Slow Life Blog from the Lake District
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Appleby Creamery Organic Brie

31/8/2011

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If this cheese is anything to go by, we are beating the French at their own game. It’s said that there are more artisan cheesemakers in England that in France now, but I hadn’t expected to find an English Brie which was better than the French. Actually I wouldn’t usually bother with Brie, it’s just too bland for my taste, but the Appleby Creamery Organic Brie is something else.

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Grange Lido

31/8/2011

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Someone at English Heritage has played a cruel trick by giving listed status to the derelict Lido at Grange. This poor old wreck has been closed for 20 years, its entrance covered with signs saying Keep Out and Danger of Death. Now, it has been given elevated status as a listed building leading some poor souls to believe that a magic wand will bring it back to life. The Lido is essentially a lump of decaying concrete and there isn’t the remotest possibility of it being restored, not least because no-one would be daft enough to spend a fortune rebuilding something which would cost another fortune to keep running.
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My comment that the decision to list it was “bonkers” formed the headline in our local newspaper, which so impressed the BBC that they came up to ask me to repeat it for the evening’s news. My reaction may have been a tad forceful, but I was entitled to have my say because the listing puts at risk my proposal, which has the full backing of the Town and District Council and received a majority vote in a Grange plebiscite, to turn the Lido into an attractive public area, with a garden, cafe and fitness centre. My proposals are fully funded and costed and don’t require a magic wand. The photo above shows the Lido as it is now, the photo below, an artist’s impression of how it might look.
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Slow Life Tomatoes

29/8/2011

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Shop bought tomatoes are usually vile. “Vine tomatoes” are even viler because insult is added to injury by being charged double for the same tasteless product with a piece of stalk attached.
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The only tomatoes worth eating in this country are those you grow yourself. We are picking ours now and they have a deep intense flavour which I find irresistible and so tomatoes are dominating my eating right now.

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Val Bourne’s Dahlias

27/8/2011

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“It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”
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Val Bourne has been a dahlia grower all her life. She’s not just any old dahlia grower like me, she’s on the RHS dahlia panel and they don’t come any grander than that in the world of dahlias. And so I was surprised to hear her confess today that her dahlias have failed this year.

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The Hong Kong Ideal

26/8/2011

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“Government is an inefficient industry because it has an insane barrier to entry. To compete with governments on existing land you have to win a war, an election or a revolution”
        - Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman has resolved the problem of competing with governments on existing land with his idea of building a new country on the ocean.

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A Cure For Box Blight

24/8/2011

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Is there, after all, a cure for box blight? The story is that a year ago the lovely mature box hedging in our kitchen garden was struck with box blight. We were in the middle of removing it when a chance conversation with Margaret Robinson at the Mammoth Onion gave me a ray of hope. She said that one possible solution was to cut the plant right down to the ground and let it regenerate. ​

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What is Garden Design?

22/8/2011

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I’ve been asked to write down, on a single sheet of paper, what I think are the five most important principles of garden design. It was an interesting exercise, not least because of what I had to leave out for reasons of space- things which are important to me, such as the use of vibrant colour and the need to make the garden productive. This is what I came up with:

Garden Design Principles


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Food Waste Digester

21/8/2011

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There are some very persuasive salesmen with some very glossy brochures going around trying to persuade hotels to “invest” in food waste digesters. These are very large plastic bins which plug into the mains and, with the aid of a “bio-enzymatic formula” will turn food leftovers into grey water. ​

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A Modern Folly

19/8/2011

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I’ve always admired the way Victorians would build a Folly on their land, which had no other purpose than to look good and be admired. One such Victorian was Alexander Brogden, the owner of Holme Island in Grange who, when he had finished building the Furness railway, built a circular Temple of Vesta in his garden. I came across a photo of the temple while I was doing some research on Grange in the Barrow Records Office and was immediately captivated by it. You get a good view of Holme Island from the Prospect Tower in my garden, and you can see that unfortunately it’s now a ruin. It’s also completely inaccessible on private land.

When I first saw the photo of the temple I thought how wonderful it would be to create something as beautiful. The idea stayed with me, and when I had the chance to buy the land behind the Newby Bridge Hotel, I thought that would be an ideal spot for it. The land, which had at one time been part of the ornamental gardens for Newby Bridge Mansion (as the hotel was formerly), had become completely overgrown, but it was in a commanding position overlooking both the lake and the hotel.

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Miso Paste- The World’s Slowest Food

18/8/2011

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On the day that Slow Food finally reached the Oxford English Dictionary (definition- “food that is carefully produced or prepared in accordance with local traditions”) it’s time to celebrate the slowest of slow foods: Miso paste. Miso paste is a staple of Japanese cooking- it’s the basis for Miso soup, which most Japanese have for breakfast every morning, and many other dishes. Every Japanese household will have some Miso paste at hand, and yet it takes between six months and a year to prepare.

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News Thump- Tesco

17/8/2011

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Destroying the High Street is our job, Tesco warn rioters
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Tesco have slammed the recent violent disorder that has raged around England by warning rioters that they will not relinquish their monopoly on destroying High Street shops without a fight.

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Cycle Mania

16/8/2011

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“If you go any slower Mister, you’ll be going backwards”. This jibe was thrown at me by a ten year old boy as I wearily cycled home from my office in the City. That was 20 years ago and in those days I would cycle to work every day. Why then, now that I live in the countryside do I go to work by car? I’ve often thought about it, but the fact is that the roads are too dangerous and the hills too steep. I’m still a keen cyclist and go out on my bike several times a week, but now only for pleasure and the exercise.

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Killer Badgers

15/8/2011

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​Badgers have such a friendly image that you’d never think of them as vicious killers. And yet twice recently I’ve been told about badgers on killing sprees; in the first case the victims were an entire hut of chickens and in the second some rare-breeed pheasants. Here, their worst crime has been to dig for worms in the lawn, so we’ve been very tolerant of the sett in our fern garden. Our family of badgers do most of their foraging in the sixty acre wood behind us and we’ve often seen them sidling over the cattle grid on their way into the wood, out of harm’s way.

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Sunflowers for the Gardening World Cup

13/8/2011

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I’ve been fretting about the sunflowers for my garden for the Gardening World Cup. They’ve taken on a significance quite out of proportion to their place in the original design, since it was announced that sunflowers are being planted in the contaminated land at Fukushima to clean the soil of radioactivity. As the Gardening World Cup this year is being held in aid of the victims of the tsunami my sunflowers have suddenly become quite significant. 

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Village Voices- Stanton St John

12/8/2011

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Nowadays, when we get upset if our broadband speed falls below 2mb it’s fascinating to reflect on the changes which have taken place within one lifetime. My uncle, Peter Gresswell (see yesterday’s posting), when he was well into retirement, wrote a history of the village of Stanton St John, the village near Oxford in which he lived for most of his adult life. In it he noted that:

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Peter Gresswell 1922-2011

11/8/2011

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“The secret of a happy life is the removal of all minor irritations”
         -  Peter Gresswell

​Peter Gresswell, my mother’s younger brother, who died today aged 88, understood the Slow Life better than anyone else. He kept his work/life balance in perfect equilibrium. In 1971 he wrote a pioneering book entitled “Environment”, at the same time keeping a golfing diary, which was later published as “Weekend Golfer”, the story, as it said on the dust jacket, of ” the average golfer, ever hopeful, ever hopeless”. 40 years on, both books are available today through Amazon and Abebooks.

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Self-seeded Poppies

9/8/2011

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It’s fun to experiment and very satisfying when an experiment pays off. Last year we had some very good looking self-seeded poppies in our flower beds and in the autumn, when I could hear the seeds rattling in their pods, I took a few handfuls and scattered them on the two beds next to the Orangery, which at that time were planted with dahlias. These beds aren’t in the greatest position for growing flowers as they are in the shade for much of the day, and I thought it would be interesting to see whether the seeds would germinate. In October the dahlias were lifted and in the spring the soil was turned over. 

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The Garden in the Clouds – Antony Woodward

7/8/2011

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“It is better to have your head in the clouds and know where you are- than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think you are in paradise.”
​              – Thoreau

“The best moment in love is climbing the stairs to your beloved’s apartment”
            – French saying


You’re not allowed to use a mobile phone in a quiet coach because, as the Japanese say, “this may annoy the neighbours”, but what’s the etiquette about laughing out loud? 


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Surprising Survivors Part 12- Echium Pininana

6/8/2011

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After waiting patiently in the ground for three years, some seeds from one of my favourite plants have sprung into life. This little miracle has happened in a patch of ground just below the house, which over the years had become neglected and very overgrown. After last winter’s cruel weather there was a lot of dead and dying stuff in there, which it was a great relief to clear out in time for our Open Day at the beginning of July.

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Making Mr McGregor

5/8/2011

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“I’m going to completely cover your eyes, nose and mouth and the whole of your face in this purple gunge. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to breathe through these two bits of rolled up paper which I’ll stick up your nostrils. Keep still, or you’ll block the airflow and remember that I won’t be able to see your face turning blue. Then I’ve got three minutes to apply strips of bandage to the paste before the whole mass hardens.

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Wayne in the Recording Studio

4/8/2011

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Wayne is loving it. Although this is his first time in a recording studio he’s completely relaxed. I popped in to say hello and wish him good luck and found him recording an original track written by Tim Riley, producer, song writer and music guru. The studio is at The Allen, in Kendal and Wayne is there to record his first album. He arrived with a clutch of his favourite songs, prepared to record an album of covers, but he’s enjoyed singing Tim’s composition so much that he’s asked for more of where that came from.

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Girls on Top

3/8/2011

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In a week when the EU (the idiots) are proposing that companies should by law have a minimum quota of women on their boards, its good to see a place where women are utterly dominant on their own merits – the record charts. This week, for the first time, female solo artists have taken the top 7 places in the album charts and 10 out of the top 12. They have also topped the album chart for 25 out of the first 29 weeks of this year. ​
And to show just how much they are punching above their weight, of the 5,000 albums released this year, only 11% have been by female artists.

Female artists also do well in the best selling albums of this century, but the most remarkable feature is that the first ten are all British. The list is:
1. Back to Bedlam- James Blunt 3,239,713
2. Back to Black- Amy Winehouse 3,092,198
3. No Angel- Dido 3,062,777
4. Spirit- Leona Lewis 3,034,653
5. White Ladder- David Gray 2,940,575
6. 1- The Beatles 2,898,235
7. Life For Rent- Dido 2,866,350
8. Beautiful World- Take That 2,820,079
9. A Rush of Blood to the Head- Coldplay 2,768,947
10. Hopes and Fears- Keane 2,761,649.
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Deservedly, Amy Winehouse is set to take over the top spot very soon, although it’s my bet that Adele, who is at No 12 with 21 will have overtaken her by the end of the year.
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The Voodoo Lily

2/8/2011

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This is one of the best small plants in my garden, made beautiful by its snake-skin stem. Its latin name is Sauromatum Venosum and it is not to be confused with the other voodoo lily, which is known as Pseudophallus, which translates as Misshapen Penis. The other voodoo lily is a carniverous plant which attracts insects by emitting a horrible smell, which is supposed to be resemble rotting flesh, whereas ours has no obnoxious habits and just sits there looking lovely. It does however have one strange characteristic in that, in the spring, a snake-skin stem will grow but before it produces any leaves will wither away. It will then re-grow fully in July.
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I bought one plant several years ago which has now spread to become a little family. It reproduces from little bulbs which appear at the base of the plant. ​

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The Garden in July

1/8/2011

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It’s many years since we’ve taken a summer holiday, partly because the summer is when we have the most work to do, but also because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. It’s a real wrench to spend even a couple of days away from the garden. But this July I had to be away for ten whole days and whilst it was sad to be away, it was a joy to return to see the astonishing change which had taken place in such a brief period. The garden had burst into colour. I was greeted by banks of vivid vibrant primary colours- reds, yellows and oranges from cannas, gladioli, dahlias and crocosmia. It was wonderful to see the garden at its best again and almost worth being away to see the transformation.
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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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