The Garden Room

I was rootling about my office looking for the sheets I had put aside for lining the curtains. And then I remembered I had just used them for dressing the makeshift tables in my garden room.

Far nicer and a lot more fun.

The bird nest is empty. The poor bird laid an unviable egg. I have been creeping about for so long that I didn’t notice the bird had gone. Leaving behind just one unfertilised egg high up on the hoe.

I will need to lift it down and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

And to celebrate I decided on a thorough clean.

And the timing was perfect. In a gulp of sentimentality, Andrew has given me all his flower pots. And vases, and trestles terracotta pots, and.. and.

These are the ones he used to display all his flowers at his market in les Vans on a Saturday. My dear, dear friend is selling up his country retreat and moving to Paris for his retirement.

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I shall miss him. Terribly. He has been living this rural life for 20 years, and we are coming up to 15. We shared so much together and his wise gardening words and experience were invaluable.

And of course his hats! I ordered two more ones with the extra large brim and he finished making them on Wednesday. One day before I turned up with a huge empty boot to fill with loot.

I’m wearing one now as I type.

Well, I’m lucky that I will see him more regularly for lunch en route from the Ardeche and Paris and then London. But it is a pang.

I came back this week with so much lovely stuff from his potting shed and garden. All will be revealed in due course.

And the metal flower pots have pride of place where I now can do my bouquets.

And I can cut the flowers in the potager with these buckets that are so much lighter and better designed.

Gone will be the days of hauling huge black buckets of water about and then dragging them back to the garden room to arrange.

Creature will no doubt knock them over. Or try to get at the water inside to drink. But hopefully they will prove sturdy.

Oh and I promise to take more photos of the bouquets with that Dutch Orange background (very thin board). It needs a clean and another coat…

So many projects in this Garden Room now. All waiting for me to attend. (Note drying rose petals higher on the list than curtain lining.)