BO DIDDLEY WAS A PUPSLINGER

Bit mournful here as my grandma's brother died in hospital overnight. He was 93, very jolly, and will be sadly missed. 

But here's one to cheer almost everyone up. Remember the pups? Yup this is the one my mum and my brother kept, in his latest portrait, by mon frère Joe T. 

He's called Cash after Johnny. They now have Cash and Bo, so my god she can start herself a Mississippi spaniel blues band in a minute. 

BED HEAD

Our much-beloved leader in bloggage, Sir James Alexander-Sinclair, has distinguished himself today by posting pictures of his first window box to the BBC GW site. I don't know why he would throw himself into the eye of the storm in this way as I am convinced he will now receive two hundred (at least) mean emails going on about his winter pansies. Well, I've definitely written one.

He also reveals his early love of  nasturtiums. In fact he's posted a whole set of his nasturtium photos to Flickr for us to peruse in more detail. Now not many people go on about nasturtiums, but I agree with the Hat: they are the best. Scorching colour and such beautiful leaves that mostly I don't even care when they get a bit soggy and don't flower. They go in my salads in summer, but even just post-prandially that orangey tang along the edge of a flowerbed will always make me happy. 

However my most important finding after ten minutes on James' Flickr is that I LOVE CORRUGATED IRON PAINTED WHITE. I just got emailed by a publisher today about a book about corrugated iron and I said I wasn't interested. WHAT AN IDIOT! IT'S AMAZING!

Put me down for ten sheets and a tin of quick dry primer, will you?

HERE KITTY KITTY

As some of you may know, I don't have a cat of my own. But here, pleasant readers, is my tribute to my very special relationship with the cat who lives just next door to me:

My neighbour’s freaky cat
My neighbour’s freaky cat
He looks about a hundred years old
His coat is warm but his gaze is cold
My neighbour’s evil cat

My neighbour’s evil cat
My neighbour’s evil cat
His miaow sounds like an old man's spit
He can actually sh*t inside my bag of grit
My neighbour’s devious cat

My neighbour’s devious cat
My neighbour’s devious cat
He looks at you with an evil eye
He bullies other cats till they won’t go outside
My neighbour’s frigging cat

My neighbour's frigging cat

my neighbour's frigging cat

He likes to sit in the windowbox

I hope he gets mange or some other pox

my neighbour's top dog cat

My neighbour’s top dog cat
My neighbour’s top dog cat
he eats up birds and frogs and has fleas

he's very, very Siamese
My neighbour’s devious, freaky, evil, totally horrible cat.

i hope you enjoyed my contribution to Happy Mouffetard's special LAPCPADPOUB day. 

BUT I DO RESPECT YOUR FLORA, DARLING

So they fiiinnnnaaallllyyy fixed the broadband!

However circumstances being what they have been this week, it was hardly uppermost in my mind. My emails with other garden bloggers have not generally tended to concern financial matters, but in the last few days it's been difficult not to fret at least a bit to friends. 

Anyway, especially given la crise financière, I was sorting through my photos trying to find one that would make y'all smile. 

This is from the week I spent in France in mid-September. I meant to go to all the Niçoise gardens like La Mortola and was of course much too lazy. (Feel free to tell me I made a terrible mistake.) 

But we found this sign on an evening coastal walk around the Cap D'Antibes. And can I just say to the French, who had more Agaves in bloom than I've ever seen anywhere else: I do respect your coastal flora, I really do. 

We were also terribly, terribly nosy and had to have a quick peep over the wall at Roman Abramovich's. I don't know whether he was in or not, but what I can tell you: he has absolutely TO-DIE-FOR garden lighting. Really. 

For a moment in the spirit of James, I am listening to a lovely Bach cantata, number 93. 

STATUS UPDATE

If you are wondering about the lack of posts here: my broadband is not working. I have been on the phone repeatedly to 3, who supply it, and they claim to be doing some sort of technical upgrade for my benefit which means things getting worse before they get better. 

In practice it means I have to log on six or seven times before I get a connection, and it generally only lasts a few minutes. This is enough to read or quickly comment, but not enough to upload photos or write carefully considered blogs posts!

Until it's fixed I just can't be bothered as I have already lost big long posts and emails that I hadn't saved. 

Lots of love to all

xxx

PS It broke in the middle of me writing this too! 

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE BAILIFFS AWAY

What a nice thought. 

Argh what a week it's been. I been all over the shop. It all kicked off with a seven-hour early morning writing marathon on Monday because I'd been putting off finishing a piece about Procrastination to run in the Independent (ha ha). 

I really like writing about non-gardening stuff as it makes me feel like I have more strings to my bow, ahem. No, it was good fun ringing up life coaches and saying "how in god's NAME can I motivate myself to be better at working and less attentive to mucking about on the internet?". Anyway their advice must have worked as Baklava has been neglected all week in favour of the commercially-viable. 

Then just as I finished Procrastination the Times emailed and asked for a 1000-word piece I owed them about Alain de Botton's new School of Life, so then I had to finish that. And then I drafted four 400-word pieces for the next month's columns. 

On Tuesday I ate two plums. No I didn't really. I wrote my regular column for the paper and then nipped off to Gravetye Manor in Sussex for lunch with Richard Bisgrove who's just written a really gorgeous, gorgeous new biography of William Robinson. He took us round the autumn garden in the rain talking to us about Robinson and why he was so unique. The book is a wonderful record of all Victorian gardening, not just WR - lots in about carpet bedding which Robinson loathed and campaigned vociferously against. If you like all that Gertrude Jekyll stuff, have a look at the book (they have it at Inner Temple actually on the RHS bookstall). Or treat yourself to afternoon tea at the place itself- I think it must Arabella's local. 

On Wednesday I got up and read through loads of stuff about Darwin for a meeting, then took a group of volunteers who work at the Ashmolean round Kew for an hour and a half. They told me (I was really shocked) that the Ashmolean is having a big redevelopment (I did know that bit) and closes in January for a whole year. So check out your favourite painting now before it goes into storage. 

Then I went for a meeting with Kew magazine about how to celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday next spring. Very interesting - I've been given carte blanche to rootle around in the archives hunting out Darwin-Kew connections. And they are going to pay me. Life doesn't get much better than that, as far as I'm concerned. 

Corsican Pine at Kew

On Thursday I spent absolutely hours tracking down people for a piece on "Behind the Scenes at Kew's Tropical Extravaganza", as the Orchid Festival has been renamed. It's not till February, but glossy mags have such long lead times... And writing up a book proposal that someone had come back to me on sounding reasonably interested but in a big hurry. This meant I was very late leaving my house to get to the Inner Temple. 

But by incredible good fortune, just as I arrived, VP was leaving! And she took pity on me and wandered round with me for about another 45 minutes which was very kind as I'm sure that's the difference between a seat on the way home and not. Here is a lady, laughing her head off remembering a three-way email chat we had the night before with Garden Monkey. 

And sorry, but I actually liked Alex James's balcony the best, even though I think he is a cheese-eating cocaine bender monkey. 

We admired the borders for absolutely ages, drinking in all Andrea's fantastic colour combinations. It's so amazing to see real, soil-based planting at a flower show - god, a delight. Anyway here is another shot of that Persicaria James has gone all gay for - this time with bright red Ricinus balls. 

After VP went, I went to dinner in the Hall of the Inner Temple with a wonderful bunch of judges and gardeners: Ursula Buchan, Andrew Lawson and Jerry Harpur were on my table. Presiding as hostess was Kathy Brown, who is about to appear on the channel 5 thing whose name I'm unable to remember. I can't wait to see her segment. 

And then today I've written all my bloggage for next week, carried on working on the book proposal, looked over some design ideas for that, spent ages catching up on email, chased some Tropical Extravaganza stuff, and I'm about to go for a pizza with my friend Jo. 

So if anyone even thinks "why have you been so crap about blogging this week" that's why. And, anyway: shouldn't you be watching Toby Buckland?? 

But finally, one last picture going out to all my heuchera mommas. The show was left open for the lawyers to look around, but most of the exhibitors had gone (they trusted lawyers?). This is the Heuchera sweetie shop, completely unattended. A little fantasy snap for ma homies. 

DOGS ARE DRINKING IN THEIR NOSES

Forget moping about Darce taking himself off the market permanently and check out this great site, which we could have done with at the beginning of the summer, frankly, here in cosmopolitan Ealing. Now I am in full possession of this document I will finally be able to speak about the incessant rain to all my neighbours, including the Polish family who've just moved in over the fence from my allotment (Leje zabami jak z cebra), the Greeks who live on the corner (Brekhei kareklopodara), and the nice Hindi man who runs the internet cafe (Bāriś bahut ho rahi hai).



Self-evidently, though, the person I can't wait to see is my friend Emma Lundin who speaks Norwegian.