Olympic gardening, Episcopal socializing and George, don't do that

I think that you will have suspected, by my absence from this blog, that I have been enjoying my summer holidays a great deal. I have had the most relaxing time imaginable. Not, I hasten to add, lazing about, but gardening. I have spent the best part of each day for the last three weeks out in the policies and I am thrilled with my efforts. The garden looks really good now and I am a wee bit gleeful about the transformation since the middle of July. It always does "come good" but sometimes living so close to the sea means that your best efforts can be destroyed with a single northerly wind and salty spray. This year that hasn't happened. I think there have only be two days where rain prevented me getting out at all. All the other days have been a mixture of shower-dodging, fine or even glorious. The Moray Firth coast lives up to reputation of having a different climate from elsewhere. This week has been in the glorious category and as I write this I'm looking out at the sea which is like a mill pond across to the mountains of Sutherland.

Of course, I've also been caught up in the Olympics and what a terrific spectacle they have been. We, in Moray, are particular proud of Heather Stanning who one a rowing gold and who comes from Lossiemouth (which I am also looking out at across the bay). There have been so many highlights from Chris Hoy to Mo Farah, Katherine Grainger to Jessica Ennis, Nick Skelton, Zara and all the other magnificent sports men and women. And, of course, Usian Bolt....the list goes on and on. And, I have to say, the BBC has done a fantastic job. Michael Johnson is a brilliant pundit in my opinion and he has really added immeasurably to the commentary.

I've just finished reading a wonderful gem of an autobiography which I bought in Leakey's bookshop in Inverness about ten days ago. It is called The rich spoils of time and is by Dame Frances Campbell-Preston. She writes absolutely exquisitely and paints such a beautiful picture of her life. She was a lady in waiting to the Queen Mother but that part of her life is not at all the focus of the book. Her descriptions of the War years are as good an account as I have ever read and her absolute candour about events and people is refreshing. I was drawn to it because I knew she was Reggie Grenfell's sister and, dear readers, as we all know Reggie was married to the one and only Joyce. I have to confess that Joyce Grenfell would be very high on my list of fantasy dinner party guests.

This weekend is going to be very busy indeed. We are celebrating the return of our priceless stained-glass windows to Gordon Chapel with an open day tomorrow and a service of rededication on Sunday. I've mentioned these windows before so I won't drone on about them again beyond saying they were all designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by William Morris and Company. They were all installed as memorials to various members of the Gordon Lennox family.

We have a large number of guests attending on Sunday including the Lord Lieutenant, Grenville Johnston and his wife Marylyn, councillors past and present, the Marquess of Huntly (the Chief of the Clan Gordon) and the wonderful people from NADFAS Moray and Banff Branch (National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies) who did a sterling job a few years ago as church recorders compiling an annotated inventory of the church under a scheme run by the V&A. My friend Marion Yool masterminded it and ran it with the same military precision she displayed display when running the WRVS.

So the Episcopalians of Fochabers and the surrounding district will be out to impress this weekend. (Please, no jokes about it being the "English Kirk". I've heard them before and, if you are really unfortunate, I will bore you lifeless with the nuances of Episcopal history). My morning coat has been out airing....I just hope it hasn't shrunk in the wardrobe as garments have a habit of doing....

Return to real life.....in Ambridge

Well, dear readers, I am now on holiday and during this month I begin to remember what real-life is all about and, hopefully, by the latter part of this week I will have convinced myself that what I spend the other eleven months doing is somewhere in a parallel universe.


I have done a good bit of pottering around the garden - which is my idea of bliss; although I have yet to tackle the jungle that has grown up behind one of the hedges thanks to all the wet weather we've had. I know there are two or three days of heavy-duty weeding ahead of me although not tomorrow because I fear we have more rain forecast. Never mind, some progress has been made and this afternoon was spent cutting the hedge which runs round the turning circle at the garage door. It is about twelve feet high and at least eight feet deep in places and, even if it doesn't quite rival Meikleour, it is quite a tricky job reaching those stubborn branches right in the middle at the top.


I am eagerly anticipating the arrival of a flagpole which has been ordered and paid for and should come this week sometime. It goes without saying that having an AB postcode put the cost of delivery up considerably (in fact almost tripled it) and I noticed that Dundee and Perth postcodes are treated as "Scottish Highlands and Islands" for delivery purposes by the company I ordered it from. Hmmmm. Given that the company I am dealing with is based in the East Midlands, I would have thought Perth easier to get to than, say, Penzance. Sorry, folks, but this issue is getting to be a real bug-bear for those of us in AB or IV postcodes.

My flagpole will be located near my summerhouse, a wonderful Scandinvian piece of kit I installed about four years ago down in one of the corners of the garden. It faces west so from late afternoon it gets the full sun (if there is any sun, of course). During the holidays, everythings stops at 7.00pm when it is time to retire to the summerhouse and tune in to an everyday story of country folk.

And what a terrifying week it has been in Ambridge with the ongoing intimidation of David and Ruth Archer (to prevent David giving evidence in a court case) reaching new heights with the barn at Brookfield being set alight. Tonight, there was another surprise when Elizabeth (David's sister) turned up at Brookfield to see how they were all coping. Relations have been glacial between David and Elizabeth since poor old Nigel (Elizabeth's husband) fell off the roof of Lower Loxley and was killed. She blamed David as he had been on the roof with Nigel at the time, trying to take down a banner. Could this be the start of a rapprochement?

I should add, by way of conclusion, that the programme I am alluding to is, of course, a documentary programme and everything you hear on Radio Four between 7.02pm and 7.15pm each evening is a synopsis of real life. Whilst it does amazes me that all these people have allowed this fly-on-the-wall documentary to last for sixty-two years, I cannot believe that there are actually some listeners who think they are actors following a storyline. ;o) Parallel universe or what?