“This is without doubt the most difficult assignment I’ve ever undertaken” were Alan Ward’s words when he showed me the finished Angel. Alan and his partner Chris have been working flat out since they arrived at Huis Ten Bosch, but it wasn’t simply the amount of work which made this job hard- the difficulty arose from the fact that Alan usually works with stone, but this time he had to use plaster. This involved making a framework from bamboo, covering the frame in chicken wire and then wrapping the frame in bandage. The resulting structure was then coated in the finest grade plaster, from which the carving was made. When the plaster is mixed it is ready to use when “flowers” appear on the surface- quite an appropriate image for an gardening event.
Alan and Chris have done a magnificent job- as this photo shows. The statue certainly has the “Wow” factor and I can only hope that the rest of the garden will do it justice.
Archive for September, 2010
Thursday, September 30th, 2010
The Gardening World Cup- The Angel of Peace
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Six Tuscan Columns
Six Tuscan columns are an essential feature in the design of my garden for the Gardening World Cup. Two sets of double columns frame the statue in the centre of the loggia and a column at each end adds balance. The columns are identical, each 7ft in height and for that extra touch of elegance they should taper slightly from the base to the top. About a fortnight ago I was made aware that Tuscan columns are not stock items in Japan and that we would have to get them made especially- and could I send the exact measurements to our contractors in Japan? Today I saw what they had managed to knock up in such a short period of time. The photo shows what they have achieved. They are made of solid cedar using tools which were designed to make children’s spinning tops. This astonishing achievement is the work of the project director’s cousin, who has a workshop set up for making children’s toys. The whole job was completed in just four days from getting the drawings and they are perfect.
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010
Slow Is Beautiful
I was excited to come across a booked, published four years ago, which extolls the Slow Life. The author is an American academic, Cecile Andrews and the book is called “Slow is Beautiful”. Her theme is that we should encourage joie de vivre, an enjoyment of life and that we should take more leisure time and use it constructively. But for all her good ideas and her emphasis on humour and light heartedness it is evident that the author herself is consumed by anger, bitterness and sometimes downright hatred. Her anger is directed at corporations, the capitalist system, even the idea of competition itself and, most of all, George Bush, for whom she reserves her most potent venom. To achieve her ends she wants to change the law; she wants to ban; she wants to control. She thinks she knows best and wants to impose her will on others. This is not my idea of the Slow Life. I don’t want to change the world by compulsion. I only want to influence people’s actions by the strength of my arguments and the force of my example.
Monday, September 27th, 2010
Ground Breaking ceremony for The Gardening World Cup
Before any major building operation begins in Japan a ceremony is performed under the Shinto religion in which the participants pray for the successful completion of the project. It is known as a Ground Breaking ceremony and this morning all the gardeners who are participating in The Gardening World Cup, together with representatives of the contractors and the organisers, got together in the Royal Palace at Huis Ten Bosch for such a ceremony. It is conducted by a Shinto priest and involves the symbolic shovelling of earth and the sprinkling of rice wine. In former times the ceremony would end with the ritual drinking of rice wine, but so many accidents happened when people returned to work drunk that nowadays they make do with coffee. As we did too, regrettably.
Sunday, September 26th, 2010
The Gardening World Cup- On Site
My flight was diverted because of a storm. At Tokyo airport flights were being cancelled because of typhoons. This isn’t a surprise- we were warned that the first ever Gardening World Cup was being staged in the typhoon season. Here at Huis Ten Bosch conditions are relatively calm, although the rain is fierce and the humidity high. These aren’t ideal conditions for building a show garden but the workers are nothing daunted and show complete confidence that they will get the job done on time. This photo shows work underway on building the foundations for the loggia in my show garden.
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
Rinco’s Restaurant
At long last there’s a film to rival Babette’s Feast in the foodie stakes. The film in its native Japan is called Shokudo Katatsumurai, but the version with English sub-titles is known as ‘Rinco’s Restaurant’. Rinco lives in a small rural village with her louche mother and a pig. The pig, Hermes, is the mother’s pet, is kept indoors, hogs the sofa and even shares the mother’s bed. Rinco sets up a restaurant in a glorified shed in the garden. There is only one table in the restaurant and no menu and the food which Rinco cooks has the magical ability to transform people’s lives. In one scene, a widow dressed in black and borne down with misery, is served course after course during which she is gradually transported out of her misery. The scene lasts about ten minutes without any dialogue, during which all you see is Rinco preparing each course and the widow eating them. It is utterly charming.
I’m indebted to Mark Schilling of the Japan Times for the information that there’s a thriving sub-culture in Japan of films about women in crisis who find redemption through food. They include Seagull Restaurant, Flavour of Happiness and Nonchan Noriben. After enjoying Rinco’s restaurant to much, I can’t wait to get hold of them.
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Alan Ward’s Angel
Alan Ward arrived in Japan only a week ago. His mission is to construct an Angel, which will be the centre-piece for my garden at the “Gardening World Cup”. The original idea was that it would be carved from a single piece of white alabaster, but the stone wasn’t available in Nagasaki, so Alan has constructed a frame from raw bamboo and the outer surface will be made from powdered alabaster. He cut the bamboo himself from a dense forest close to the workmen’s cottage in which he is staying. The heat is searing and there are problems with mosquitos. And so I was utterly astonished to open an attachment from an email sent to me via his mobile phone, which contained this photo of his “work in progress”. It looks amazing. I’ll be with his in three days and can’t wait to see it.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
Real Hospitality at Holbeck Ghyll
We paid a return visit to Holbeck Ghyll today for a Lakes Hospitality lunch. The hotel gave us a very good price and of course it was a sell-out- who could resist the chance to have a Michelin starred meal at half price? Now, the usual format when we get these excellent deals from posh places is that the chefs get their revenge by giving us a pale imitation of the usual fare- something like their “take” on shepherds pie, for instance. Anything to achieve their GP. But there was none of this cheap-skate nonsense today- we were given the full works, including all the little freebies, such as an amuse bouche to start with and chocolate truffles with the coffee. The new owners have been at Holbeck Ghyll for just six months ( see my posting of 25th March). The food is better than ever, and if their generosity of spirit is anything to go by, Holbeck Ghyll is going to fly under their stewardship.
(photo courtesy of Tony Blaney)
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Our Sweetcorn Crop Failure
Two thirds of my sweetcorn crop has failed. The extent of the disaster can be seen from this photo. The ones that came good were those which we grew from seed and which we planted out in good time. But I felt we didn’t have enough and I bought a large batch of small plants from Mammoth Onion on 16th June. They were planted out a week later, just at the time when the warm dry weather ended and the rains began. Or to put it another way, the time when a hose-pipe ban was imposed. The plants never really took hold and the result is corns like the ones on the right of the photo, which are good enough for Henry, our guinea pig, but not for anything else
Monday, September 20th, 2010
The curious tale of Lord Tonypandy’s Damson Tree
In the centre of the lawn at the Damson Dene Hotel is a lovely Damson Tree, under which is a plaque which reads:
‘This Damson Tree was planted by Viscount Tonypandy on the 8th July 1993′
Lord Tonypandy was the Speaker of the House of Commons at the time when proceedings were first televised (he was then known as George Thomas), whose Welsh-accented cries of “Order, Order” were so well known. At the time when I bought the Damson Dene Hotel, ten years ago, Lord Tonypandy’s tree was in a very sorry state, unable to bear fruit and obviously on its way out. I invited our local Tory MP, Tim Collins, who was in the Shadow Cabinet and destined for greatness, to plant a replacement. A planting ceremony took place, which was well publicised in the local papers. Tim’s tree thrived, while Lord Tonypandy’s continued to decline.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Tim Collins lost his seat in the general election of 2005. He left politics as well as the House of Commons. From that moment on, his tree fell into decline. Within a year it was dead. But at the same time, Lord Tonypandy’s took on a new lease of life. Now, five years later it has made a full recovery and for the first time is laden with fruit. There is no moral to this tale.