No Comments | In: Lifestyle, Travel | tags: cuba, holiday, varadero. | #

I just downloaded some pictures from my phone and rediscovered these beautiful flowers that compelled me to capture them in a little frame of time. They can be found in the Kibble Palace within the Botanic Gardens, which I visited recently with my friend Rachel. I hadn’t visited for years, which is usually the way when you live close to something. Tragic.

There is a whole amazon-jungle section complete with the dense canopy of exotic leaves and palms you would expect in tropical climes. An unmistakable musk of undergrowth; sweet and laden with promise permeates the air, the occasional droplet of condensation smacking onto the flora below. 

On the day we visited, there was a section cordoned off with the kind of plastic tape the police use to protect a crime scene. I wondered if someone was going to jump out in front of us and shout: “There’s been a murder!” in full Glaswegian patois, shooing us away with a gruff eyebrow and a bark worse than death. No one did. But it definitely got me to thinking that the Kibble would be quite a good place to commit a murder:

• Relatively quiet
• Lots of cover from plant life
• Soil to bury the evidence
• Hosepipes lying around to wash away footprints/blood

I’m not even into CSI but I do have an over-active imagination… Luckily on this occasion we got in and out safely, suitably inspired by the plants and flowers on display.

I particularly loved these specimens as they look so perfectly formed, so intricate; almost as if they have been carved from wax with a precision tool. A waxwork museum dedicated to flowers. That would be well worth a visit!

No Comments | In: Lifestyle, Photography, Wannabe Journalist | | #

It’s there. In the garden. All bright and exciting and new and smelling of delicate cedars and pine and cherry like the inside of a sauna. I keep peeping out of the window to check it is still there. It is.

‘Operation Shed’ has been some time in the planning. From the realisation that the old shed – huge and spacious with all the little nails and hooks you could ask for – had two major flaws:

• It was built right next to the hedge, allowing dampness to conduct from the hedge to the shed every time it rained. Which was a lot.
• The roof was a ‘pent’ roof and had not been assembled correctly so was not at the optimal slant for drainage. Oh dear.

It all added up to a damp, slightly mouldy shed, threatening the sensitive equilibrium of the few things we kept in there…like the mower and the toolbox. It had to go.

Malleted down with force by husband (with help from my Dad), by some miracle our adjoining neighbour wanted to take it off our hands. Result! It was duly hauled over the hedge by the heft and flurry of his five brothers, leaving us with a nice square patch for the new arrival. Except underneath wasn’t a level base so we then had to buy, transport and shovel over half a tonne of builders gravel. We won’t mention that here…

The morning of ‘Shed Day’, I was ready with my paintbrush to get going straight away. Choosing the colour scheme had been such a difficult decision, but after debating between ‘Jack’s Potting Shed’, ‘Mary’s Watering Can’ and ‘Thomas’ Beehive’, we finally agreed on ‘Sea Holly’ from a totally different range of paint. Sorry Jack et al. Perhaps in another life?

It was only after I had done the first coat that I realised Sea Holly was pretty much identical to the colour of the feature wall in the bathroom. I really love deep, mystical turquoise – what can I say?

The inside was to be Thomas’ Beehive, a frothy primrose yellow (following a suggestion by my good friend Cara to up the ante on the interior shed decor), but when I looked at the smooth lines of the wood inside, the delicate finish, breathed in the delicious and somewhat intoxicating scent of new wood, I couldn’t do it. So the natural look prevails.

I laboured over two coats of Sea Holly, leaving the trim around the top and the window to be picked out in a contrast colour. Husband and I both decided a vibrant red would be the way to go, only to find that red isn’t an option for outdoor wood. It’s all about blending in with nature and muted garden tones. Right then. So a deep autumnal ‘Berry’ it was. And I am delighted with the result:)

There are no shelves up or anything yet, and the tools need to be hung nicely from well-positioned nails, but I thought that would be a nice job to embark upon with my Dad. Right Dad? You’re coming up for a visit soon aren’t you? Dad…

NB. For anyone wondering why on earth I would keep a broken teapot, it is because I have ’A Plan’ for it. A plan involving some kind of mosaic doorstep thing with plaster or cement or something. And I like the pretty colours and can’t bear to part with it. How often do you see a banana-print teapot anyway? That’s what my Mother said when she decided she really wanted it. For her birthday. So I secretly bought it for and she was delighted. So much so that when she made her first pot of tea in it, she forgot to empty it out and we just admired it on a shelf for weeks, probably months, until we wondered what the smell was. It was remnants of tea and teabags turned into a mini-mouldy-tea-compost. It was never used as a teapot again, for obvious reasons. Then the handle got broken off. And now it is destined to be turned into some crazy, haphazard doorstep mosaic; preserved and trodden on for the rest of its sad yellow life. Bananas!

4 Comments | In: Lifestyle, Trends | tags: berry, garden, new shed, paint, sea holly, shed, turquoise, wood. | #