Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me

Maggy Howarth Remembered

25/9/2024

1 Comment

 
Picture
Maggy in her workshop
Maggy Howarth has played an important part in my gardening life and so it was with great sadness that I learnt of her death. She designed the pebble mosaics for my first show garden, The Beekeeper’s Garden at Hampton Court (video) in 2009 and in the following year, the magnificent peacock mosaic for my garden at Chelsea, The Victorian Aviary Garden.

She collected the pebbles from a beach in Anglesey, with permission from its aristocratic owner and enhanced the design with pottery figures and with glass. Her obituaries in the Guardian and the Telegraph amply describe her achievements and so, apart from saying how delightful she was, I will only add a couple of personal anecdotes. The RHS show at Hampton Court was opened by Princess Alexandra, who was enthused by Maggy’s mosaics. The following year the Princess paid a visit to my garden at Chelsea and again expressed her delight at Maggy’s design and asked for her contact details. This led, I believe, to her commissioning a mosaic for her own garden, which led in turn to a commission from her cousin, the Queen. The obituaries refer to current commissions from King Charles at Balmoral and Sandringham so it is possible that she received several royal commissions.

Secondly, I have always felt a little guilty and perhaps responsible for the death of her husband Boris (Guardian obituary). Boris was a folk singer, artist, stone carver, friend of Adrian Mitchell and founder of the Lancaster Street theatre. He was also a keen gardener creating, with Maggy, a hilltop farm garden at their home at Wennington, on the edge of the Bowland Valley. Maggy’s workshop was at their home and Boris was mowing the lawn one day when I was indoors with Maggy discussing our plans for the bee mosaic. Our meeting over-ran and Boris came in looking rather irritated and asking when he would get his lunch. Maggy sent him back to the garden. The following day I learnt that he had died of a heart attack that afternoon in the garden and realised with a pang of guilt that the irritation caused by his missed lunch may have been a contributing factor.

Maggy’s mosaics are now installed in my garden. She cleverly designed the mosaics in sections, putting the pebbles onto concrete slabs, which fit together seamlessly, but can be easily detached and re-assembled. Once together they are indestructible. The peacock mosaic is in its third home, on a new terrace set high in the garden which looks, fittingly, towards Maggy’s hilltop home and workshop at Wennington, where her son George is carrying on her work.
Picture
Maggy cleaning the Peacock mosaic
Picture
From the Beekeeper’s Garden
Picture
Princess Alexandra in the Beekeeper’s Garden
Picture
Pottery birds for the Peacock mosaic
Picture
Detail of the Peacock mosaic
Picture
The Peacock mosaic installed on Main Avenue at the Chelsea Flower Show
Picture
The Peacock mosaic installed on Main Avenue at the Chelsea Flower Show
Picture
Detail of the Beekeeper’s Garden installed at Yewbarrow House

1 Comment

Torture by bamboo

7/6/2017

1 Comment

 
Picture
June 2016
Picture
April 2017
Picture
December 2016
Picture
May 2017
Does torture by bamboo, where a man is tied to the ground and bamboo grows into him, really work? You’d have thought that the total exclusion of light would stop the plant growing, and my guess is that this form of torture is more the stuff of fiction than history.  But there are other forms of torture by bamboo, as everyone who has planted a clump, only to see it take over their garden, will know.  The second form is the torture of trying to remove it.  Bamboo is tenacious stuff, and you have to be very strong indeed to dig it out.
​
Our land at Itoshima was well and truly tortured by bamboo when we took it over.  The bamboo was so dense that nothing else would grow. The first three months were spent digging it out, mainly by Matt’s stalwart bunch of Workaway volunteers.  Then the bamboo came in useful. Chris, with his usual creative flair, used it to make a decorative fence round the vegetable garden. These four photos show how bamboo ceased to be an intruder and became our friend.
1 Comment

Ivorish

19/12/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
The Japanese comedian, Yuriko Katani makes fun of the British use of ‘ish’, a concept which is unknown in Japan. She said that she suggested to her mother that they should meet for lunch at somewhere between five past one and half past, and that her mother reacted at first with scorn, and then with hatred. Could it be, she wondered, that we are called Brit’ish’ because of our fondness for the concept?

Read More
1 Comment

The Itoshima tea plantation

19/12/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
Now that the garden has been cleared, the fun begins. We started with a visit to Yame, where Fukuoka’s best tea is grown, to see the champion tea grower of them all, Akihito Takaki. Aki has ten hectares of tea plantation, which may not seem much, but it’s enough to harvest 20 tons of leaves, which make 4 tons of green and black tea. Those beautifully manicured rows of tea are harvested by machine- the hand picked plants are far less ornamental. Fortuitously, Aki also supplies one year old plants, of which he has a stock of a million, no less.

Read More
1 Comment

Workaways

17/12/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Kevin, from the US, but with Chinese parents, and Laura from Canada arrived on the first day, and stayed to the end, ten weeks later. In between they were joined by 15 females and 6 males, from four continents and ranging in age from seventeen to sixty. These were the Workaway volunteers who exchanged 5 hours of hard work a day for free food and lodging.

Read More
0 Comments

The Itoshima garden project

16/12/2016

0 Comments

 
In 2000 Hilton Hotels bought the side of a mountain by the coast in Itoshima, intending to build a resort there. Unfortunately for them this was prime oyster territory and the local fishermen kicked up such a stink about the threat of pollution that the scheme foundered. My friend Minohara-San bought the 70 hectares for a song. When he heard that I was looking for land to build a house and garden he very kindly offered me a plot right on top of the mountain, and this gave rise to the idea of creating a ‘Slow Life’ village where city dwellers could come and find out about the ways of the countryside. But he had placed the land in the hands of an educational charity who wouldn’t allow any buildings, whatever the environmental credentials, so the scheme fell by the by.

Read More
0 Comments

Jamie Oliver's (Mad) Sugar Campaign

31/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
George Osborne must be licking his lips as enthusiastically as a child let loose in a sweetshop at the news that Jamie Oliver (bless him) is starting a campaign to raise a tax on sugar.  Jamie launched his campaign today at Feastival when he whipped up the crowd into a frenzy unequalled since the days of Billy Graham, saying that the money raised by taxing sugar would rescue the NHS and save millions of lives into the bargain.  His argument is that obesity is caused by sugar, and that the NHS is creaking under the strain of treating obese and diabetic patients.


Read More
0 Comments

Kate Moss's Damson Jam

29/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
Kate Moss was rather mean with her time at Feastival.  Several times we saw her charge by at a hundred miles an hour, but she didn’t stop and chat, unlike less nervous guests, such as Paloma Faith.  Kate has a farm nearby, with some Damson trees, which produce so much fruit that she’s decided to bring her own brand of Damson jam to market, which she’s called “Kate’s Sweet and Sticky”. She posed with the food writer Gizzi Erskine for some publicity photos with a jar presumably made from last years’ crop. Someone should tell Kate that the Cotswolds is no place to be making Damson jam. 

​The home of Damsons is of course the Lyth Valley, at the centre of which is the Damson Dene Hotel, where the Damson Society hold all their meetings. She should come to the Lake District one day, and speak to the experts.  At the same time we would be more than happy to let her into the secret of making Damson Gin, a few drops of which would maybe encourage her to be less uptight.
0 Comments

New Dahlias

2/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
This is an exciting time of year, when we get to see what new varieties of Dahlias we’ve produced. At the end of every autumn, when the first frosts have begun to make the plants unsightly, and the flowers are no longer worth picking, I stop de-heading the Dahlias, and start to collect the seeds.  The seeds are planted out in the spring and the plants come into flower in July and August.  Every one is different, and an entirely new hybrid.  The flowers in these photos are from seeds taken from our own Margaret Denby Dahlia (see link) which is a tall plant with unusually large leaves, and a slight scent.  Its only disadvantage is that the flowers are singles.  These new plants are equally tall, but are doubles.  None of them is perfect, but we’ll take cuttings next spring, and see how they turn out.  Progress!
0 Comments

Balancing Stones at Chelsea 2015

17/5/2015

0 Comments

 
I wonder what Joseph Paxton would have made of Dan Pearson’s pastiche of the rock garden which he constructed at Chatsworth in 1842? The judges and the pundits were undoubtedly impressed as it won the “Best in Show” award.  The feat of lugging all those great rocks down from Derbyshire was enough to win everyone’s admiration. But it’s only impressive to those who haven’t seen the real thing. 

Read More
0 Comments

Bay Villa – 100 Five Star Reviews

14/5/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
A shot of the Tripadvisor page for Bay Villa.
​
This is the time of year when tripadvisor hands out its awards and I’m pleased to say that my five hotels have five certificates of excellence between them but the accolades have to go to Bay Villa which has also been given a Bravo! award and has a score of 9.7 from booking.com which is about as good as it gets. In little more than a year since Bay Villa opened in April 2014 it has received 100 five star reviews. I think Margaret can take the credit for this because the only two reviews that were not five star were made when she wasn’t there.
0 Comments

The Numpties at Grange Town Council

16/8/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
I’ve applied for planning permission to turn a scruffy area of scrubland on the edge of Hampsfell Road into a small space where cars can park and turn around , to stop the road becoming congested on my garden Open Days. The impetus for this has come from my neighbours, none of whom object to the plan, but bizarrely the Grange Town Council has. They’ve had the bright idea that instead I should ferry people from the town in a land train. ​

Read More
0 Comments

Bay Villa – Four Months On

16/8/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
It’s never a good idea to raise people’s expectations too high, as there’s a risk that they will be disappointed.  This was the worry which I had with our website for Bay Villa – the rooms were so photogenic that I thought the reality might not live up to the photos.  It turns out I was wrong.  The most common reaction, when people are shown a room is to saw “Wow!”.  We had a soft opening four months ago, with no advance publicity, but the word has spread, and the reaction from our guests has been wonderful.
0 Comments

Yewbarrow House Garden in July 2014

1/8/2014

0 Comments

 
In July we’ve had tour groups from Estonia, Pennsylvania and Sweden, as well as our usual NGS Open Day, but the month has been dominated by artists’ events organised by Alan Ward.  First, the Life Models’ day and then the Artists’ Day, which is now established as an annual event.  So July’s slideshow is dominated by artists, some of them in the altogether. Luckily the weather has been warm, which has been good for the flowers as well.
0 Comments

Dylan vs. Eminem

11/7/2014

0 Comments

 
The last time I was at Wembley it was to see Bob Dylan; this time Eminem. Dylan, the old cynic, likes to play tricks with his fans by singing the words of his back catalogue to new tunes, so that you spend most of the time wondering what the hell it is you’re listening to. The distortion caused by the volume being turned up to the maximum doesn’t help.

Read More
0 Comments

Mr Chips at Work

7/7/2014

0 Comments

 
The British public are so damned polite and relentless in their praise that it comes as a breath of fresh air when you receive a complaint. About five, or it may have been ten, years ago (probably ten as it came hand-written) I received a letter from a visitor saying that it was all very well building gazebos and towers from which to enjoy the view, but this was next to useless if the viewer wasn’t given any clue as to what they were looking at. ​

Read More
0 Comments

Sunday Cobblepot

6/7/2014

0 Comments

 
Sunday Cobblepot, (pictured here with her Shih Tzu called Elmer) the most interesting of Saturday’s life models, was fascinated by the clump of ‘Hot Lips’ Salvia, growing in the lower terrace.  It reminded her of ‘Hot Lips Houlihan’ from M*A*S*H, a show which she loves so much that she has its star, Alan Alda, tattooed onto her right arm.  She’s also mad about the Avengers and has John Steed, complete with bowler hat, on her chest and a full-length Emma Peel, with bowler and rolled umbrella, on her left leg.  But this is no frivolous fascination with television stars of the sixties and seventies – Sunday (her real name) is about to finish a PhD on the subject of fashion design as portrayed on TV in that era. A book will follow, no doubt to great acclaim knowing Sunday’s skill at self-promotion. The generation gap has well and truly disappeared when girls of my daughters’ age know more about the TV of my youth than I do.
0 Comments

Life Class Day at Yewbarrow House

5/7/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Slow life doesn’t come any slower than this.  The life models had to keep perfectly still, sometimes in water, for up to an hour.  Alan Ward, who holds a life class at the Storey Institute every Saturday, booked 11 models, 5 male, 5 female and one trans-gender, to pose for his students in my garden.  We were expecting a washout, after two inches of rain had been dumped on us the day before, but by a miracle the clouds disappeared just as the models started to arrive and we were bathed in sunshine all day long.  

Read More
0 Comments

Road Testing the Google Glass

4/7/2014

0 Comments

 
I’ve been road testing my new toy, aka the Google Glass, by using it to record a video while out on my bike. The picture quality in video mode isn’t as good as it is for still pictures, but I think it did pretty well whilst I hurtled along at speeds of up to 30 mph. You get a good sense of the fun I’m having on these narrow country lanes.  ​

Read More
0 Comments

The Bees Are Back

3/7/2014

0 Comments

 

Picture
The bees are back- if they ever went away. As this video vividly shows, the flowers on my echiums are smothered in bees. And as there are several dozen echiums in the garden and each flower spires is between 4 and 6 feet long, this amounts to an awful lot of bees. Honey bees prefer blue flowers, so the lavenders and salvias are also getting their fair share. After the blue flowers in popularity come the white, of which my cabbage palms and sea kale are doing well in attracting bees.
​
In spite of the plethora of honey bees, I don’t keep a working hive at the moment. I’ve got a hive, but can’t spare the time to make my own honey, so I leave that to the experts. As a result I rely on my favourite shop, the Farm Shop at Sizergh for my honey supplies. I buy runny honey, supplied by Nook Farm in Cumbria, which is perfect with my porridge in the morning. But when I looked for the Nook Farm brand, the clear honey was out of stock, so I picked up the jar pictured below. It looked just the ticket, with its artisan jar, and farm shop price. Luckily, I checked the label, which disclosed that it isn’t local at all, not even British. The small print revealed that it was the “produce of EU or non-EU countries”. To my mind, that’s a bit of a con trick. If I was looking for rubbish like that I’d go to Tesco’s and pay half the price. Perhaps I should make my own honey after all.


0 Comments

The Scurrilous Squirrel

2/7/2014

0 Comments

 
I caught the squirrel red-handed, or in this case red-toothed, with a ripe strawberry in its mouth.  Not just any strawberry but one of the fattest, reddest, juiciest in my crop.  At moments like this Jeanette Winterson*-like ideas of revenge come to mind, but as the squirrel isn’t as tasty as a rabbit, I’m told, I contented myself with thoughts of a cruel and painful punishment.  But squirrels move fast and I didn’t have my gun with me. ​

Read More
0 Comments

Yewbarrow House Gardens in June

1/7/2014

0 Comments

 

June slideshow from Jonathan Denby on Vimeo.

My overwhelming impression of the garden this June has been the scent. The most impressive flowers have been the peonies, of which one, Cora Stubbs, supplied by Cath’s Garden Plants, is gloriously fragrant, but some of the best perfume has come from less distinguished plants. The strongest, whose scent pervaded the entire garden, has been the Cordyline Australis, or cabbage tree, a half-hardy palm, which produces masses of white flowers near the crown. Another white scented flower in June is the Crambe Maritima, which self-seeds freely in my garden. A particularly spectacular specimen emerged among the Gunnera this year. As these flowers fade, their scent is gradually being replaced by the sweet small of Buddleia Davidii. This slideshow of the garden in June may look good but it can’t, regretfully, convey the entire picture.
0 Comments

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition

30/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
The art is for sale and there are plenty of little red dots, but is there anything here which I would like to have in my home, let alone pay for it? If the truth be told, precious little. There are some attempts to be witty, but nothing which raises a bigger smile than the cartoon in my daily paper, nor anything more profound. The standard of craftsmanship, as in the ability to draw, paint or sculpt, is shockingly poor.

But amongst the hundreds of exhibits one or two attracted attention. I particularly liked Ron Arad’s bicycle, which was accompanied by a video (shown above) of the artist gingerly venturing out on it for a few yards on a London road. 


Read More
0 Comments

Crackling

29/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture

Picture
“There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted crackling, as it is well called”
            -Charles Lamb “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig”, 1822
​
My Slow Life on a Sunday begins with coffee at the Riverside, a leisurely interlude at Damson Dene and, after my chores have been completed, lunch in the Carvery at Newby Bridge. A Carvery may be spectacularly old hat, but it is close to my heart and in one sense is the very foundation of my career in hospitality. The story begins in 1991 when I became the reluctant owner of the bankrupt and moribund Hill Foot Hotel in Ulverston and wondered what to do with it. Someone suggested that I might find inspiration in the Carvery at the Clarence House Hotel in Dalton, so Margaret and I went one Monday night and we couldn’t believe it. There were 100 guests on what should

Read More
0 Comments

Pub of the Year Awards – Cuckoo Brow Inn vs. the Wild Boar Hotel

28/6/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture

Picture
This being the Awards season I found myself with 250 other hopefuls at the Castle Green for the Cumbria Tourism awards ceremony. Our Cuckoo Brow was up for “Tourism Pub” of the year, against the Wild Boar, who were unlikely rivals in the pub category, as they are a hotel. I know the Boar well, as it’s just down the road from the Damson Dene and of a very similar size, with 36 bedrooms, as against Damson Dene’s 40. But they have a wonderful talent for reinventing themselves and two years ago walked away with the award for “Best B&B”, which raised quite a few eyebrows amongst the owners of real B&B’s, who have never known the Boar as anything but a hotel. And blow me down they’ve done it again in the pub category. No-one will be surprised if next time they are “Caravan Park of the Year”. Dan and Sally were very gracious in defeat, sending them a warm message of congratulations. They are lovely people and can take solace in the fact that although the Cuckoo Brow is one third the size of the Boar they achieve a lot more 5 Star ratings on Trip Advisor.


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous


    ​About Slow Life

    The idea of Slow Life is to take the principles of Slow Food, which are “good, clean and fair”, and extend them to life in general.

    Here in the Lake District, the air is clean, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is calm. If we don’t grow food ourselves, we can buy it in friendly small shops, where you know the quality is going to be the best.

    This blog is a celebration of the Slow Life, with forays into the world of design, music, the arts, gardens, and my particular weakness, Japan.

    Archives

    September 2024
    June 2017
    December 2016
    August 2015
    May 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009

    RSS Feed

Home   |   About Me   |   Contact Me

Jonathan Denby's Slow Life blog from the Lake District

© Copyright Slow Life 2024. All rights reserved   |   cookie policy    |   Site by Treble3
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Contact Me