Newsletter
7" of snow fell on Tuesday, and last night the temperature fell to -14C. That's what the car thermometer said at 7.30am, right next to the house, it would have been lower in the garden, but the outdoor thermometer is buried under the snow somewhere and
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In a perfect world I would spend the first few days of the New Year pruning the apple trees in the orchard, waving occasionally to brightly-coated canal boaters chugging by beneath me. I love pruning fruit trees – it's one of life's great pleasures on a sunny
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It's the final run-up to Christmas, often a week of frenetic activity, stress, excitement, irritation or all of the above. Whether you celebrate Christmas as the birthday of Jesus, or whether for you it's just a break from work, what is certain is that today marks
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I heard someone on the radio this morning sounding ominous notes about how Gordon Brown's COP15 commitment to reduce the UK's carbon emissions would cost the economy dear. And yesterday even Saint Polly of Toynbee threw in the towel. You know the argument - tackling climate
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Where to start after a month's absence. As usual after a blogging break this will be more of a news report than anything more insightful or evocative. But it brings us up to date. Let's start with last week, spent very pleasurably in Italy enjoying a
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The great thing about exotic, or specifically day neutral plants, is that they have no idea that winter is coming. So while the weather is mild they just keep on growing and getting better and better, blissfully unaware that it will all end, very soon. I've been watching
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I'm a social liberal through and through. By this I mean that I truly believe that a sentient, consenting adult ought not to be constrainted in their thoughts, views, expressions and behaviours, provided they do no harm to another. In parallel I believe that others should accept and
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My latest Channel M video on planting up a winter container. I quite like this one - perhaps because I watched it with the sound turned down!
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Let me count the ways: 60 plants in flower 12 grasses in flower, or seed heads 11 plants with colourful berries/hips 18 plants with striking autumn colour And that's not counting the ones with the odd single flower still just about hanging on, like the Lychnis coronaria,
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Why does Masterchef make me feel so very uncomfortable? I can't precisely put my finger on it, but it revolves somewhere around the obsessive perfectionism combined with the obvious waste of superb quality food. I know that tons of food are thrown away every day and that the
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I didn't want one. I thought it would be too big, too delicate to carry around in the garden, and I was sure email and web on it would be unusable, just like Windows CE. I was wrong and I repent. I love its slidy screen, the pop
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Tricky to pick a topic for a first 'non gardening' post, but a recent radio interview has been bugging me for days. Last week, or maybe the week before, Jane Clark was interviewed on Woman's Hour. 'Jane who?' Jane Clark, you know, much put