Category Archives: Uncategorized

Our friends, Will and Carla, were over here from California. Will has created his own ‘Ideas’ garden over some years and is very knowledgeable on an enormous variety of plants, so it wasn’t difficult to make a decision about where to take them for a day out in the English countryside. I was very excited […]

John was meant to have the week after Easter for holiday. The weather wasn’t encouraging – grey and with an east wind chapping at the extremities. I had thought I’d finished with wearing my scarf inside as well as outside but had to retrieve it from the winter shelf in the cupboard. And John finally […]

We had an amazingly deep fall of snow in Barnes this winter. However, Spring seems to be in the ascendant at last and here are a few images to prove it. This last photo shows part of Barnes Green. Opposite lies a row of shops, which includes our only greengrocer (Two Peas in a Pod), […]

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp’d, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit, To-whoo – a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When […]

The Thames has been flooding over the banks at high tide and so our walk turned out to be muddy as well as cold to the bone. Muffled up with scarves, gloves and hats and a big padded winter coat, so constituting a formidable defence against winter’s icy grip… Even so, sometimes I feel my […]

I’d been at the Royal Academy looking at the Anish Kapoor exhibition – which left me on the whole ambivalent and slightly deflated, and with offended housewife syndrome to boot! I want to add that there were also two or three joyous pieces. But I did unreservedly enjoy the sculpture in the front courtyard and […]

John was invited to speak at a conference in Vienna. We had never been there but both of us had always wanted to go, so we decided to include the weekend and explore a little. Easy flight, mild weather. I had booked a hotel I found on the internet. I’m always anxious about choosing places […]

The 19th September 2009. Up at 6.30 am, racing around to water my mimosa tree. The garden is in shadow and silent except for single crabapples falling haphazardly with a hollow bong onto the metal tray of the barbecue – but there is that sense of growing momentum, of the day opening up. The car […]

I don’t know how long Maison Bertaux has been running but I’ve been going there since the 1970s. I took these photos of it last weekend. It has recently expanded and been spruced up. I was on my way to a ‘pearl knotting’ course at ‘The Bead Shop’, just by ‘The Ivy’ restaurant. Maison Bertaux […]

John had gone to Lausanne the day before. I had ‘flu and was relieved that I could stay in bed and also that he might miss getting it, having left the Krankenhaus. On Monday morning I couldn’t believe my eyes at how much snow had fallen in the night. It was pristine and untouched in […]