At last a day of sun!

From the day the hosepipe ban was announced it has rained every day for three weeks …except yesterday. Of course this is an excellent thing but it’s also a bit gloomy. Yesterday we managed to cut the grass

and I did some necessary weeding.

This is an attempt at a seventeenth century garden to complement the house, which means formal with straight lines which is what I love anyway. But I also like untamed wild  rustic beauty. The apple espaliers seem to me to combine the best of both.

Happy Easter

I’ve been a bit dilatory recently with the blog, partly because I’ve been in London for a few days and partly because the garden is yelling for attention, with everything suddenly growing fast. We no longer have a gardener for reasons of economy. And also because it’s so difficult to find anyone who is at all competent or even interested. I don’t mean to bleat. I adore the garden and it’s the only exercise I take. Before I went away I took a photograph of the back door

which used to be the front door until the introduction of cars, I suppose they might have arrived in these parts in about the 1920s. When we came came in 1998 every time there was a shortage of rain you could l see the large  turning circle for the carriages, carts and traps as a brown shadow on the lawn. Horse drawn vehicles of course can’t be driven backwards or be left to stand long but cars need somewhere to be parked so I’m guessing that’s the reason the house was  changed round so to speak and the back, with its courtyard became the front. You can see that the lintel needs repair and it’s been on our list of things to be done from the beginning. But, being a romantic, I preferred to go ahead with the more exciting idea of transforming a rather dull lumpy tree-darkened lawn in front of it so this is what we did.

As a tribute to Easter and springtime I’m including a picture of the emerging wisteria, which is always rather fascinating as delicious colour emerges from silky grey buds

and the Simnel cake my daughter  made yesterday.

I hope everyone is enjoying themselves as much as I am.