This winter’s weather is turning out to be a bit of tease. We experience a short spell of cold, then it’s back to mild again. When it does get cold, my garden escapes the frost, even if cars in the street are encrusted with ice.…
One event in my calendar heralds the approach of spring like no other: the RHS London Early Spring Plant Fair. Throughout the first, frozen days of February I have been yearning for Westminster’s Horticultural Halls to throw open their doors and let me feast my…
How often do we subscribe to organisations or take out memberships and yet fail to take full advantage of them? I have been signed up to the Royal Horticultural Society for almost 20 years, and the National Trust for longer (having joined at birth, obviously), but…
That’s it, I am done with travelling for 2014. I am stuck indefinitely at Amsterdam Schiphol airport with my colleagues, half of us with raging temperatures and chesty coughs, facing the prospect of a weekend in bed. It has not been a great December so…
A little tongue twister for you on this chilly Saturday afternoon! I refer to a certain magenta marauder that’s found its way into a bowl of pure white cyclamen on our garden table. The vermillion villain must have crept in as a wayward seedling, biding its time…
One of the things I love most about Christmas is festooning our London flat with greenery and flowers. I adore the smell of fresh-cut pine and white lilies, and the idea of bringing the outdoors in. Decorating our open-plan space is a much-anticipated event. To get it all done I like…
I have never been a great fan of autumn. All the untidiness and decay just doesn’t work for me. I generally console myself with planning for spring, whilst others are enjoying the glories of this mellow season. But having missed most of September travelling in…
