Garden Treats

Doctor Pam's arrival found the weather trying to make amends for its former behaviour, but the prospect for the Hoppings still looked poor.

My Gardeners' World aspirations got the better of me on Friday afternoon and we tootled off to a garden centre in Birtley, Thing about garden centre stuff is that it tends to be very heavy, so the availability of Doctor Pam's car enabled me to hammer the plastic on all sorts of stuff.

I got:

* two really nice big blue earthenware planters,
* one bird table (sans pole to support it),
* one huge bamboo pole (which might support the bird table or get a rose up it),
* two lots of dianthus (Corona Cherry Magic) for the gaps in the tubs at the front door),
* one pack seed and insect suet feast (for wild birds),
* one pack berry treat feast (for wild birds),
* one "Seven Friendly Men" garden decoration.

The last is interesting. As you may remember, my intention on the garden decoration front, is to make various ludicrous objects from some kind of All Bran & Concrete Secret Recipe (when I find it - still looking).

But I couldn't resist this Seven Friendly Men thing (there was a bigger one called "Five Friendly Men"). There were quite a lot of them, so they were cheap, but they were obviously hand-made. There are seven men standing in a circle, looking in over, their arms round each other's shoulders. Their faces have a curious Inuit look to them. In the centre is a small bowl. (Wonder if Marja-Leena has come across anything like this?)

Anyway, whatever their origin, they look really cool standing in the middle of the lawn. I try not to think they may be pissing into the bowl.

Doctor Pam reckons she's never been to a garden centre before. It was, therefore, a revelation to her how much fun you can have there (including the wealth of wonderful real food available at the farm shop) without feeling you've fallen too deeply into the shocking ways of the Middle Classes.

Seek and ye shall find.

Some years ago, in a fanzine I was particularly fond of, the editor ran a series in which the same 10 questions were put to a different person each issue. I was never asked to complete the questionnaire, but I did it just the same. I don't remember the first nine questions or my answers, but I've never forgotten my answer to the last:

Q. When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
A. Someone else.

Which is a kinda tricksy way of getting to the subject of this post. What I found today was not what I was looking for.

There's been considerable interest in the recipe for Geoff Hamilton's All Bran concrete (well, one person asked), and I've done my best to find it today. I can see it in my mind's eye - a little piece of paper with the recipe

1 part All Bran,
2 parts powdered bismuth
1 part liquid nitrogen....

that sort of thing, written on it. It probably wasn't All Bran. Shredded Wheat? Cheerios? I don't think so. I know I put it Somewhere Safe.....

But my search has certainly uncovered a lot of stuff from my artistic past, and it's been a fascinating unearthing. For one thing (and this ties in with Marja-Leena's comment about papier-mache) I came across both a book on papier mache full of quite interesting ideas for fine art applications and this sketch for a sculpture:




I also rediscovered my old notebook in which I used to write down quotes from articles, books and other sources. Boy, am I glad to find that again.

Diderot developed a theory of ethics based on the idea of the statue; if we wanted to be good, he said, we must become sculptors of the self. Virtue is not natural to us; we achieve it, if at all, through a kind of artistic striving, cutting and shaping the material of which we are made, the intransigent stone of self-hood, and erecting an idealised effigy of ourselves in our own minds and in the minds of those around us and living as best we can according to its sublime example. I like that notion....

....What statue of myself did I erect long ago, I wonder? Must have been a gargoyle.
John Banville: Ghosts

I'll continue looking for the recipe, but I determined today to take a radical look at the way my work spaces are arranged. I think I've worked out a way of shifting furniture around, in part from one room to another, so that I have a better organised thinking and writing space, and a more open studio area.

This can only be a Good Thing and may even lead to further archaeological treasures.

The Secret Garden

I fancy a monolith in my garden, it would look great and I could pop out and do a bit of worshipping on hot summer nights, said Anna, commenting in Maria-Leena Rathje's blog.

Which set me to thinking about my garden.

The borders are pretty much full of the usual sort of things: cherry trees, broom, hawthorn, raspberries, rhubarb, pyracantha, clematis, birch, and like so. But the middle has a big balding lawn which serves no purpose at all and two weed-strewn beds which occasionally play host to courgettes and now hold the Martock Bean Enclosure.

Pretty damn dull, really.

When I was up at Duntrune, I was captivated by the garden there. Whether by design or neglect, the place has fallen into a considerable state of disrepair. The croquet lawn is full of tufts and weeds and - best of all - the stonework balustrades are overgrown with moss and ivy, roses and other creepers. Here and there, small bronze figurines peer out at you from the dark bushes. There's a rill dashing through, which the chaffinches were making great play in, and a splendid pond with a winged Mercury sitting gazing sombrely into it's depths.

Magic, indeed, like Sleeping Beauty's castle garden.

I want my garden to be like that. I have plans for a rockery through which water cascades, then runs down a channel to the pond. The pond, of course, will have to have at least one sloping side to allow the birds to get down and bathe.

When Patsy123 was here last we went to a garden centre which had some great arbours and swinging seats. Maybe I could have one of those.

But I'm particularly keen to introduce unexpected pieces of sculpture and ancient-appearing monoliths. Like the one above, perhaps. Paths made from mosaic pebbles and broken paving stones will wind through forest glades, leading the visitor to secret places and moonlit grottoes. Water will trickle audibly here and there, and there'll be the gentle swish of bamboo and tall grasses. The scent of jasmine, lavender and roses will fill the air. Curious objects will suddenly come into view. The wildlife will scuttle and rustle as we pass by. Sagging pagodas of an indefinable origin will waft their rotting vapours at us. Dark and brooding figures of the Elder Gods will loom out of the shrubbery, and brambles and thorns will tear at our legs as we run for the safety of the patio....

But how do I go about making my monoliths? Easy. Somewhere I have a recipe of Geoff Hamilton's showing how to make a kind of biodegradable concrete out of All Bran and cement!

Wait though. All Bran and cement? That can't be right, surely.....