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The Zen Garden at Komyozen-Ji

26/6/2010

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“Is there a name in English for this kind of rain?” asked my Japanese host. “Torrential” I replied. “Good, torrential is perfect for visiting the Komyozen-Ji Zen garden. He was right. The garden, which is viewed from a terrace behind the Komyozen-Ji temple is best seen when the rain is dripping from the trees onto the mossy banks. It is without a doubt the most perfect, peaceful Japanese garden I’ve ever seen.

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A Japanese explains the meaning of Wabi-Sabi

26/6/2010

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Wabi-sabi is one of those Japanese phrases whose meaning is elusive in English. On a website devoted to wabi-sabi its meaning is said to have been originally associated with sadness and loneliness, but that it now means living a simple and modest lifestyle- one that is peaceful, balanced and in tune with nature. In other words more or less the Slow Life. Another definition is that wabi-sabi recognises three simple realities- that nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. Is wabi-sabi one of those indefinable foreign phrases which comes to mean more or less what the westerner wants it to mean? I put the question to a Japanese friend and his reply is that wabi-sabi means “less is more” and that the concept is best illustrated by a Japanese garden. The concept is explained in this video, ably translated by Phil Jacobson.
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Matsu Ramen in Fukuoka

26/6/2010

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Fukuoka (pronounced Fookoka) is renowned for the quality of its food, which is saying something in Japan.  Particularly its Ramen.  Ramen is a broth, made from pork bones, to which noodles are added together with vegetables and meat or seafood. It is a dish whish has been popularised in England by  the Wagamama chain, whose product, unfortunately, is nothing like the real thing.
Tonight I’m treated to the Fukuoka ramen speciality.  Its a shared dish which is served in a cauldron which is placed on a burner in the centre of the table. 

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Max, aged 5, catches a fish and eats it raw

25/6/2010

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The Japanese like their fish fresh.  They eat live octopus, which is served with a pair of scissors which are used to cut off the tentacles.  The disadvantage of this is that the suckers still operate and they can stick to your tongue, which makes swallowing difficult.
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Tonight I’m at a fish restaurant which has a stream running through it, which is teeming with sea bream.  If you want, you can catch your own fish, which the restaurant will prepare the way you want it.  I’m given a simple rod and line and some shrimp bait.  Within a minute I’ve got a fish on the line.  Its a good size and I ask the waitress to have half of it boiled and the other half served raw.

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Albizia Julibrissin

24/6/2010

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The Albizia Julibrissin (also known as the Persian Silk tree) is one of the most admired plants in my garden. It is a perfect tree for a small garden, with an “umbrella” look, never growing to more than ten feet tall, with mimosa-like leaves which have the charming characteristic of closing up at night.  The delicate pink flowers appear at the top of the tree, so it is best positioned where it can be viewed from above, which is why I have three examples on the lowest terrace of my Italian garden. 

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Gardening World Cup- Press Day

23/6/2010

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6 TV cameras and 65 pressmen have come to the Queen’s Palace in Huistenbosch, Nagasaki, for the launch of the gardening World Cup.  I’m there as one of the competitors, representing the UK.  There are two other contestants from the UK, Andy Sturgeon and James Towillis, whose show gardens were close to mine at the Chelsea Flower Show in May (Andy won “Best in Show” for his garden).   The gardening world cup is being organised by Ishihara Kazuyuki, Japan’s leading garden designer, who also had a garden at Chelsea this year (see my posting of May 8th, 2010).  The event is a competition, to be held in October this year, where 12 gardeners will each build a garden on the subject of “World Peace”.  The other competitors are from the USA, Canada, Holland, France, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
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The Nagasaki Peace Park Monument

23/6/2010

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When I was asked to design a garden in Nagasaki on the subject of “World Peace”, the organisors asked me to contribute a single sentence which summed up my thoughts on the subject of peace. At the time we were filming for “How The Other Half Live” and the producer Daniel kept Sara amused in the long gaps between takes by encouraging her to write Haiku poems- the Japanese form of poetry where there is strict scansion of 5,7 and 5 per line in three lines. This inspired me to make my contribution on ‘Peace’ in the form of a Haiku.  I had no idea at the time that two months later my words would be inscribed on a monument at the Nagasaki Peace Park.

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Morecambe Bay

15/6/2010

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No matter what I say
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay
And the eel grass in the cove

                          -   E. St Vincent Millais

To me Morecambe Bay is a view. To Tony it’s his tea. I thought I loved and appreciated the Bay as much as anyone until I met Tony. Tony understands the Bay and he’s the only person I’ve met who doesn’t fear it.

​The Bay has a fearsome reputation. Its quicksands claim lives every year. These aren’t the quicksands of the movies, which suck the victim under. The sands of Morecambe Bay are much crueller- they suck you up to the knees and hold you there until the tide comes in and drowns you. My youngest daughter, when only four, got stuck in the sands off the beach at Arnside and when I pulled her out of her wellington boots the suction of the sand was so strong that I couldn’t pull her boots out of the sand.


​Tony lives in a cottage right on the beach and has grown to know the Bay so well that he thinks nothing of venturing out on his own to cross it. He described to me the enormous beds of mussels which lie in the Bay, acres of them, a natural harvest which is there for the plucking. Which is about as close to Thoreau’s idea of the Slow Life as you can get, I reckon.

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A Great Tit feeds its young

14/6/2010

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I bought this cute little bird house at the National Gardens Scheme annual lunch at Holehird in March this year for it’s looks alone. Margaret placed it in an olive tree and we both agreed that it looked good there. We didn’t expect it to be taken up almost immediately as a nesting site. The house is now home to a family of Great Tits and this video shows one of the parents nipping in and out with food for its young.
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Bunny Guinness and Prince Charles

13/6/2010

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Of all the well known names we came across at the Chelsea Flower Show, I was particularly pleased to meet Bunny Guinness. We are on the same wavelength as far as gardening is concerned, not least on the subject of Slow Food. In today’s Telegraph Bunny Guinness manages to devote three whole pages in praise of Slow Food. She quotes a speech made by Prince Charles at a Slow Food event at Highgove in which the Prince says:

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Rod Liddle

13/6/2010

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I love Rod Liddle. He’s one of the few journalists who manages to be entertaining and thought provoking at the same time, which is why I never miss his columns in the Spectator and the Sunday Times. There was no question whose side I was on when Derek Hatton called him a “f****g fat, useless lump” and a “pathetic bully” when he appeared on “Come Dine with Me”. I was chuffed today to see a reference in his Sunday Times column to my appearance on “How The Other Half Lives”. He said he had watched the programme and was struck by the irony of someone from West Cumbria saying that they lived in a crime free area only weeks before Derrick Bird embarked on his killing spree. An excellent joke, only slightly spoiled by the fact that we don’t actually live in West Cumbria, which is an hour and a half away. But Rod Liddle is an excellent journalist and the first rule of journalism is not to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
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Two Beers or Not Two Beers

10/6/2010

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What is true simple and sincere is most congenial to man’s nature”
                                                  -   Cicero

Sarah Thurston has this quote from Cicero on the home page of her website, which proves her Slow Life credentials. She is also famous for living life in the fast lane, which she proved by giving the most magnificent, generous, party at the Dukes Theatre, Lancaster in celebration of her 60th birthday. Lavish quantities of Champagne (very Sarah) were followed by a sumptuous buffet from Very Simply French and then a brilliant cabaret in the Dukes Theatre, specially written for Sarah by her friends. 

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The First Strawberries

10/6/2010

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​It’s a miracle that any of these strawberries reached the bowl, as it was just too tempting to pop them straight into my mouth from the plant. These are the first strawberries of this year, which is just as well, as I picked the last of the asparagus on Saturday and there’s not much else to eat in the garden. But the rhubarb is still going strong and the gooseberries are not far behind- in fact I had a couple of large, but still too sour, gooseberries from the bush this evening.
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Garden Photos

1/6/2010

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Helen Shaw our official photographer for the day crept into the garden at first light on judging day and took some atmospheric photographs before the sun became too bright and crowds too dense.  She also managed to capture some of the celebs as they went by. This slideshow is a selection of her photos accompanied by Lynyard Skynard singing Free Bird.
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    ​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.

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