FROM DOWNLOAD TO DUCHESS

First rock chick then royalty, my rollercoaster social calendar has tipped over the edge into one of those death defying corkscrew dives that usually ends in barfing up breakfast over your deck shoes.  Aaahhh – what a week!

Download Festival 2013

Last Saturday I was ankle deep in the quagmire of Donington Park, flapping from stage to stage like a mud splattered cagouled crow with a bad case of welly envy.  I would have given my right arm for a set of dad’s full length fishing waders and a beany hat.  Forget fashion, at festivals sporting that just lived in Farmer Giles look is haute couture it seems.  Smelling like him is also acceptable. 

Main stage at Donington Park

In spite of the glorious mud, biting wind, random downpours and rubbishy Skylink bus service, Download 2013 can be summed up in one word – AWESOME!!!!  

Maiden England Tour 2013

Iron Maiden who headlined on Saturday; doubly AWESOME!!!!  My own rendition of ‘Run to the Hills’ and keyboard drum solos have made a few of my office cronies develop unmistakable twitches since I returned from the festival.  Many of them have no doubt run through unspeakable torture scenarios in their heads to get me to shut up.

The Countess of Queens Park

Thursday – more mud but of an upper crust kind as my daughter and I masqueraded as the Duchess of Charminster and Countess of Queens Park at Royal Ascot’s Ladies Day.  (Waders must be worn on head as eclectic headgear at this festival).  Mud is a challenge to the well-heeled of both purse and footwear.  There’s nothing worse than sauntering past the Royal Enclosure with your Laboutines impaled 4 inches into the ground so that you look like a backward tilting stork.  I’m sure chiropractors must be laughing all the way to the bank after race week.

Royal Ascot - grandstand

We won some races but lost a few quid too.  Ate cheese on toast with the toast of society and raised our pinkies quaffing our over-priced wine.  We waved to Queenie – she waved back!  A day at the races is truly another world. 

The Royal Procession at 2 pm

Thundering down the straight

Meanwhile back in the back yard, my garden is also looking like another world – a world of death and destruction.  Thanks to my shocking ‘never at home these days’ behaviour some of the patio pots are close to a near death experience.  The cherries have shrivelled into raisins from lack of watering.  They’re definately on their way to that great orchard in the sky.  Just how does Alan Titchmarsh manage when he’s at the Chelsea Flower Show all week?

MORE ABOUT:

Download Festival - http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/

Royal Ascot - http://www.ascot.co.uk/

BIDDIES, BUSES AND BLOODY DAWDLERS

It may be a lovely day outside but I’m not in the best of tempers having just come back from what I thought would be a quick drive out to Picket Post.  It’s been nothing but biddies, buses and bloody dawdlers everywhere you turn!  Seriously if you can’t figure out what lane you should be in, don’t know where to find your indicators and won’t drive any faster than 28 miles per hour then stay at home and take up golf or knitting.  Those of us in a hurry will love you all the more for it.

Time is of the essence today.  It’s all go, go, go; trying to get our less than clean abode in order for tomorrow’s first student arrival.  Not an easy task in a house where there’s more dirt swept under the carpet than in a Tory cabinet (but only just!).  Slaving over a slow cooker goulash when I should be out there topping up my tan in what could be the only day of summer is enough to put anyone in a major grump, don’t you agree?

Tidying up the deck ready for al fresco dining

Cleaning is such hellish drudgery!  I can’t honestly recall a time when I last cleaned so much in one consecutive period.  If God had wanted us to live in a plastic germ free bubble we’d all have been born Michael Jackson. As it is, the kitchen has been ‘febrezed’ to within an inch of its life and the carpets have seen more Shake n Vac in the last 15 minutes than in the previous 12 years.  I’ve even washed my beaver!  (This is not a euphemism for lady garden but what we call the brown furry sofa throw for those cold nights in front of the telly).  Yes, a febreze smelling beaver is now hanging on the line.

Photo of the beaver

 

As if cleaning, cooking and tidying up the patio wasn’t enough to be getting on with, I’ve also just finished icing my daughter’s wedding cake as I’m chief cake decorator as well as mother of the bride. 

Wedding cakes after icing

Oh if only I could win the lottery I’d be able to spend the rest of my days in idle pleasure rather than skivving away in house and garden.  Living the dream!

Shelby and Wiggy enjoying the sunshine

MORE ABOUT:

Beavers - http://news.sky.com/story/1076746/beaver-bites-man-to-death-in-belarus-attack

Febreze - http://www.febreze.co.uk

Icing wedding cakes - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2011/05/how-make-a-wedding-cake.shtml

EXBURY RE-VISITED

May is one of my favourite gardening months as it’s the best time to enjoy the wonderful sights and smells of azaleas and rhododendrons.  Where better to spend a nice sunny day in May than at Exbury Gardens.  

Here’s my Exbury top ten for you to enjoy.

MORE ABOUT

Exbury Gardens:  http://www.exbury.co.uk/website/

Rhododendrons:  http://www.rhododendrons.co.uk/

YARLINGTON HOUSE PLANT SALE

Disaster has struck!  And it’s of titanic proportions as these things inevitably are when they happen.  It’s not a storm in a tea cup, more like a tempest in a tureen.  In the same way as global banking has gone into melt-down so too has our oven.  The door handle unable to withstand the strain of the over-heated household economy has totally cracked and broken off.  In order to continue our pizza free diet regime, the other half has had to rig up a temporary solution using a coat hanger until a replacement oven is found.

 

Global meltdown

   

Unlike the Bank of England, I can’t just print off several million quid when times are hard.  My computer scanner and HP printer wouldn’t be much cop in running off a few extra tenners to tide us over.  So, taking a leaf out of the Chancellor’s book, I’ve had to mount a daring raid on my ‘pension’ fund to rustle up the £500 or so pounds needed in order to keep us cooking on gas. 

Raiding savings for boring things like ovens is not my idea of fun especially when that cash could be better spent on other stuff such as holidays or my garden.  To help me get over this trauma, I bribe the other half with promises of beer and curry so that he’ll drive me to all the way to Somerset for a plant sale.

Yarlington House, an out of the way country estate not far from Wincanton just happened to be hosting one of those specialist plant sales I like to visit.  “Nice day for a drive in the country dear” I say to the other half, whose idea of heaven is watching re-runs of Top Gear and not browsing through potted plants. 

Yarlington House 

It wasn’t a wasted journey either as the plant sale was probably one of the best one’s visited this year.  There were so many stalls assembled in the courtyard, I didn’t know where to start looking first.  Row upon row of potted plants and all very reasonably priced – what an idyllic way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Plant stalls dotted around the courtyard

Nothing beats a good plant sale

Visiting country houses to buy plants also gives you an opportunity to have a good nose round as many include entry to their gardens in the ticket price and we were able to enjoy a pleasant wander around the kitchen garden and wooded area behind the house. 

Flower covered pergola on back lawn

The kitchen garden was vast.  A walled enclosure with planting beds split into 4 distinct areas.  I'd love to have something similar where you can really go mad growing all sorts of fruit and vegetables.

The kitchen garden

Apple blossoms

Clever use of space with espalier fruit trees

I love Japanese maples and acers.  Everything about their foliage is so beautiful; the colours, the shapes, the leaves lightly overlapping each over.  

The beautiful contrast of deep purple and lime green

Trees are often more interesting when seen from below looking up into the leaves.

A view from below

Having spent my savings and more on a new oven, this might be the last plant sale for 2013 but let's hope not!

MORE ABOUT:

Yarlington House - http://www.yarlingtonhouse.com/

Japanese maples - http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=126