It's agony . . .

I spend many of my lunch hours in Waterstone's, the nearest thing Bury has to a good bookshop (I was spoiled by my years working in Cambridge). I'm pretty much a fiction person. I can't remember the last factual book I read all the way through - I tend to dip in and out as and when I want to look something up. And I'm ashamed to say I tend to use Waterstone's as a sort of reference library. Recently, I've been browsing the 'smallholding' section as I'm considering getting a few hens for the bottom of the garden.

However, this week I decided I needed to top up the pile of books next to my bed which are waiting to be read. There has been a bit of a hiatus in my reading recently - I read mostly in bed at night but, because of the awful and exhausting new computer system at work, which I may have mentioned in a previous blog, I've just been too tired to read. Instead, I drop off in seconds to The World Tonight on Radio 4.

I thought a few new titles and/or authors might reinvigorate my page turning, so it was off to Waterstone's. I quickly found one book I had been waiting to arrive in paperback, then - after a long browse of the shelves - another by an author I'd not read before but which looked interesting. Then came that terrible dilemma . . . you've got two books in your hand and they both happen to be part of Waterstone's 3for2 offer. Do I just pay for the two and forego the offer or do I spend yet more time (with my lunch hour quickly disappearing) finding a third book?

I'm too mean to turn down an offer, so it was back to the shelves. The hunt was proving fruitless, nothing tickled my fancy. So, I thought, why not break out of this fiction-only routine? Let's try a biography.

I trawled the biography section and quickly discovered why I didn't read them - what rubbish. I picked up Lord Stevens' autobiography (he was a deputy or assistant or deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire police for a while) and flicked through it. He should stick to police work - when a sentence begins: "I remember one amusing incident . . ." it says it all.

As I put John Stevens' tome back on the shelf, I noticed the sign . . .

I hate the way they divide up bookshops. A novel is a novel, it doesn't matter if it's crime, horror, romance or sci-fi, they all belong on the same shelves - in author order (you wouldn't guess my Saturday job when I was at school was in the local library!).

So, what on earth is a Painful Life? Do you need to die a terrible death? Do you have to be a martyr to chilblains? Or perhaps you just have to peddle misery and despondency in a literary format!

Another reason I hate all these signs in bookshops (Waterstone's isn't the only guilty party) is that in the past I've found myself perusing a perfectly tame novel, only to look up and find that I'm leaning against a shelf headed 'Erotica' or 'Gay and Lesbian fiction'. Being easily embarrassed, I tend to flee the shop flushed red and imagining that the guys manning the security cameras are having a right hoot.

I managed to survive finding myself at the 'Painful Lives section and stayed in the shop to find a third novel, though I'm not too hopeful.

By the way, my favourite book is A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, and I recently finished his latest, Until I Find You, which, despite its great length, is also excellent and well worth the hernia you'll get lifting it off the shelf and carrying it home.

Serene I stand . . .

'Serene I stand among the flowers and only count life's sunny hours,

For me dark days do not exist I'm a brazen-faced old optimist.'

Sometimes, places and events become so familiar that you forget to look for new things. I discovered this at the weekend when we went for one of our regular walks around Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge, which is one of our favourite National Trust haunts.

We have a bit of a set route around the grounds, which are wonderful and change with the seasons. But we've become sort of complacent, forgetting to look around us.

So, on Sunday, it was great to discover something new there. For most of the time we've been going to Anglesey, the Rose Garden has been the preserve of the family which owned the place and lived in the summer house (a mere 11 bedrooms) next to the abbey itself. They've now moved out and the Rose Garden has been opened to the public - and what a treat it was.

First discovery was the sundial (above) adjacent to the entance. Sorry about my shadow spoiling the picture, but I was trying to get the dragonfly in the shot without scaring it away. I thought the inscription (Serene . . . ) around the 'dial' was lovely - but having looked it up on Google, it must be on every other sundial there is.

Continuing the weather theme, I noticed for the first time (I think) the golden weather vane (below) in the shape of a longship. In all the years we've been going to Anglesey Abbey, we've always been too mean to buy a guidebook, so I'm afraid I don't know the significance of the sundial or the longship, or any of the other things we spotted on our first visit to the Rose Garden.

Flanking one of the entrances to the garden are two statues of Pan, which are slowly (I presume) being enveloped by the yew hedge.



But even more intriguing is this tombstone(?), the head end of which is now under the hedge - one assumes the hedge came second.


Then, on the other side of the hedge, in the Rose Garden itself - by the way the actual roses had begun to fade a bit - was an even stranger discovery . . .


What seem to be stone coffins or, more to the point, empty stone coffins! It's no good - I've got to get the guide book, I have to know . . .

Further into the garden is a doorway - presumably leading to the old private quarters of the family. The door looks really ancient and, according to a plaque fixed to it, once belonged to Henry Cromwell (Oliver Cromwell's son).

Either side of the door are the heads of what appear to be bishops - but they look too mischievous to be senior clergy - one has even suffered a broken nose!

Finally, a detail from the gates leading into the garden. A lovely, surprising and intriquing afternoon stroll which taught me not to take things for granted. And when I find out whose coffins they were, I'll let you know.

Sunflower power

The sunflowers in my garden sort of gave up the ghost at the weekend - heads heavy with seed, no support, dogs running round them etc.

I've chopped off the heads so they can dry out and the birds can peck at the seeds through the winter.

It also gave me the chance to get close up and take some pictures. They're fantastic things, sunflowers - beautiful, shapes colours and patterns.

False start

I returned to the house after setting off on the dog walk this morning (6.05am). After seeing this rather explosive looking sunrise, I had go back and get my camera.






The verbascum (?) and teasels looked good in the half-light, too. There's something unnatural about the tall spikes.

Yesterday, I dug up the first of my rather pathetic crop of parsnips. I'm having to ration them, but there was enough here to roast with our Sunday lunch.

Over the garden fence

I've spent the weekend trying to avoid my neighbours.

They've just returned from a two-week cruise around the Baltic ports and I know they're desperate to tell me about it. It may sound unkind, but I don't want to hear.

They're the sort of people who only want to tell you about their wonderfully interesting lives, their incredibly talented children, what they did yesterday, what they're doing today and what they'll be doing tomorrow.

There's never a 'how are you?' or 'what do you think?'.

Mrs DW almost got caught, getting out of the car. He appeared from nowhere to say 'nice weather' . . . the trap was set (I've fallen into it before). Mrs DW was then meant to say 'yes, about time too'. That's when the trap snaps shut . . . 'we've had lovely weather where we've been'. But Mrs DW is much cleverer/tougher than me - she just muttered some inanity and plunged through the front door, slamming it behind her.

Since then, each time I've ventured out into the garden, one of them has appeared at the fence with a cough or a snip of the clippers at shrubs that don't need snipping . . . I think I've managed to feign deafness, blindness or general busyness (business?) without appearing too rude, but I suppose they'll catch me eventually.

Or are we just being paranoic?

Good dog

Olive, my daughter's puppy, has just started school and is proving to be a bit of star pupil - when compared to J, anyway. She's already pretty trustworthy off the lead and, apart from the odd accident, is house trained. The fact is, she's really greedy and will do anything for a treat, whereas J couldn't care less.

She has a thing about catching snails and slugs in the garden. Is catching the right word? I can't imagine there's much of a chase! It's good that she's helping to keep the pest population under control, but the downside is, of course, that my plants get squashed.

Garden woes

The garden has left me a bit demoralised - it has taken such a battering from the weather and from the dogs. I had high hopes of the flowers, but although everything I planted came up, they were badly trampled by the animals - despite my pleading to the family not to let them out unless supervised. This lone sunflower sums it up really . . . desperately trying its best to brighten up the garden, but not quite succeeding.

There has been some success on the produce side, for a first attempt anyway. The tomatoes have been attacked by blight and the wind and rain, but we've had some fruit. Garden Pearl (below) has been most successful. The runner beans have cropped really heavily, the dwarf beans okay, the carrots okay and we're getting a bit fed up with courgettes.

The cucumbers have been a bit of a mixed bag - some tasting really sweet others being bitter. The beetroot (only one row because I hate them) have not grown very big, but Mrs DW says they have been very nice.

Onions patchy, parsnips useless (only a few germinated), strawberries nice and sweet but few and far between. The lettuce started off really successfully, especially the cut and come again variety, but my attempts to have a succession of lettuce to eat have been devastated by the plague of slugs and snails which I've been powerless to stop.

The apple tree has looked full of fruit, but they are very small (probably due to the dry spring).

The chillies now look edible, but we haven't tried them yet.

Finally a bit of colour - a cosmos, I think.