The lady who went round and round...

Also, English style, English Dogs, Table bulbs and Tulips.

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I was at a party a couple of weeks ago and talking to a woman I know quite well and like a lot. At first, as she moved, I thought, probably subconsciously that she just wanted to have her back to a nearby wall. I can relate to this - I like leaning against a wall at a party where you can kind of create a stake-out space and chat to people while you’re looking at others in the room. Being in the centre is a bit more difficult; people are walking past, and you don’t know who’s behind you…God I sound like a nervous horse. Are you a wall-leaner or a middle-of-the-party person?

Anyway that’s what I thought this lady was doing when she moved, but a strange thing happened; she kept on moving. Not away from me, just around. In fact, she went around and AROUND, so that we did a full circuit of the small area in which we were standing, not once, but twice. By this time I was freaking out and had became paranoid that I had a terrible smell, or that she really was trying to remove herself in the weirdest way. My paranoia was amplified because as she moved, so, of course, did I. She lead, and I followed. Was I supposed not to follow? If I hadn’t moved with her she would have fully been talking to my back within 3 minutes. Please help me…I am still so confused about it. The conversation was about her family, so I don’t think I was boring her. I am still wondering about it weeks later, and probably will for the rest of my life…it’s not as if I can ask her about it - I’m just not Larry David enough.

My father is VERY Larry David. He once squinted hard at someone who’d had her lips filled and said “What’ve you done to your FACE?” I’m not like that. Not yet.

And I’ve just got back from another party which was to celebrate the publication of a most sumptuous book called English Country House Style, and because the authors are old university friends, so too were many of the guests. What joy! We have, for the most part, ceased bouncing around like puppies and are now in our grey-flecked benign labrador phase, still wagging our tails enthusiastically at life but perhaps sitting in front of an Aga rather than peeing on the floor at the sight of a new person.

Isn’t it just divine? This book is filled to the brim with gorgeous. There are a lot of Agas and gigantic downstairs loos and happy dogs inside it. Things have obviously been tidied up, because everything is just perfection - you have to do that for the photograph but they haven’t tidied too much; there are still enough signs of real life to make it ‘English’. India Knight wrote beautifully about this lived-in, happy feel which in her recent thing on frazzled Englishwoman vibes. It’s about loving and living rather than curating and making things just so…you can buy the wallpaper and all the stuff, but it’s the family, friends and animals riding roughshod through the house and leaving their dents in the sofa cushions and fur on the bed that makes it what it is. Anyway, it’s thoroughly joyful to pore over, especially if, like me, you long to live in a thing that looks like a dolls house and have a squillion bedrooms and a house full of people and a pack of hounds! Highly recommend this book - perfect Christmas present. It put me in mind of another favourite book on my shelves, called The English Dog at Home by Felicity Wigan and Victoria Mather with photographs by Geoffrey Shakerley. This book is an 80’s treasure trove. Every single page is utter bliss (and I encourage you to tap on each one below and zoom in). There is a dog in this book called The Boiled Owl. Bliss. It’s out of print but the sort of thing you should scour charity bookshops for. Another perfect present. I mean…LOOK:

It’s October and I am of course gently thinking about bulbs. Not actually doing anything about it, but allowing the thought to enter my head and leave again at regular intervals. There are catalogues on my desk. Sarah Raven, J Parker, Avon etc. but I usually end up going to my wonderful local garden centre, which happens to be opposite my daughter’s school. I ‘find’ myself there most afternoons, just before pickup, and I also ‘find’ that if you just buy a couple of packets of tiny iris, or narcissi or muscari bulbs every day, you soon end up with enough tiny ‘table bulbs’. By this I mean little darlings to plant in wide shallow containers and put on a table or other surface. So when I say I’m ‘not actually doing anything about it’, well, I am, stealthily.

A table full of tiny bulbs is something you can do however tiny your space. Monty Don’s bulb table game (above) is spectacular, and Sarah Raven (below pic) has conveniently packaged up the idea here and here.

What I love about them is how you can bring individual pots inside when it’s grey and dreary and massively cheer yourself up. Queen of this is obviously Butter, who is a constant source of happy inspiration to me. Here she’s brought her bulbicodium daffs onto her kitchen table..I mean…HEAVEN!

In my experience it’s better not to mix small bulbs because if one variety goes over whilst the other is in full bloom you have a lot of faffing on your hands to remove spent blooms. Rather, you can simply put them all together on a table and let that be the way they all come together. And for what it’s worth, I will be planting pots of the following in small-ish containers, filled with peat-free multi-purpose which I will mix with a few handfuls of grit to keep things free-draining.

Muscari (grape hyacinth)

Narcissi ‘tete a tete’ (small daffodil)

Fritillaria meleagris (snakes head fritillary)

Crocus

Iris reticulata (tiny iris)

Scilla siberica

(Please tell me in the comments below if there’s anything I should add to this list)

I will cram the bulbs together but I won’t let them touch one-another. I will also cover the surface of the compost with a layer of grit. By ‘grit’ I mean the ‘horticultural grit’ you get in small bags, but of course you can use gravel or larger stones. The grit keeps moisture in, and, to a certain extent, prevents rodents from digging around too much. Squirrels and mice (and cats actually) are a problem if you love bulbs, and there are various ways to deal with them which I think I’ll share next week because I am a bit like Boggis Bunce and Bean all rolled into one when it comes to my bulbs being dug up by squirrels. Bastards.

The tulips are another matter; I never plant them until the end of November, and I will probably order my usual embarrassment of parrot types to plant in large pots. I’m a bit lazy about putting tulips in the flower beds and I live in hope that I will somehow ‘graduate’ and become a person who does this every year. If you suffer option paralysis (I do) then get a ‘mix’ or ‘collection’ - I often use Nyssen, Farmer Gracy or Sarah Raven for this. The brilliant Jo Thompson has a Spring Bulb Cheat Sheet on her ‘Gardening Mind’ which includes this beautiful mix …tempting! She has also just published a post on bulbs you can plant into your lawn to make it into a flower meadow because who doesn’t want one of those?

I’ll be back soon with a list I’ve been compiling of all the things my mother does which I wish I did too, but for some reason, don’t. If you liked this post please would you ‘like’ it by clicking on the heart below? Or even better, share it with someone you think would like it. THANK you!

x Laetitia