This lovely thing is soothing my heartstrings right now. I made it in October last year, having bought rather too many hellebores. I wish I had made more – it’s one of those all-year-round pots to which you do precisely nothing, and it sits around looking gorgeous in spite of that. Bruised, sober, ever so [...]
I had something all ready to make for a shiny, happy New Year project, and then I went outside and did something else instead…. Nothing new there, except that the something else was picking up rotten apples and clearing away brown, soggy leaves – not exactly the kind of thing you spring out of bed [...]
More bulbs, I know, but hey, this is seasonal stuff…and I’m not going to argue with that. I usually put a load of paperwhites (little daffodils, highly scented and prepared to flower indoors over the winter) into containers in late October for Christmas blooming, but, as with the rest of what I’ve been doing this [...]
…Take back your pearls…. It just turned chilly enough for me to wish I was on the beach wearing a bikini. …and mint is THE thing to evoke the freshness of summer. Here’s how to have it over the winter. You need: 1 mint plant (do you already have one? You probably think it’s died…It [...]
My publishers have produced a calendar…and very pretty it is too. It’s to get people in the mood for my book, which will be out in March… …Would you like one? Or two? Or three? I’ve got hold of some and I thought I’d sell them for charity. It’s a useful piece of kit…You’ll never [...]
I never knew anything called ‘stir-up Sunday’ existed until I saw it on Twitter. Is it an American thing? Why have I missed it? Possibly because my mother (very sensibly) buys her Christmas Cake from a SHOP. Anyhow, I’m a sucker for family stuff like this (well, I’m in the first bloom of motherhood aren’t [...]
All of us…(oh, not you then…?) okay, but MOST of us have one of these thingys lying around…. a wire cake stand, that is… After the initial ‘ooooh, that’s purdy, I’ll so USE that for all the, CUPCAKES I make!’, mine ended up in a cupboard just TAKING UP SPACE. So I thought I’d [...]
Still feeling Novemberish, so more Kelly Rowland in my head… I’m a procrastinator (like all the best people) I always wish I could wiggle my nose and have stuff done in an instant. I spend MUCH more time dreaming about what it would be like to wiggle my nose and get stuff done than it [...]
This weird warmth highlights the fact that temperature has nothing to do with my feeling iffy at this time of year…it’s all about light levels. So here is another better-making series of things, for when you’re feeling a bit Novemberish. This time I’ll be adding some non-planty stuff to each post…because there are things I [...]
I’m going to come clean and say that I’ve been a heather-hater my whole life As far as I’m concerned the ONE good thing about them is their family connection to blueberries…(blueberries are cool). So I was in the garden centre the other day, lurking (as you do), and I saw the usual autumn [...]
