised I was ravenous after four hours of poling (note to self: always bring more food than you think you will need) and accepted enthusiastically. All very trim below decks with a stove and fire-irons: Karen and Keith Sutcliffe have been living on her for five years now, having expected only to do so for two. I can see the attraction: they seem to have been on every inch of navigable water. Wolfed two large sandwiches, cider and a cup of tea, then off again. Ingeniously, they tracked me down on the web and sent what I rarely get: a photo of Dulcie and her mistress and owner.

After an hour or so, I was feeling rather sleepy, and the wind was rising, so when a passing narrow boat offered me a tow, I accepted gratefully. In no time at all, Newbridge came into sight, and I thanked them and was set free to pole in under my own steam. Barnaby passed me as I did so - I expect they guessed that I had cheated.

Noted the enticing entrance to the Windrush, then moored by the Maybush, much less frantic than the Rose Revived. Ellie had very kindly offered to pick me up, and brought Sam and Olivia with her. Every one is very friendly on the river: caravanners interested, and an ex-Cherwell boathouse man admired her. So back home for Bridge at Abingdon and then an extremely well-earned sleep. Up at 5.30 and had cast off from Newbridge at 6.20, with lots of stores on board. Wind was forecast, and soon the glassy calm of dawn began to ruffle. I saw a kingfisher: heavenly flash of blue. Also brushing close to a huge reed bank found myself nose to beak with a tiny and very surprised reed warbler. A heron lifted off on lazy wings, two sets of swans and cygnets. July is a lovely time for flowers: yellow water lilies, many different flowering rushes, and banks brazen with purple (loosestrife?), yellow and pink. Am keeping going upstream, noticing places to explore further on the way down. Fred Thacker's The Stripling Thames is a sterling guide. Passed the entrance to the old river course to Duxford, the Roman ford, through Shifford Lock, again self-service, and so on around the huge loop around Chimneys Nature Reserve, punctuated by Martello towers. Wind rising, but the trees were so tall and the banks so hedged that not much was getting through - I remember this being very slow going sailing Gipsy down two years ago. A punt is indeed perfect up here. Noticed a lovely shallow beach for swimming/overnighting just before pylon wires crossed the river. Got to The Trout at Tadpole Bridge at 11 o'clock, and had to wait half an hour for a much needed coffee - even considered begging biscuits from a party of picknickers, but luckily found I'd packed a jar of cashew nuts. Tucked Dulcie up in her cover, and booked in for lunch the next day [mooring is an eye-watering £25 a night unless you eat there]. Back home in time to buy lunch for Daisy James and Fox, which we had in the garden. Fox delightful, wreathed in smiles. Olivia's birthday party in the afternoon and a lovely family evening. After a morning of gardening, off again to the river. After lunch, I punted Daisy James & Fox halfway to Rushey Lock, where we found a fine mooring under a willow, and all swam. Weather said (wrongly) to be about to change, so tucked her up again and so home.

After much discussion and struck by fact that 23 million Brits have signed up to it, I have joined facebook, though unsure of what will be gained from it. I am interested in the secret of its fascination. Company? Distraction? The ultimate global village?

Surrey Gardens

2010-06-10T06:55:00.002+01:00

Tuesday 8 June: Drove off to Esher at dawn's crack in pouring rain to pick up Peter for our tour of Surrey gardens and houses created by Jekyll and Lutyens. The main attraction was Munstead Wood, star of Jekyll's Home and Garden. The famous 3 bedroomed 'hut' is now a private home sadly, but it was fascinating to see inside Munstead Wood - Like Vanessa Bell Jekyll was an adorner of her own dwellings, an amazing craftswoman. Wrought iron window and door latches; overmantel plasterwork, motherofpearls in lay on doors, a charmign wooden cellar door.

Woodlands rich in Rhododendrons and azaleas - and amazing Himalayan lilies.

White foxglove everywhere - nb put my seedlings out in the rose bed when they are sturdier
I have forgotten name of everywhere ground cover which I have a couple of roots of - perhaps epimedia? Will try it out under the gumtree.

Perhaps most stunning and interesting for ideas was The Quadrangle - once the working heart of the garden, with steps leading up to seed room and places for horses and carts behind - Jekyll acquired a lovely barn and had it put there. Gail a real plantswoman with lots of ideas to be copied.
Garland - a lovely climbing rose
Miss Willmott's Ghost - Erygnium - mad grey/white thistle - a must have plant; I have ordered two.
Epimedia [ I think] great ground cover in dry place
Chase up Golden Hop
Get lots of scented geraniums
Anemone Rose

Catching up

2010-06-10T06:46:00.002+01:00

After a gentle reproach from a follower of this blog, I wrote a long catch up post after not writing anything since February, but I think I must have published it and quit while offline, as it has all disappeared. Not a tragedy on the level of Carlyle's discovery that his book on the French Revolution had been used as kindling, but disconcerting. Moral is write little and often perhaps.

Much gardening and grandmothering has happened, and I have achieved a longfelt desire to live in a house with pink roses around the front door, reviewed countless audiobooks and risen to the challenge of deciding what the best of the year were, and made slow progress on Alice - perhaps it is a mistake to carve it into history mystery mode rather than straight fictional life. Most fun seeing the finished Pleasures of the Garden.
my audiobook anthology of great writings on gardens and gardening. All had to be out of copyright, but Genesis to Jekyll offered a good deal of scope. Great to hear that Wisley, high temple of the Royal Horticultural Society have ordered more copies.
Dulcibella, my camping punt, is now looking utterly beautiful; today Alan, artist-in-residence at Oxford Cruisers was inscribing her name in floriferous characters along her sides. Graham is planning to put her in the next day or so to take up [which will mean sinking down], then will attach the fittings once she floats again. I need to finish off the bottom boards - nearly there, and arguably enough done, but one more coat would be worth it I think.
Had a splendid anglo-Norwegian croquet match at Colin and Prue Reynolds' Rose Island a few weeks ago, and at last saw the lazy-susie arrangement on which their doll's house revolves. We have developed a much simpler idea: I got a solid as a rock round table from Kings of Bicester, recycled Thai wheel by the look of it, and following up and idea of Ian's, Brian and I have put four domes of silence castors under the (extremely heavy) house. Tomorrow Brian will make a deep hole in the centre of the table and put a massive steel bolt to prevent it form slipping sideways as it revolves. Very exciting.
Sailing at West Oxfordshire proving most enjoyable - people are so friendly and the Moth is outstanding in the current very light winds; will be interesting to see what happens when it blows harder.

Waking by Moonset

2010-02-02T07:15:00.000Z

Staying in a low-browed surf-shack on the furthermost tip of the sand-dunes of the Towans, near Gwithian, a post-Christmas break postponed by the deep freeze in early January. Sad that Oliver couldn't come, but Meredith is the perfect companion. We each have a table in the roomy sun-porch, hers for gouache sketches of Godrevy lighthouse [visible in the photo through the righthand window], the ever-changing sea, sand and sky; mine for laptop and notebooks. The book is hiccupping along - I still feel I am writing parodies not my own stuff, but it is interesting to talk to Meredith and compare the problems of painting and writing. I know I have a facility, but that is a long way from the imaginative leap that it takes to write fiction in my own voice. Still, spirits always rise when there's an unlimited horizon, and such good company. This morning I plan to get deeper into my cast; to write about them longhand in the way I can so easily talk about them. This is a sensational place - as there is a full moon I have been waking by moonset: first dramatically black and silver, then as dawn rises, the pearliest pink, like a ghost of the sun.

We see St Ives at night as bold garlands of gold beads scattered on the distant headland to the south west. Walking northwards around the cliffs above the lighthouse, we looked down vertiginous cliffs to a bevy of seals relaxing on the beach. There were two newborns tucked under the shelter of the cliff, and a great bull guarding the approach from the sea from the rocks. These furthest reaches of Britain have a romance all their own. I've been dipping into the original and ascerbic Ruth Manning-Sanders West Country, written many years ago for Batsford: made me want to go to the Scillies next - and to get a book she refers to by Walter Besant with the wonderfully seductive title Armorel of Lyonesse.

New Year in the Taylorean

2010-01-05T08:04:00.005Z

Somehow messed up my last post - I was trying to correct a name in my Arts and Crafts gardens post, and instead it inserted itself for a second time. So this is just a temporising post to make sure it is eradicating it. Oxford has been alpine for the last week and a half, glorious in some ways - especially when the snow is out and one could go for a tramp, but when icy and treacherous and grey, spirits dulled. The Taylor Institute Library is the most wonderful place to work; it may soon replace ST D's in my affections. A perfect cube, lined with soaring bookcases of golden old wood; busts on the mantelpiece and a real clockwork mantel clock and one of those calendars that you physically change the numerals of. The silent concentration of the readers is almost tangible: you can feel it around you far more powerfully than the quiet click of keyboards, occasional creak of a tall door and footsteps, and the sea-like noise of traffic muted by the closed windows. Until Twelfth Night, the busts wore Father Xmas hats. Christmas was wonderful, with Gillian, Phil and Adam conquering the kitchen, musical crackers and a large salmon trout donated by a fisherman at Farmoor on Boxing Day.

New Year weekend brought Tilly and Co, and Ben took to baking in a big way. Daisy and Co came again too: Fox mastered the art of pouring tea, but was happiest of all when on the phone. That weekend was also the last time we enjoyed the daily donations of Edith, Maisie and Gladys: the day after they left, a real fox, perhaps two, made bold by the cold weather, ventured into the garden on a midday raid. The thick snow that fell the next day revealed just how busy foxes had become inthe garden - they are evidently occupying the old badger sett. Lesson learnt: I shall get more hens in May, but keep a much more careful eye on them - and no free-ranging until I get a puppy, maybe two. At least they have been spared the week or more of bitter weather we've just had - and they certainly had a wonderful life while it lasted

Just for the Record

2009-12-09T09:45:00.003Z

The garden is declining into hibernation mode, though the view from my window always lifts the spirits. High sky and the slopes of Wytham Woods, the great pine tree more visible as the tulip trees scatters its gold on the grass, the twin-spired holly determinedly solid, the low sun illuminating the silvery-grey bark of the soaring branches of the eucalyptus both at dawn and sunset. Gladys, Edith and Maisie didn't know quite what to make of the first frost, but I put a thick fleecy rug over the top of the hen-coop and under the waterproof sheet that covers that half of their closed run in the hope that it would be a little less chilly of a night. Still three eggs a day, regular as clockwork. There is nothing quite like the warmth and softness of the early morning just-laid egg.
I'm at St Deiniol's again, but four days of staring at what feels unconscionably bad writing has had a dispiriting effect. Maybe the trouble is that I have been doing too much reading among the ponderous scholarly articles on aspects of the fifteenth century, and it has infected my style. I am writing good history but bad fiction. Retreat and regroup: I read through all the excellent advice on writing fiction I'd garnered, and rearranged my now vast library of photocopies in a more logical order. Then I ordered up a couple more history mysteries from amazon and promised myself a diet of them when I get home. Although Christmas is nearing, I'm determined not to let it drop as it is so hard to gather together forward impetus. Point of view is a major problem. The book I began and have now relegated to number two in the series was far more bouncy and vivid - I was then not taking Alice's P of V. So maybe I should go back to her being seen from a distance [cf Gladys Mitchell]. More light and laughter needed. OR an total rethink: a quite different non-fiction group biography along the line of Phyllis Rose's brilliant C19 Parallel Lives: the interlaced stories of Alyce, Cecily Neville, Margaret Beaufort, Jacquetta Woodville, Duchess of Buckingham. Could be rather fun! Assembly of Ladies/City of Ladies??No, neither right . . .
Also strayed into the modern literature section - all manner of distracting treasures, including RS Thomas galore, Tolkein, Goudge, C S Lewis. Settled on Seton's Katherine as the nearest to appropriate reading
Interesting people here as ever - one put me on to a book called The Library at Night. I looked it up on the internet and found this review from the Observer 2008 and promptly orderd both it and the author Alberto Manguel's History of Reading. So coming home should be a cornucopia of good things - to say nothing of continuing to listen to Naxos's magnificent new unabridged Kim, wisest, funniest and most haunting of books.

The grandchildren have been a great delight - it was Fox's 1st birthday on 7 Nov and I went to Tilly and Tom's house in Isleworth so that we could all go up together. Ben scooted with magnificent aplomb alond the embankment, past the Tower and to Browns, where the tea party was happening. A fortnight later they came down to ride on Cumbria, a steam train from Furness that was visiting the Wallingford and Cholsey Railway. Great fun had by all.

Granny Thursdays have been going well to - I am now much less ambitious about what I do with Sam and Olivia, and have realised that there are quite enough adventures to be had at Nutwood itself without making extra excursions. Wonderful chaos ensued from my bright idea of letting them cutting open the huge and unhandy compressed bag of wood shavings for lining the hencoop all over the kitchen floor, so that we could bag it up again. Everyone and everything was soon soused in the curiously adhesive stuff. S&O decided that they were chickens themselves and laid eggs [popped quickly under them by me] vigorously. Most days it has been fine enough to get a little gardening done - the bulbs they planted last month are already foolishly snouting through the earth, and the broad beans are over six inches high. The castle Ian found in a charity shop is also proving most popular.
Bridge thrives; Robin's and my thinking on play coinciding nicely, and we distinguished ourselves in duplicate at the Ferry the week before last apparently, winning two bottles of wine. Surely some mistake! I will miss Edward's amusing and instructive lessons on Friday morning, but now that Thursdays are lost, I can't afford another morning off. I'm aware that I'm probably losing myself too much in bridge, but for the moment, during this year of recovery, it seems no bad thing. A great gains are my new Mondays at the Taylorian with Fiona: a study buddy seems to do us both good; she battling with Salome, me with Alyce.

I am beginning to see the shape of next summer - a trip to the Channel Islands in June to look at gardens, and a camping punt adventure on the Thames - to see how far beyond Lechlade I can get. Good web contact with John Eade, whose magnificent Thames guide site Where Smooth Waters Glide I have already been enjoying. His book list, under Resources, is dangerously seductive. The punt is now in the I hope gentle care of Oxford Cruisers - though getting it there was not without incident. It was so contrarily-windy and fast-flowing in the wrong direction that the boss decided to help me with a tow, but thrashed past at such a lick in a narrow boat as he tossed the rope [I standing on the foredeck]shouting 'hang on tight!' that a wiser bird wouldn't have attempted to catch it. I did, then saved my skin by dropping flat on my face on the deck. Luckily my feet hooked around the edge of the deck, otherwsie nothing would have stopped me plunging into the fast-flowing and icy water. The sensation was not unlike water-skiing. I managed to get a better purchase on the tow rope by belaying it rhough the ring on the foredeck, but didn't dare attempt much more. At last we were in the calmer waters of the marina and I thankfully let go and poled Dulcibella onto the slip. Note to self: don't be quite so foolhardy. I should have let go a] straight away or b] as soon as I realised that I was in dire straits. On the plus side, I did it!
Very enjoyable time recording introduction and links for Pleasures of the Garden, the 4 CD anthology of gardening writing from Genesis to Jekyll at a little studio in Stonesfield on 30 November. It'll be out in April. And a Woman's Hour Christmas special to look forward to pre-recording on 18 December. So life is full of good little things, even if my dreams are a little bedraggled.

Flintshire Idyll

2009-10-09T13:49:00.001+01:00

Even the prospect of going to stay at St Deiniols residential library, ten minutes beyond Chester as so just in Flintshire, focuses my mind and makes work more exciting. I'm coming to the end of five days here; I drove up before dawn even cracked on Monday morning, and leave around five this afternoon. It is a unique place: dedicated to devout learning, but happy to accept those who are devoted to learning - or writing - or simply shepherding their thoughts and spinning dreams. Much as I love - am addicted to - domesticity, it is wonderful to be looked after: a fresh, simply furnished room, meals at regular intervals, home-made rolls for breakfast and homemade cookies for elevenses and tea, early nights, early morning walks among the ancient trees of Gladstone's Park. Everyone respects each other's endeavours, gently encourages. We talk as warmly together at meal-times as strangers on trains once used to do, then leave each other to our own devices and desires. The galleried library, endowed by Gladstone because he had so many thousands of books that deserved readers, and knew his country was full of would-be readers who deserved access to books, is its especial treasure. Delving as I am into the minds of fifteenth century people, I find it endlessly useful, and you can go and get the books yourself within minutes. Peace is what it is renowned for, but to that I would add its capacity to inspire. Unhurried, we sit at our desks, flanked on all sides by books, entranced. Its red sandstone Victorian Gothic grandeur is specially suited to Alice because after a few days I am so in character that I prowl around its passages peering out of the medieval-style casements imagining possible developments in Ewelme Palace.

Grandmaternal Cogitations and a Persian Feast

2009-10-01T09:43:00.003+01:00

Well, I've done it. All grannies of my acquaintance advised against being in the Front Line of childcare, but it is only for one day a week and Sam and Olivia live only ten minutes walk away from me. They are also adorable, and adore me, and will soon morph into schoolchildren with preoccupations of their own and a slightly patronising attitude to doddery oldfolk. Moreover, my justification for this substantial establishment is that it will give the grands room to romp. And romp they did yesterday, day 1 of the new pattern.

Making Chocolate Mousse
It will in the end be a regular Thursday commitment - 8.30 to 5.30. am planning pattern to the day: first hour or two gardening [with the hens in interested attendance] or housework [am sure they will love learning to polish silver photo frames and brass furniture knobs] depending on the weather. then elevenses, then an excursion to shops or a friend. Lunch; hour's rest [ie me nodding off as they glue themselves to Rupert Bear or similar DVD]. Then a trip - probably on the S1 bus into the city to Explore things - dinosaurs at the university Museum; clocks and azimuths at the Museum of Science; Gamelan at the Bate collection of musical instruments. Then tea in a cafe; then bus home, supper, bath and bed. Will it work? Watch this space.
Work on Alice actually going the better for having a more circumscribed timetable - as when my four were small, I fill two hours very productively when I know that is all I have got, but can spend all morning padding round in circles if I have all day (as I am at the minute!). Also much helped by the serene autumnal weather - Dulcibella is a great place to work; if I pole upstream for a while, progress is utterly uninterruptable. OR so I thought. Out yesterday with Harriet, who is the best of companions as she gets deeply immersed in her books, when we were cheerily hailed by Peter Ledwith, of MSC.

He is doing for pleasure what I did for charity a couple of years ago [see Adventures link on my home page] and sailing down the Thames. But his mast is low enough to get through all the bridges except Godstow and Osney. After he'd had a coffee and a slice of cake (we live well on Dulcie), Harriet chuckled. She was reading The Shipping News and had just come to this chapter head quotation:

'The common eider is called "gammy" bird in Newfoundland for its habit of gathering in flocks for sociable quacking sessions. The name is related to the days of sail, when two ships falling in with each other at sea would back their yards and shout the news. The ship to windward would back her main yards and the one to leeward her foreyards for close maneuvering. This was gamming.'

As well as inventing a layout for Ewelme Palace, I was reading the wonderful Fred Thacker's The Stripling Thames, a guide to the Thames above Oxford which he published himself in 1909. The frontispiece is a picture of his camping skiff moored at Shiplake. He has high praise for my little poling ground:
'Two miles of winding water lie between Swinford Bridge and Pinkhill Lock, Pinkhill it is, officially, but Pinkle to all the workaday world. This little lock mound is the happy isle of the River country; a haven of dreams; the inner gate of a far off land whose elusive charm quickens the memory more frequently and tenderly than all the more obvious beauties of the middle River. The great Wytham and Beacon Hills exclude for ever the whole outer world. Beyond them lies - Oxford? even London, perhaps; all unlovely hustling and crowds. But the loud and brawling voices never surmount those sheltering heights; and on their hitherward side the deep meadows, emerald green beneath the purple woods, are broken only by the willowed banks of the immemorial stream.'

This is the sunset from my mooring at Oxford Cruisers Pinkhill boatyard.
But what of the Persian Feast? Adam, who I think I have said is my American nephew by marriage and is staying for two years while he does a PhD in Arabic at Balliol, cooked a wonderful saffron chicken dish for Susie, Joe and two friends of mine. His mother is Iranian, so he knows about these things. It reminded me of the one that Farhang cooked long ago in Chalfont Road. Sharp deep red barberriestopping the saffron rice, and subtly spiced chicken thighs; delicious. Much better than anything I ate during our Iran trip in 2007. Finished off with the grands' chocolate mousse, it was a most congenial evening; warm feeling of family all around.

Camblidge, chickens and a birthday

2009-09-21T16:44:00.001+01:00

Running rather late in recording what I've been up to, not least because my Dongle ran out of juice and so I can't put in things as they arise. It won't work again until Wednesday. Very good discipline, and much more progress on work.
I went to the Arthur Ransome Society's biennial Literary Weekend in Missee Lee's own Alma Mater Cambridge on 12-14 September. Extremely interesting talks, notably by Jim Ring and Own Dudley Edwards. But all were good, and it would be invidious to rank them as the approaches were so diverse. Nostalgia reigned as I tramped Sidgwick avenue and recalled being batwoman racing home for 11 o.clock in the statutory gown. I'm so glad I now live in Oxford away from all the alluring Cambridge ghosts. A free afternoon was well-spent punting

Then a good quiet session in the gardens of Newnham. I had the Sidgwick seat to myself.
I've now finished the gardening anthology's contents and sent them off to Naxos. A great incentive to get gardening in my own little paradise. - I had Sam and Olivia for the afternoon, and with Adam's help we had a humungeous bonfire before giving them supper on the lawn.

The chickens are tame enough to follow me around. I can easily get them back as they now respond to me tinkly-winkling a small brass bell, racing back to their run for mealworms. I planted a wallflower and muscari border with sumptuously enriched earth [manure, topsoil and compost], so I look to impressive results in the spring.

It was Sam's fourth birthday on Sunday; Phil, Ros, Steff and I all scratched out heads putting together the ride-on tractor with trailor I'd got him - it seemed to be a hit judging by enthusiasm of the guests at this party in teh afternoon.
Now back to Napier on Swynbrook and Ewelme and a lovely book called The Stripling Thames, written by Fred Thacker in 1900 or so. He is an effortlessly interesting writer, like a good friend chatting. Perfect to read aboard Dulcibella, and the weather for the week looks set fair for such an escape - but first I must earn it by making progress on Alice 1. Plotting is the thing. I'm finding John Goodall's God's House very inspiring. Which of the 13 almsmen will be found in the well??? Maybe I should reread Agatha Christie . . .

Arts and Crafts Gardens in Gwent

2009-09-14T11:24:00.024+01:00

Had a wonderful weekend in Gwent with the Garden History Society, an inpulse when I found a link to their excellent website which answered a horticultural query I had googled. A fine drive early on the A40, leaving Oxford by moonset: a huge pale orb descending in front of me as I drove west. Fine views over Birdlip, then I wound through the Forest of Dean to Monmouth, then checked in to a Old Hendre farm, a B&B high in the hills above the town, then navigated – oldstyle using real maps, I can’t be doing with those mental-nurse-voiced Tomtoms – to Clytha Park. Not much in the way of flowers, but a lovely lake and high on the hill ‘Clytha Castle’, a splendid folly (NT/Landmark Trust] looking over the hills and far away – a magnificent [if necessarily best-selling] writer’s retreat.
Next we visited Raglan Castle, which had once sported a magnificent terraced pleasure grounds complete with huge lake; Liz Whittle mapped its invisible shadows with the enthusiasm of the aficionado – she dreams of a restoration.
Then to High Gwynau, where Helena Gerrish gave us a beautifully constructed talk on Avray Tipping, who’d lived there and designed its garden; she also showed the transformation they’d effected on the gardens since they came 7 years ago. We wandered around its borders and greenhouses [succulent grapes] and down to the deep heart beat of the ancient ram pump at the bottom of the valley in front of the house – Tipping and his architect Eric Francia had a genius for making the most of a place. We had supper there, and much good talk, and I found a fine passage for my anthology in Helena’s collection of Tipping’s books: ‘We have become a nation of gardeners’.

The next day we moved to the environs of Chepstow and the extraordinary gardens and Pulhamite stone grottoes of Dewstow – created by Henry Oakley in the 1890s, cemented over into a farmyard by the tenants of his successor and lovingly recreated by those tenants' descendants – who have made a decent profit from their two golf courses - today. Much faithful restoration, but also many sparks of independent spirit.

So to the most atmospheric of all – Wingfield [check] court – another Avray Tipping house, with a distant view of the Severn estuary.
Its owner died a few years ago, and it is being restored by the relation who intherited it, with a view to his 12 year old son living there one day. The boy has apparently got decided views on it already. A very friendly and welcoming chatelaine showed us round – she kenw her plants wonderfully well. Amazing that one gardener now keeps it going.

Next to perhaps the msot inspiring – because so many inexpensive and doable ideas – garden of all – The Feddrw, also very close to Chepstow. Established 25 years or so ago by squatters rights, and now a wonderfully rambling place of exciting plantings, maze like hedges and a black-dyed pool. Website see thinkinggarden

So home on a lovely road along the west side of the Severn, admiring Newnham, namesake of my alma mater – wonder if there is any connection – I ought to know – and stretching my legs at the unexpected little port of Lynmouth; steepest and deepest lock into the Severn that I have ever seen; surreally quiet yacht basin high above the then very low river. And a William Sugg gaslight on its lamp-post – happy memoires of writing Mangle to Microwave and discovering the chatty and informative catalogues of William Sugg and his daughter.

I can recommend the Garden History Society – deeply knowledgeable and very friendly people.

Delights of Dulcibella

2009-09-11T10:37:00.003+01:00

This is a useful corrective to the picture on my home page, much more true to character. It is also to record the new upstream location of my camping punt, Dulcibella. She is now 18 years old, and I'm planning a refit for her at Oxford Cruisers; meanwhile, I'm exploring the Thames upstream of Eynsham in her. She glides into tiny backwaters, through fallen willows to such oases of calm as this; christened Port Naumann as it was discovered with my good friend Diana, daughter of the poet Anthony.

I'm reading the first print-out of the audiobook Garden Anthology I'm doing for Naxos, a wonderfully distracting piece of work which has taken me into all sorts of new and fertiles pastures. Most notable the C9 Walafred Strabo, author of Hortulus. 'No joy is so great in a life of seclusion as that of gardening . . . The gardener must not be slothful but full of zeal consinuously, nor must he despise hardening his hands with toil or pushing a full dung barrow out onto the parched earth and there spreading its contents about'

I wonder if Helen Waddell knew of it. Have just finished Corrigan's excellent biography - not without tears.

Blanket of the Dark

2009-09-02T07:05:00.001+01:00

I can see this online diary is going to be very useful. It is like writing for the papers; as I have no idea who is reading it [in all likelihood no-one] so write very unselfconsciously.
I've just finished Blanket of the Dark by John Buchan. He does write superbly. this one is set in his own home country - the woods and moors north of Oxford, going as far as brother John's country near Birdlip, but centring on Wychwood Forest. How's this for an ambush:
'They were in the deep brake at the wood's edge when a low thin whistle cleft the air, clear as a bird's call and no louder. Sir Miles did not hear it, and was conscious of no danger till a long arm plucked him from his horse.//Out of the bracken under their feet, men rose, as stealthily as fog oozes from wet soil.'

Beginner's Mind

2009-09-01T12:39:00.000+01:00

I daresay enthusiasm for these notes will abate, but at the minute, I feel like recording everything that strikes me deep. I'm reading Felicitas Corrigan's biography of Helen Waddell, whose books I have long loved. It overflows with memorable moments and HW's infectious enthusiasm. We share an irrational passion for the medieval, and I think I will reread both Wandering Scholars and Abelard alongside getting on with Alice. I've ordered her first book, Lyrics from the Chinese, on Amazon, delighted to find a hardback at a very reasonable price. I do prefer reading editions that are of an age with their author. Also FC's anthology of HW's writings, discovered deep in the bowels of the Stanbrook Abbey website . Sadly FC died in 2003, so it is too late to meet her. But the idea of a few days in retreat at the Abbey does appeal.
Research for the gardening anthology keeps throwing up new delights. Everything has to be out of copyright [which is rather a relief, as there is so much post-1931 stuff] - some of which i will preserve here. Like this nice quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, another of my benchmark authors:
'Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer'.
This, and the next, are from Eileen Campbell's The joy of Gardening
Mary Sarton, Plant Dreaming Deep: 'Gardening is one of the late joys, for youth is too impatient, too self-absorbed, and usually not rooted deeply enough to create a garden. Gardening is one of the rewards of middle age, when one is ready for an impersonal passion, a passion that demands patience, acute awareness of the world outside oneself, and the power to keep on growing through all the times of drought, through the cold snows, towards those moments of pure joy when all failures are forgotten and the plum tree flowers.'
Have just ordered this and a 1907 hardback of Helena Rutherford Ely's A Woman's Hardy Garden
Sunshine, and it's gone midday - I can't resist getting out into my own blessed plot.

2009-08-30T21:04:00.001+01:00

Looking Backwards

2009-08-30T16:19:00.002+01:00

I planned to start a website diary over a year ago, but my slow lane life, although extremely productive of daughters' weddings (three since I moved to Nutwood in January 2005) and grandchildren (five under four), has been pathetic on that front, with only three instalments, all tucked away on my own laptop. But here I am at last, given a fresh look by Joe and Susie's website company 'number fifty-six', and I've taken the plunge. To make it work better as a personal record of my new life at Nutwood, in the Eynsham Road I moved into in January 2005, I'm going to put those instalments, written in May last year, into this post - later ones will be much much briefer.

Life in the Slow Lane 10 May 2008

There are two roads: the road we must take of necessity and the magic road of our dreams. Sometimes by some strange alchemy of the mind . . . the two roads collide (Donald Maxwell, Enchanted Road)

From 2002 to 2004 I wrote a weekly column for The Times called Hearth Goddess, one of a set of five written by people with different life-styles. Mine was that of a writer rising sixty living in North Oxford, whose marriage had ended ten years earlier and whose children had left the home that was to me central to life. There was lots of fun to be had: twenty-three years in a place gives you lots of warm history and good neighbours. But my column was, looking back on it, a tale of endings: my 91-year-old mother Diana died in 2003, my 14-year-old golden retriever Angus in 2004. And I’d finished my magnum opus: a biography that put lustre back in the name of the much-maligned author of Le Morte Darthur, Sir Thomas Malory.

What was also ending was the rightness of the house. Homes need to fit like gloves; they also need to be able to change when you do. The tall Victorian semi in Chalfont Road had been perfect for our four daughters to walk to Oxford High three blocks away and for me to bike into the Bodleian and to the shops, but now it was getting ragged round the edges. There was too much wrong, I realised, as I flailed around trying to change the characters of the children’s former bedrooms and grappling with damp in the basement and terminal rot in my writing hut at the end of the garden. Clearing the mortgage also seemed attractive. I’ve been lucky enough to make a respectable living from writing, but not enough to invest or save, and the rock-solid pension I’d been building up with Equitable Life had just shrunk to a waterworn pebble of a premature annuity.

It didn’t take long to find a buyer, and I quickly made a bid for what then seemed the prettiest of little houses at the other end of the street. But 2004 was the year that property values escalated eye-wateringly fast, and for wealthy retired folk a little house in North Oxford was just as desirable as a crumbling family home. The price rose by ten thousand a day until I realised that, given the cost of moving and improving, the differential was becoming non-existent. I might even need a new mortgage. I gave up that particular dream, but decided to stick with my own buyer, store my furniture, and camp in the house of friends who were going abroad for three months until I found a new one.

Fortune favoured the bold. Days later, the half timbered façade of an Edwardian house peeped hopeful but a little forlorn out of a postage stamp-sized ad under the name of a West Oxford estate agent. It was familiar: I remembered enquiring after it six months earlier and being told it was sold. I phoned and was told that the developer who’d agreed to buy it had pulled out. I drove over with a friend: down the Botley Road, past a little row of real shops, and right at the foot of Cumnor Hill. The Eynsham Road had always interested me: generously scaled houses set back behind big front gardens. The house that was then called Shuttlingsöe (after a Derbyshire Hill, my solicitor later informed me) was just a hundred yards along it, shrouded by a huge shaggy hedge.

It had evidently been empty for a while, and felt shabby and unloved, but its bones were good. Behind the hideous pimpled glass of the inner porch was a minton-tiled floor and a staircase that rose with generosity and divided into two at the top. Upstairs were five bedrooms, a huge attic with sub-attics off it, one bathroom, a landing and an airing cupboard. It was much bigger than I had expected. Downstairs were a small sitting rooms to the left of the front door, a large one to its right and a long thin cloakroom contrived from what must have been outbuildings, with a lou and a shower room at the very end. The last door opened into a quarter of roomes that opened into each other rooms: a double sitting room with a fireplace at one end, a kitchen with three arches opening into the final room: slightly sunken so that you stepped down into it, with plate glass doors onto onto the garden. We went into it and looked out at a huge and romantic wilderness dominated by a frame of trees: holly, yews, firs, a scots pine, a huge sycamore cruelly dominating a tulip tree, and most magnificent of all a quadruple-trunked gum that soared 70ft high, its branches tossing gracefully in the wind like a tireless dancer. It was four o’ clock. I offered the asking price: two-thirds of what I was selling Chalfont Road for in exchange for a house with 3000 square feet instead of 2000. Threequarters of an hour later, it was a done deal. Intead of downsizing at a cost, I had upsized at a profit. It was not a rational decision, but an instinctive one. The house felt absolutely right. Four daughters rising thirty would, I hoped, soon mean grandchildren. And if we were all to be able to get together at once, what could be better than this rambling comfortable house?

Just as we exchanged contracts, The Times turned tabloid, and our weekly lifestyle reports were jettisoned. I wrote a final feature on the finding of the house a friend neatly summed up as Rupert’s Nutwood, and Hearth Goddess ended. I found I missed the weekly discipline of shaping the worth of my week in words, and now, three years later, I’ve decided to start recording my everyday life again in what may be the total privacy of my website. There will be flashbacks on what has happened – how the house was brought back to life, two weddings, and a third in September, three grandchildren, and one a-growing – but for the main part it will be about seeing the world differently now it takes me longer to think about it, and getting to grips with the unexpected pleasures and occasional frustrations of life in the slow lane.

Life in the Slow Lane 2 25 May 2008

You stretch out the heavens like a tent.

Above the rains you build your dwelling.

You make the clouds your chariot,

You walk on the wings of the wind [103^rd Psalm]

Sudden death stops us in our tracks. On 8 May, on a glorious, very hot afternoon, Dave Sewart, friend and companion in enterprise for twenty years and more, suffered a heart attack while mowing his extensive grass. 64. Another ten years would have been good, another twenty even better, for a man who lived to the full, the kindliest, most generous, gleefully eccentric person I have ever met. Snuff out a life like that and those left shiver in darkness. Yesterday I went over to Cambridgeshire to his funeral. He was the life and soul of Therfield Chapel, and it was full to bursting. In the row beside Ian and me, his god-daughter wept, inconsolable. All his adult life, he attracted children like the pied piper of Hamlin, and many of them, now striking young adults, were there to mourn him. Hannah and Theo Hawksley, twice the size I’d last seen them, gave one of the tributes: revealing perilous escapades on islands, up mountains and down caves. Friends from university days described his love of engines and ancient Rover with klaxon horn; friends from Therfield days his caravan in a field by a pond – instantly made cosy by a dash of liquid calor gas ignited on the floor. I talked of his energy and enthusiasm in the early days of the Arthur Ransome Society: the welcome he gave to new members, the originality of his beloved Despatches, the scholarly editions of Ransome’s illustrations and original manuscript. ‘There’s a huge Dave-sized hole in all our lives’ said one speaker: there was a low moan of agreement from two hundred hearts.

While we sipped tea, guzzled a feast Dave would have loved and talked about our memories, a slideshow of huge photographs dissolved from memorable moment to memorable moment on the wall. Photographs only get taken when we see the moment is a good one, and these were good indeed: a grinning eight-year-old (Roger to the life), arriving at his wedding beaming on a bicycle, walking in the lakes, sailing on the Broads, waving goodbye to friends at Ty Gwyn.

We can mourn, we can commemorate. But can we learn? ‘Let’s finish it tonight. Get tomorrow off to a flying start’, I remember him saying as he battled to defeat my recalcitrant AppleMac’s sulks, did the final pages of a scan of an old edition of one of my books, perfected my amateur scans of pictures. I’ve resolved to do things now, not in some never-reached tomorrow. That, in truth, is why I’ve at last begun writing these website pieces,hard to do with only the discipline of determination. It’s easy to slow up in your sixties. There is something about getting a state pension and a buspass that makes you see yourself as a done-to, not a doer. On the 9 o’clock bus, all the grey-haired ladies sit huddled in rows like hens in a henhouse, going somewhere with feigned busyness just to be among the hustle and bustle of life. Why am I there too? Do I need to be? Have I invented the things I want to look up in the Bodleian? Being a grandmother is in my up moments a grand state: sign of distinction, a pass to Olympia that authorises one to comment, advise, pontificate. But in my down ones it makes me feel old, washed up at the tideline.

Let Dave’s death change all that. He was older than me, but he didn’t feel or think old. How he would have relished the opportunity of being a thoroughly dangerous grandfather. I like life in the slow lane, but let me make it life, not decline, laziness and defeat

Life in the Slow 3 Lane 21 May 2008

I find myself playing with notions and metaphors of time this morning. Pressed for time . . . Playing for time . . . Saving time . . . Wasting time . . .Out of time . . . I am in truth time rich now, but it is easy to fritter it away. Mooning at the window, allowing inspiration to surface, then not capturing it in click of key or scratch of pen. Round and round the garden,scattering tools in obscure places, constantly distracted by another dock rearing its tall green and now threatening to flower head. I need to focus, dig deep, not skim the surface. Going down to make tea and pottering for half an hour as the kettle boils and the tea draws. I remember the tidy timetable of schooldays: two periods before break, three before lunch, two before going home. Sometimes a late lesson, always homework. Watching Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull [oh, dear, back to the Russians as enemies], one line stuck in my mind: ‘We’ve been given things all her life: now they’re beginning to be taken away’.

Grandchildren treat time differently. They have endless amounts of it but see every second of it freshly – which is why, of course, time feels so endless when you are young. You are not thinking about time past or time to come, but concentrating intensely on the moment. Their pace suits mine in many ways, because when I see them I too want to live in the moment. A morning, or an afternoon, is mentally labelled grandchildren, so what I do in it is only for their delight. Well, not quite. I like to have some little ambition in mind, so that when they go I’m ahead, not behind. Finishing the ironing while Ben ate his breakfast, weeding in the garden with Sam, showing Olivia how the sewing machine mends a torn nightie, tidying the kitchen with Fox in the sink wielding a washing up brush. They drink in experience with happy ease, parrotting what I say, then trying it out for themselves, creating endless variations on my activities with garden tools, exploring with twinkling legs, tumbling headlong, wailing, recovering and off again.

But though I love grandparenting, I need to be wary of allowing it to invading writing time. Keep mornings sacred will be the mantra for next autumn. But then I also think that these are the golden years for grands – soon school will overwhelm, and friends come first. Establishing a loving basis of familiarity and trust means as much to me as I hope it does to them.