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"Pure style is my way of life... a blueprint for living in the 21st Century"
Shots of purple
21 May 2014

When the garden is looking as heavenly as it is at the moment I have no huge  need to spread my wings in search of new excitement. ( Although   I  would rather like to go dancing.......  ) This week it is our clever lodger Jeffrey`s birthday and there is cake for tea and all the gorgeous purples and greens of  early summer to mark the occasion.

 Lucky to have the last fading tulip petals (they`re edible!) to decorate a chocolate  Victoria sponge using the recipe from my cookbook, and  to enjoy it against a garden canvas of alliums and lime green lavender and lemon balm leaves:  one of my favourite colour pairings.








See  how  a purple/green combination works in printed floral  cotton: a remnant used to patch one of my chidren`s jeans pocket.







Tags: purple, lime green, purestylecolour, summer, baking, chocolate, garden


Bulbs in
02 December 2013



Leaves are strewn like golden paper plates  over the garden. Summer`s die back is a challenge and I need to chop, weed and clear to make space for bulb planting.  Past four pm and the day is closed and so it is easy to ignore the untidy goings on in the garden.
I have a gardener friend, Simon ,who says  Jane your task is to get all those beds weeded, and then the job`s done.  So I  take his advice and do it . He does the  heavy stuff and is ace at pruning and keeping many other  local flowering spots neat and under control.
 You know my Label hate, but I need a new pair of wellies and the pigeon  grey Hunters at  TKMaxx are cheapish at £40.00 (they`re seconds ) compared to  £79 up the road at Morleys.  I don`t  even feel comfortable at spending this on a boring pair of rubber boots, but I have to say they fit like a glove and  as with  my favourite rake and spade, it`s good to have practical functional items with which to garden. I suppose I`ll be hiding them from the festival goer next summer.



Away from the screen,  solicitor`s  letters , leaking  sink pipe, and   the general  impermanence  of things,  I  feel contentment  digging snug earth beds for the alliums, and tulips.  The afternoon is quiet , blue wash  sky going into pink  and a blackbird on the fence. 




Cradling each bulb ,laying it down in its nest bed I think  optimistic pleasing thoughts.  I think about the garden in spring decorated with fluffy allium balls,  a sea of purple and pink.. I think of the summer grass  warm and herby and the  sun setting behind the apple tree




The whole thing of putting Christmas together is great, I love to do it for my family  but what I do rage over is the  commercial relentlessness  which began somewhere back in September with  cut price  chocolate snowmen on sale at the Co-op.  Out in the garden there`s none of that  and I am grateful to all the growing things for that





Good things are also cooking in the kitchen to keep the household stoked up because  I`m being frugal with heating. My daughter and I went went on a morning`s quest for pigs trotters, ingredients for  pork pies.  Herne Hill market saved the day when  there wasn`t a pigs trotter to be had between Pecham and Streatham.  She worked from the recipe in  Pie  a brilliant book, and no doubt why said pies won lst prize at the  classroom staff bake off. I`ve  been having fun with mackerel fillets coated in oats and fried in a little olive oil great brain food tasty and economical . I also  bought silvery and fresh wild sea bass to be baked with herbs`s from  wonderful fishmonger,Pauline . Sadly she is moving on  because greedy greedy shortsighted landlord wants to get fatter and fatter and lease to another betting shop or pawnbroker.




Tags: Tulips, alliums, autumn, baking, colour ,


 
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