Our much loved friend Greg invited us to join his 40th birthday celebrations near Bergerac, France this weekend and in a moment of rare conviviality we gritted our teeth, gave Michael O’Leary £36, and jumped on a plane from Liverpool on Friday morning leaving the nursery in the safe hands of Janet, Sally, Holly and Alison.

Suffice it to say we had a magical day of sunshine, rainbows, bee-laden lavender, serial wine tasting, wine drinking and feasting. I felt a little like a square yellow pea in a bowl of shiny green round ones at times, eschewing as I did the much-praised pate de fois gras and poche de veau in favour of fish balls and a poached plaice, but I am where I am, foodwise.

Leaving here for more than a couple of hours is a slightly unhinging experience – probably because I do it so rarely in the summer. Within a few hours I’m mulling on alternative lives unlived, countries unexplored, books not read, careers untapped. I design radical solar energy solutions (papering house roofs with leaves – their photosynthetic capabilities hardwired straight into the house) mentally write several potential first lines to a beautiful and compelling, critically acclaimed yet commercially disastrous novella, and commit to improving my sub grade one piano playing next winter. Or bugger all that and just become a total slob. That’s it – I decide to practice being a much better slob.

But then the plane home lurched downwards leaving my stomach as well as my fantasies at round 25,000 feet and we dropped out of the blindingly bright sky into driving rain and the unseemly chill of Liverpool Airport on a wet June morning. Having paid £36 for both of us to be lifted high into the air, deposited 800 miles away and safely brought back again, we coughed up £49.00 to retrieve our car from the short stay car park. Unlike us, it hadn’t moved. It had simply been permitted to stand still between three white lines for precisely 29 hours. Capitalism is mostly bonkers.


I didn’t resist the return to ‘normality’. I allowed the nursery to reabsorb me, plant by plant. In the greenhouse, the Cavallo de Nero seeds I sowed on Tuesday have already germinated. The Buddleia alternifolia cuttings I took on Thursday have perked up and will surely take. I lift and check each seed and cuttings tray more slowly than normal, re-acquainting myself, one friend at a time. A double bise, a la Francais, for each one.

The garden has changed in a day. The oriental poppies in the square borders have just peaked. Still lovely, but quietly giving way to the opium poppies which would have the place to themselves if we let them. I sowed drifts of ‘Black Paeony’ three years ago, but their rampant gene swapping produces ever more garish combinations of pink, red and purple each year. Elsewhere, roses are superceding paeonies and Lychnis coronaria’s hot magenta caught my eye for the first time.

But I indulged my semi-detached mood for the rest of today, avoided strenuous effort and people as best I could and wandered round the garden with a handful of paper bags, collecting seeds. This is pure pleasure. I have had my eye on all these plants for weeks – months – watching and waiting. It’s only June, but the harvest has started in earnest. You have to be vigilant. One day the Lathyrus vernus seed pods are plump and green. The next day they are dry, brown and splitting, scattering tiny speckled brown peas deep into the borders. One gorgeous deep pink/purple specimen is next to the tea room and I picked up about 30 seeds which were rolling around on the paving slabs underneath it. Pulsatilla seeds are blowing around the garden like giant dandelions. I traced my one Primula elatior plant, buried deep in the woodland corner, picked off a seedhead and prised the still green seeds from their paper-thin capsule in the hope of speeding germination. I also collected some Geranium ‘Beth Chatto’ seeds (which I suspect may come true), captured before the spring catapult mechanism fired them off into the undergrowth, and the lovely little red Anthyllis in the scree bed.

June is the best of times. The spring rush has gone and with it the accompanying pressure. Parts of the garden looks utterly gorgeous, if I may say so, and I can allow myself a little time to think about the magic of plants and possibilities for the future. I feel a lot calmer. Clearly we should go away more often.

June 11, 2011