PUPDATE

You probably thought I just had a short attention span and had got bored of the puppies, but actually they are really my sister's and after she finished working on the film she was on she took them away to her house and hogged them. 

However I have got good news which is that Cleve West just emailed me to say his neighbours are having one of the girls! Bizarrely, this is a complete TW1 postcodincidence, I think just due to the fact that he lives about a mile from where I grew up. 

But it means I will at least get regularly spy updates from him on the progress of that pup. Hurray! 

SLIGHTLY HOMEMADE LANDSCAPE GARDENERS' WORLD, FRIDAY 1 ST AUGUST

Yes! It's back! But this time, it's Capability Browntastic! 

HOW DO YOU MAKE A DITCH HA-HA?

One of the highlights of a week's summer course on the eighteenth century landscape is getting to go out and walk around some gardens. But imagine our particular delight when we got to Rousham and found some men actually engaged in the fine old art of building a haha. 

Like eighteenth century lords we happily loitered around at the top of the ditch while they mucked about dry-stone-wall stylie in the bottom. "I do the skilled bit, and I just let him do the filling," said the old chap in charge, gesturing somewhat rudely towards his less accomplished, resigned-looking accomplice. 

They reckoned they could do about thirty yards in a week. Stowe has four miles of haha. You do the maths.  

NOT ALL HARD WORK.

I have worked the most ridiculous hours this week, making my twenty-hour-day blogging photos from Hampton Court after being there at 7am look like a true cakewalk. 

I don't know what was wrong with me, but I turned up in Oxford to teach slightly ill prepared and not in the right frame of mind. Then, everything I touched the entire week broke. Keys got left in the wrong building, digital projectors wouldn't project, my bike got a mysterious puncture, and real old-fashioned transparencies turned themselves upside down and back-to-front in the projector. I seriously discussed the possibility that somebody hexed me. If you are doing it, please stop.

However, even in a really hard week, there will always be a couple of moments of unalloyed happiness. (I hope so, anyway.) One of mine this week was seeing these cherries. Cherries! Bugger the rowan berries appearing in every hedgerow. Bring on the cherries!

Most joyful of all the cherries were trained in spirals around this totally brilliant dovecote. I think the only term sufficient to all of this is "wicked", but if you can think of some better description let me know. 

Please also feel free to report here on any other significant garden developments this week which do not signify the imminent arrival of autumn. 

THE POPE IS DEAD

We spent a lot of time this week talking about Alexander Pope, who made a most intriguing sounding garden in Twickenham from about 172o onwards. It was a sort of tiny miniature landscape garden. It's long gone now, replaced by a pub (with wifi access, though). 

There exist plans and descriptions of the garden but as far as actual images go I think we just have this one scribble. Luckily the scribble is by William Kent, who designed bits of Stowe and Chiswick as well as the scheme at Rousham, easily contender for Best Garden Ever. 

Garden historians have had big rows about this picture. Mostly because some clever dicks reckon that a structure this apparently shaky, constructed entirely of shells,was probably a figment of William Kent's imagination. I think they might be citing as proof the not-real cloud of angels descending on the left, too. 

Well I don't care. I believe in the shell temple. Just cos it was rubbish doesn't mean it never existed. And I'd happily have a shaky shell temple for the four months it stayed up. 

In the meantime, over on Zoe's blog there's a quick and timely Alexander Pope-themed reminder (for those of us who have just spent a week in the groves of pseudo-academe) that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Yep, but then so is a really really long poem that might make people go to sleep. 

SATURDAY MORNING SHED SPOT

Fans of the man who put the word "shed" into Baklava will know that the internet's favourite little hut lover has p****d off on holiday to Spain for a month. 

A month? I hear you asking. Did I hear you quite correctly? Did you say a month?

Yes, ridiculous, isn't it? What year does he think it is, 1976?

Anyway in honour of the extreme work ethics of Alex J I post the following tippppppety top class garden building, which I have a feeling he would love. 

THE MATTHEW PASSION No 289

Ah, of course SHGW wouldn't be complete without some sort of feature on Matthew Wilson; except in the weeks when mentioning him is banned. Anyway, this week reporting restrictions have been lifted and I'm pleased to be able to bring you this amazing lookalikeness in connection with Garden Monkey's appeal for football managers who represent Real-Life Gardeners' World presenters. Compare it to the photo on the post below!! See, honestly, they could so be related. Apart from MW has got all that lovely hair. All the better to annoy JAS with.

(What I would really like to know is where Arabella Sock finds her amazing range of photos of TV gardening stars. I can only ever find the same three pictures. Is there some sort of Google trick? Perhaps looking beyond page one of the results might be a good idea.)