Hello again

Hello everyone, I am sorry about the lack of posts this week, when I went back to London for my final week I didn't bother to take the laptop as I knew that I would have enough luggage to bring back on the train this weekend without it, so now I have to catch up a lot on all your blogs.

Its so good to be home. Having said that, I am going to Paris tomorrow for a performance and won't be back until Thursday or Friday, but from now on I am always coming home straight away.
The weather is terrible, raining and I actually put the heating on for a bit this morning because it was so cold and the house could do with a bit of heat to cheer it up.

My dad is coming over later, he is not very well any more but he gets so excited about plans for my garden that he loves coming over to talk about it and hash out ideas. He likes to quietly sit outside on a chair with a sketch pad drawing ideas and because he can't walk very much any more he is content to do that for hours when the sun is out. He has had a few heart attacks and a stroke and bad arthritis but never complains about anything, in fact I have never heard him complain in 39 years. I think that my garden 'project' has given him a new lease of life. His plans range from doable to completely out of my price range, but I will meet him somewhere in the middle. Decking has never been my favourite thing but I actually think that he has hit upon a good idea by building out a small deck over the slope at the house end, this will make a good use of an area that is difficult to work with, without actually losing any of the garden space that I could use for planting, also would solve the privacy issue in one fell swoop. I think I will lay some plans, price it up and get saving.
Everything is growing beautifully, the potatoes have put on another 5 inches just in the last week and will get one more covering with soil now. Peas look happy, tomatoes are mostly planted up outside now and I just a few more to do. The climbing rose is absolutely wonderful, as are the lupins and apple tree.

Someone sent me a BBC news report about a stabbing in South London, in which 5 people were attacked and stabbed in the middle of the day. Where this happened is just a 5 minute walk from where I used to live in London and really helps make me grateful for the new life that I am carving out here. The last 8 weeks has been difficult, I won't lie to you, but you know what, it has all been worth the effort for what I have in my home life now, yes, it would have been easier if I had been living near to where I was working, yes, the commuting was horrible and I was quite stressed and miserable at times, but coming home is what makes it all worth while. The mentality of people who have such enormous disregard for human life, that they think stabbing someone is ok just confuses and saddens me and I know that these things happen everywhere, but the fact that it happened right in my old stomping ground really affected me somehow. Life is so precious.

Time off in the garden

Well I won't go in to just what a horrendous journey home I had, just to say, it involved a lot of stress. But when I got home at 11 pm and poured that glass of home made limoncello and went and sat in my garden, and the first sound that greeted me was an owl hooting and being answered by another distant oen for about 5 minutes, I knew that it was all worth it.

I've had wonderful weather and the first thing I had to do yesterday was mow the lawns as they looked like meadows. My friend has offered me a free strimmer, as I haven't got one, but I won't be able to pick it up until I am with him in the car, mid June, so instead I was on my hands and knees with a lawn edger trying to pull up some of the long grass and weed around the edge of all the beds. A quick trip to the garden centre for some compost and some manure and then I built up the compost around the potatoes and put some manure on the roses. Then I had a happy time examining all the activity in the garden: peas starting their long climb, apple tree thriving, fruit bushes full of healthy leaves, roses looking very happy, lupins beginning to grow flowers, onions growing well etc.

My neighbours have been putting up monstrous decking. They have decked their entire garden, 100% of it and there is nothing left now but soulless wood. Not my idea of a nice garden at all. The downside is that it has lost me quite a bit of privacy because it is so high it looks straight into my garden now which gets to me somewhat as I am not the constant chatting over the garden wall type in my back garden. Anyway, not one to stay annoyed, I now am planning my garden with a view to making these areas private again. I am going to use trellis around where my eventual seating area will be and that will instantly solve that bit (it was in my original plan anyway). There is a laurel growing in another area which will eventually be tall enough to solve the problem there although I might add another to it. The only other bit is at the side of the garden and I need to grow something that won't take years but isn't a privet, because they are not my favourite. On the list is ceanothus, forsythia and flowering currant at the moment, possibly a lilac tree. Any other suggestions are very welcome. Want it to grow at least 2 and a half metres and not take 6 years to do it.

Now I just bit my fingernails while I was thinking of plants (very bad habit), and got a distinct whiff of manure, so I'd better go and scrub my nails and finish up here.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Going home again

I'm going home for 3 days this weekend! Fate has dealt me a long weekend so I am taking advantage of it and getting the bus to Manchester tonight after rehearsal. I finish here in London in 10 days anyway but I am in need of some time in my own space so it is worth every bumpy mile up the M6 and back.
I wonder what will have been happening in the garden, I am pretty excited to see if things are wild because of all the rain or if things are dead because of the sun - who knows!
To catch up with friends and to just enjoy sitting in the garden as the sun goes down, maybe with a glass of my home made limoncello. Can't wait.
Home is where my heart is.

Blue Water

This week I had a day when I didn't have to go into London at all. Now I am in Kent and didn't really want to spend my day off travelling anywhere, so I took a walk. The people with whom I am staying live very near Bluewater shopping centre, one of the largest shopping centres in Europe I believe. Now, I know that many of you couldn't care less about a shopping centre, and I am absolutely with you on this, I hate shopping, I don't like consumerism, I don't enjoy battling through crowds for something I neither want nor need. But on this particular occasion, curiosity overcame my natural reluctance. I wanted to see this Cathedral to consumerism. And Cathedral it is with no shortage of worshippers.
Some attempt has been made to make it look like it is a rural setting - artificial lake with a bridge accross, trees planted around. All in attempt to confuse people into thinking they are having a day out in the great out-doors combined with a shopping trip - it doesn't work and leaves me cold.

What always surprises me are the amount of people in these places, crowds and crowds all with bags. Are we really in a recession?

I had a fascinating time looking in the shop windows at all the items I don't want and chuckling about some of the advertising slogans making you believe you can't possibly live without these things, promising price slashes and 70% off sales and many ridiculous claims.

I didn't go into any shops, not a one - it really was just to exercise my curiosity.

There is a certain blandness to these places and I am with Mary Portas on this one, why are shopping centres and high streets so dominated by the same old tat. The only time I ever really enjoy browsing is if I am (usually in a small town or village) surrounded by individual, privately owned shops with some food shops and delis thrown in or a good second hand store to rummage around or a market. Bluewater offered none of these and therefore had nothing to grab or keep my interest. I've asked it before, but why has shopping become a national past time?

30 minutes later I had had enough and left by the same entrance I came in, curiosity satisfied. It turns out that I am missing nothing!

Berberis

A few weeks ago, many of you helped to identify my Berberis in the garden. It's funny isn't it, but once you know what something is, you see them everywhere! Having said that, I don't often see a specimen quite as fine as my own. When I was home and opened the curtains on the first morning I was greeted with a gorgeous sight and I am afraid that, as usual, the photo really doesn't do it justice. It's about 10 feet tall and a riot of bright orange flowers.

Tucked away underneath in a very unassuming position is a large clump of delphiniums and a mysterious rubber pipe. The rubber pipe disappears into the ground and seemingly does nothing. Odd.

Now that my garden is getting going as spring makes way for summer I am learning what plants I have already, a very healthy and well established purple geranium, tulip bulbs, honeysuckle and clamatis, sedum, primulas, mombretia etc. It is lovely to inherit these things and watch them come to life over the summer and I am sure there are a few more surprises to come.

I am lucky because although there are plenty of established plants in the garden, it is far from overgrown and has been left without much character and personality, making it easy to put my own stamp and ideas onto it. I once lived in a house with a garden so overgrown and chocablock and full of bindweed that I never really got to grips with it (just in a rented house, I didn't live there very long) and I am so happy not to have a similar experience this time.

Moving on.

Thank you for my good luck and support last night, it went really well and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Now today, believe it or not, I start rehearsals for another opera entirely! Altogether for the two operas there will be 35 performances.

So I have until a fortnight from Saturday and then I go home and do all my travelling and performances from my home base as all rehearsals will be finished. Performances drag on until October, but I will be home lots so I am happy that it is nearly time.

I wonder what I have been missing in the garden? There has been some sun and lots of rain so I imagine first of all I will have grass like a meadow. It was a carpet of dandelions before its last cut a week and a bit ago and imagine they have all come back with a vengeance. Its a shame really, because I think the dandelions are actually rather pretty.

My seedlings were hit and miss when I was last there. Some of the tomatoes are doing quite well, others are still a bit behind. Most of the cucumbers seemed to be dead, but let's see if they survive.

The chillis and peppers are growing but, oh so slowly.

I am growing marigolds to put in with the tomatoes and they are doing ok.

I've never grown leeks before and I think I went overboard, It looks like grass!

My mum is looking after a tray of my tomatoes and they are doing much better - the human contact element, I am sure.

Next time I will show you what has been going on in the garden and soon there will be a puppies update.

Opening night - 2nd attempt

Yesterday I was rehearsing (yeah, on a Sunday, it is a bit annoying) because it is my opening night at the London South Bank tonight. I had to share the advertisement with you, because that is a photo of me on the posters!

I am half bird, half man in this opera which explains the feathers and beak by the way. Yeah, I am the comic element, as usual - seem to have become typecast.

So today will be a lazy one until I wander up to the rehearsal call at 4 o'clock.

Wish my luck!