Glorious sunny day on Saturday, we went to Winchelsea to view the Open
Gardens. Goodness me, they were lovely…. real English dense borders
piled against old walls, heavy with roses – trickling water, sweeping
green lawns, lolling labradors, lily ponds, sweet peas, sparkling
swimming pools – the owners of those places really have it all.
They sat nervously outside their Farrow and Ball painted back doors – no need. The visitors were mostly well-to-do linen-trousered ladies and gentlemen in panama hats, marvelling at the delphiniums. We love gardens – can’t wait to get stuck into the garden at the new house – no time yet. It was interesting to see how gardens that had obviously been put together by professional garden designers could somehow not quite work, while other apparently random gardens were actually beautifully composed. Quite a few gardeners employed there, we felt…. We had tea and cake sitting out in the back courtyard of the posh shop and coffee place. Very nice.
Our house is coming on well – such hard work, but we are so pleased with it. We can sit in our glassed-in verandah watching the ships pass – it feels so light and airy compared with our familiar Victorian houses. Talking of which, we have had to get rid of so much stuff – today we went to Burstow and Hewitt in Battle with at least 20 pictures, my two well-loved Victorian clocks that stood on the mantlepieces in Birmingham for 25 years, together with two bronze winged dragon ladies. They just won’t go in a 70s house! Great sacrifices were made by both of us – we had to go to Jempsons for restorative buns and doughnuts. Yet more sacrifices will have to be made shortly – we have a garage full of Victorian and Art Deco stuff, and yet more pictures stacked along the landing.
The Battleaxe will be more regular with the blog now again – our Sky broadband and phone were eventually connected last week. We have had to buy one of those Vodafone signal booster things to get mobile reception in the house – it works well, thank goodness. The communications revolution has passed by this bit of Hastings, no mobile phone and no 3G. Not even 2G!
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