17th May 2011

It’s a waiting game!
Waiting for my first grandchild, who was due yesterday, so we’re all here poised. Champagne is in the fridge, the bed is made up in the spare room for the other granny-to-be, I’ve been knitting like a dervish, but of course, this little being must take his/her time. In the meantime, I can be impatient about my new kitchen, the new windows and the final touches on the ground floor here.

I’ve painted my scullery and larder, but the cupboard doors are still to come. I will post photos soon. The vegetable garden is progressing, and tomorrow I’m starting my brick paths, and of course, we’re waiting for rain. There are so many things I’d like to show you, but nothing is quite ready.

We are giving a course in Hampstead on Sunday, and on Monday, I’m covering Chelsea for the Telegraph on Press Day. At 1pm we’re all chased out so the Queen can visit, and I’m moving on to the Veterans’ Garden at Chelsea Barracks. Here those wounded and damaged by the recent wars have started a garden as therapy. It’s a challenging site with overhanging plane trees and a 20ft high wall, I salute their efforts and will try to support the project known as Gardening Leave with a little publicity.

PS. V early Thursday morning
Baby son born to Jacques and Saskia
Ludo Raphael 8lbs 2oz
All’s well.

18th April 2011

Another scorching spring day! An early morning walk down along the beach, the tide is out and the sky is hazy, and then back to no water in the house for a shower. James the plumber strikes again, and the kitchen and bathroom are non-functional once more. I thought we were moving on into the rest of the house, but there is still an interminable list of last minute jobs before the floor can be laid and the kitchen built. So it’s back out into the garden again to escape the dust and noise and control my frustration.

Progress is slow in the garden as well. But it’s easy to just sit among the blossom with Lulu and dream about what I should be doing. The ground is clay hard and it amazes me that plants are growing. I’m having to water the new grass seed and the pots of plants from Troston that should have found new homes by now. The decking gets laid by my boys during the Bank Holiday weekend when I’m appearing at the Grow your Own Show near Guildford, and then the rest of the garden can be re-organized. I must keep reminding myself that this is a low maintenance garden, and not a chance to show off and design myself a lot of work in the future.

Am beginning to venture a little further afield for a few jollies. Canterbury and Faversham are both within 20 minutes drive or a busride away. I enjoyed Faversham.
It has more listed private houses than any other town in England, and is quirky in patches, with an old quayside and junk shops. Canterbury has more predictable fanchises, but is very beautiful. Whitstable is getting busy.

Happy Easter. I feel both sad and relieved not to be preparing for another Hen Party, but I’m told the village is holding a mini version at the Village Hall in Troston on Easter Saturday.

18th March 2011

Raining again here, and pretty cold too. Luckily for Elspeth’s day at Chiswick House last week, the weather was lovely. The Life section of the Telegraph (the bit I write for) have been running a competition – Gardening Against the Odds – to celebrate gardeners who create beautiful gardens in adversity. It was a pleasure to meet the winners, who were awarded their prizes by David Bellamy.

Back down to earth, progress here is slow. Have decided though, on the area where my hens will live, under an ancient silver birch, where the garden shed used to sit. The ground is very dry, but will try and sow grass, so the birds have a comfy sward to scarify when in their run. Am planning a new henhouse that I hope the company Jacques works for will build, and maybe sell to the public.

We have come up with a list of venues for our courses for this half of coming year. Several in Suffolk, but also in Hampstead, Guildford and Sussex (see course page). Will resume courses from home next year probably, when the dust settles.

7th March 2011

What a lovely spring day!
So I’ve been out and taken photos to send you.

About time, I know, but if it’s possible for dust to affect the brain, then that’s my excuse. Walls have come down, floors have come up and ceilings are all over the place. I know I asked for it, but I’d forgotten just how pervasive the dust is. My eyes, my nose and I hate the fact my hands are always dry.

Anyway, I seemed to have forgotten how to work my camera, but a quick lesson from son Max, shaking his head at my uselessness, have resulted in a few images for you.

Progress in the garden:

A group of brilliant lads from the local Enterprise Board ’s horticultural initiative came round and we planted a dozen or so fruit trees from local Brogdale – home of the National Collection. They look like a collection of twigs, rather than the beginnings of an orchard, but with a scattering of bulbs and a bit of imagination, I can see myself one day, sitting there surrounded by blossom.

Wishful thinking is what it takes at this stage. My builder, James is ace, but things move at a much slower pace than I’d imagined, and I’m camping out in the meantime, with all my belongings back in boxes or under dust sheets.

Tomorrow, I dust myself down, and go to Chiswick House to celebrate the winners of the Against the Odds garden writing competition run by the Telegraph to commemorate the sad death of friend Elspeth Thompson. Will report back.

11th February 2011

Have just spent a whole day out in my new garden. Such pleasure. No builders and reasonable weather. I’ve made endless forays over the last four weeks: viewing the plot from every angle, checking the light, the wind direction, the views and what’s beginning to grow. I’ve made a few decisions. To divide the garden into three – the first part will be for sitting and eating out, the second will be an orchard planted in long grass, and the third, containing a 100 year old oak tree, will be underplanted with Kentish cob nuts, and inevitably – blackberries, and then left wild.

Am steaming ahead with the orchard, trying to get the trees in this year, and have ordered a range of wonderful 2-3 year old plants from Brogdale, holder of the National Collection of fruit trees at nearby Faversham. Together we’ve chosen a mixture of local apples, some standards on semi-vigorous stock (I hate those tiny stunted trees) and some espaliers: a pear, a medlar, an apricot (fingers crossed for fruit), a greengage, and some morello cherries. An ideal spot for my new flock in the autumn.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is to be a low maintenance garden. I don’t want to sacrifice productivity, so feel an orchard is slightly less work than a vegetable garden. I shall grow herbs and salads and a few perennial vegetables, and try to grow flowers mostly in containers, and no lawn that needs regular mowing. We’ll see……

We’re planning some courses in various venue around the country (seeCourse Page), but I hope to start small courses here in the autumn when I get my new birds.

21st January 2011

Well, here I am, sitting at my old desk in a new house, a rather grumpy cat on my lap, festooned with wires, as we try to sort out the computer. Thanks to BT, we were without a phone and internet for a week. Amazing how debilitating and confidence sapping it is to be incommunicado. That apart, I feel perky. I do miss my birdies, but know they’re well and happy, and I’m possibly just a dim memory in the back of their feathery minds.

I shan’t be getting my new flock for a little while, though my new neighbours are enthusiastic, I’ve heard there are foxes. My new garden used to be a 400 ft orchard backing on to allotments and railway lines, a golf course and the sea, ideal foxy territory. Since then land at the end has been sold off and a new house has been built, and the same has happened right along this road, so it’ll be interesting to see just how much of the wilderness remains. Also, there will be builders…..

I’ll be writing about my garden plans (with professional photos) in my piece in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday 30th, (this week it’s my sons’ old school who have a BTech in horticulture), but promise to give you lots of photos as life settles, and I remember just how to get images on to my computer.

Thank you all so much for your messages of support, they mean a lot. Please do keep in touch on my new email address: francine@kitchen-garden-hens.co.uk. Life is good and busy, no time to miss Troston, but that will come, I’m sure. We all need to mourn changes, and then adapt slowly to new circumstances.

1st January 2011

The time has come and I’m moving a week on Friday. I’m ill so it’s an even more slow and painful process. After a few bits of packing I have to go and lie down and cough, but expect I’ll get there. Lots of help from Rena, Lynn, Keith and Evan and nearer the time from my sons.

I’m trying not to look at anything here, just get on with the work at hand, and having a temperature gives one a jaded and unreal view anyway. I can’t even say I’m looking forward to being in my new house, but expect I will, once I get better. But I am looking forward to showing you some pictures and wonder what everyone will think.

Must get on and stop brooding. Pieces to write for the Sunday Telegraph (every week) and a new hen magazine called Your Chickens which makes its debut on January 13th. 

Wish me luck.