Bowen Manor is most definitely a work in progress, as is my reincarnation as a country lady. I’ve stopped finding anything charming about a perfectly pink acrylic nail and generally embraced an even more eccentrically wanton and, thanks to the last two summers, rather muddy appearance. The relief of school runs that don’t involve competitive, pre-dawn maternal make-up application and eating disorders at Reception level was a welcome surprise, as was the realisation that it is still possible to live among straightforward, normal people with lives full of outdoor pursuits and genuine friendships.
There’s no doubt about it, life in the country is nicer, prettier and far more gentle. As long as you are a game bird and not a game bird, of course. Whilst my urban roots are long and my tears over that cinematic great, The Fox and the Hound, still not dried, I’ve discovered a talent for shooting (and I’m pleased to say it is beyond that of the MFH – more famous husband). So far my blood lust has satisfied itself in the ritual scattering of clay dust rather than tiny bones and beaks, but I fear it is only a matter of time. And of course, they are so delicious and of course it’s much more honest to kill what you eat and eat what you kill after all. Isn’t it?
Step in to what will one day be my Mediterranean courtyard garden (when the work edges more towards progress than procrastination and poverty), and you won’t be able to miss my new toy. It may as well have a Blackpool Illumination proclaiming me a first time Country Mouse. I am obsessed with my greenhouse. Perhaps you do have to have led the life of an urban domino to appreciate what it means to me. Never mind the two parterres and grove of orange trees, give me a greenhouse and a Cotswold stone walled acre every time.
My greenhouse marries two of my greatest pleasures – gardening and food. No propagated specimen shrubs for me. Oh no. I want the bee’s knees of kitchen gardens, bursting with herb borders, espaliered fruit trees, architectural vines, hand-woven wigwams with sturdy beans and peas, perfect root vegetables and lettuce galore. So the greenhouse is a riot of mini things, grown lovingly from seed, at varying stages of readiness to be planted out. Granted, my kitchen garden is rather more Albert Square allotment-grown-up-on-bombed-out-wartime-wasteland than Highgrove at the moment, but I have a vision.
This time last year it was an unloved and almost invisible half acre of nettles, brambles, weeds, trees and rubbish with lapsed planning permission. When we bought the house we didn’t even know it was part of the land. Now it’s a loved half acre, so far only half fenced-in and admittedly still full of nettles and weeds but also some rescued Bantam hens and a cuddly cock, a hand-woven living willow den for the children and a few raised beds proudly producing far more runner beans than a family of four could ever eat.
It has become a neighbourhood project. We garden it together, share a few bottles of wine, the children play, we exchange pleasantries and all enjoy the produce. It’s entirely in keeping with the Quaker history of our house and means so much more to me than it ever would as my ‘own’ space. I think ‘tis a good thing I have done. In fact I am banking on it for when I get to the pearly gates and have to atone for throwing balloons full of water out of the car at old ladies when I was a teenager among my many other quite peculiar sins. One of which has been rather unwitting and blows a cold wind of guilt through my country idyll.
My courgettes were suffering a dreadful case of mildew and their flowers were dropping off before forming anything. In a fit of pique I ripped out the worst-affected plants and threw them into our green bin (as opposed to any of the other rainbow of bins our council sees fit to supply us with but not the bin men with the brains to empty them), and set off to the garden centre to find a mildew solution. I don’t know what drew me to the ‘mix your own’ variety of solution or what possessed me to mix up, as indicated and in haste, about 30 gallons of the stuff to do one greenhouse. But mix it I did and have it I still do, in fear and loathing stored in my woodstore with naïve me-drawn imitations of skulls and crossbones and the word POISON in shaky, guilty letters.
How was I to know, urban émigré that I am, that what I had bought was a serious chemical that you can’t flush down the loo, the drain or in any way allow to enter the water system for fear of killing everything that has ever or will ever live, and that it must only be disposed of in its original container in a landfill site (how do you do that once you’ve mixed it with 30 gallons of water?). What on earth are they doing selling it to idiots like me? This particular idiot’s shame has been compounded by the discovery that the courgette plants in the green bin are now doing very nicely.
