Really Excellent Containers...

Candle-lit faces. And Socks.

Look at this:

It’s a really terrible photo but still a perfect illustration of how to ‘do’ pots, for high-impact and low-maintenance, and crucially, for year-round interest. These groups of pots are at Beata Heuman’s studio, which is within 188 Hammersmith Road (an 1820s villa that was once used as a ‘country residence’ but is now on a giant road next to Hammersmith Roundabout). The house has been exquisitely restored inside of course, but I have been wanting to get inside in order to see the tiny back yard, because the front garden is just so EXCELLENT. Here, she has grouped terracotta pots and an urn, filled with a pleached tree, and underplanted with ferns, acanthus and pittosporum tobira. She’s got york stone and soleirolia of course. The whole thing is just wonderful, easy perfection don’t you think?

Here’s the other side:

Again, those pittosporum pots, and the trachelospermum covering the walls, which is underplanted with muehlenbeckia. Hellebores too.

And the thing that drew me in? This pot in the front:

There are two of these hornbeam domes, again in huge terracotta pots, which I have been admiring for years. I love them so much that I’m trying to do the same at home with two hornbeam plants that came out of my garden in its previous incarnation. I love the way they glow in the morning sun. And I just think how SMART and also beautiful they are, and how inspiring the whole thing is really.

Here are two more pictures:

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I want to tell you about Wright of Derby. Not fashionable (but that’s why I liked it). I took the younger children last weekend. It is a perfectly sized exhibition for children: two rooms, and with 3D things to look at as well as paintings. And for children, who, I find, gravitate more to photographic-style painting, Mr Wright of Derby is fascinating, in a ‘how did he paint that’ type of way. They stared at those paintings for a lot longer than they give any of the impressionists and I love that. I think we have been somewhat brainwashed into what is beautiful, and I always appreciate it when children hold a candle to that.

Here is a detail we particularly liked: The sparks flying off the white hot metal that these red-faced men are bashing into submission.

And obviously also the candle-lit faces

Anyway, thirty minutes tops staring at these wonders and then straight to the shop, where I found this lovely pleated necklace thing which I have worn on repeat, and off to a greasy spoon for an egg roll and chips.

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Oh, and socks.

Falke options for Men …women get four muted shades

I put out a plea for good socks on instagram and, well, let’s just say that this subject is a ‘thing’ amongst a lot of my friends over there. I just don’t think we want to wear tights any more…

I have come to realise that my sock requirements are very specific. They have to be ‘dressy’ like tights but not tights and properly long…to the knee or over the knee. A sock that stops mid-calf is like nails on a chalk board. I literally cannot even think about it without shivering. How odd.

After a LOT of research I think that what I’m actually after are MEN’s socks. PROPER men’s socks that proper well-dressed men (ones who would never show any skin between trouser and top of sock) wear. I want them in beautiful colours too. I was thrilled to find the really-quite-expensive-but-probably-worth-it Gallo, and spent a stupid amount of time filling my basket, only to find that shipping fees were astronomical. Woe. I finally found that Falke was the answer and have ordered five pairs, mostly of these men’s socks in different colours. Will report back but I’m also putting a screen shot here of all the other suggestions I was given (many of which are excellent suggestions for warm socks for being outdoors in), and others, like Pantherella look like exactly what I want but the colours aren’t right.

Enough.

Thank you for reading this. Please tell me if you have any further long, colourful sock info!

x Laetitia