Legend has it that it was watching repeated showings of Local Hero on Film4 that we finally made the decision to move north. A pilgrimage was therefore in order so last weekend we took time out from plot to visit the star of the film, the telephone box in Pennan, a village about an hour east of here. As you can see we are finally enjoying some late summer sunshine. It's about time I updated you on the plot though. Things have moved on a lot. After threatening for several months, and despite my protestations, Valerie hired a digger to remove the weed-infested remnants of a dry-stone wall and a few boulders undisturbed since the Flandrian. The effect is to make the area look vast. It also means that I can lay out the pattern of beds. Partitioning a an equilateral triangle into something practical proved quite difficult and numerous clever designs have been binned by the artistic director. We seem to have settled on a 12 metre wide hexagon as the focal point with paths heading to all parts between its constituent triangles. The hexagon, being off-centre, allows most of the remaining beds to be orientated with the midday sun. The plan is for the area eventually to be divided up into "rooms" for increased wind protection, with the partition walls comprising cordon apples and redcurrants, and rampant climbers like kiwi and hops. Today, we will order our orchard to populate the top of the slope; 5 plums, 3 damsons, 3 pears, 2 cherries, a rather speculative quince, and few apples. Lots to do this autumn. I'll keep you posted.
Dallas you are looking good as always but I wondered how long it took the photogrpher to perfectly align your head with the low point in the mountains and the row of houses? For a while i thought they had transplanted your head onto the seafront!
ReplyDeleteAnyway I am suitably impressed with your plans for the autumn looking forward to seeing it on Google Earth. i might just gather some leaves and do some weeding. Autumn is a time of plenty and i am slowly munching my way through a pile of garlic (nice and sweet big difference to shop stuff) and beetroot - I was particularly hurt by your earlier beetroot is easy to grow comment! but every thing else is in the garden is done apart from weeds which are excelling. I have designated 2011 the year of the root vegetable (surely i cant go wrong there?) so await your tips. PS italian tomato harvest down 15% this year in Piacenza but gutturnio just as good as ever. Until the next time!