A good year for the roses

The roses are magnificent. In full bloom and untroubled by any diseases or pests, they lift my heart every time I come home.

Swooning at the Lakeland catalogue

I read an amusing account of how a woman eagerly devours seed catalogues, transfixed by the pages of beauty and casting her mind forward to summer when the days are long and the bees are buzzing.

I too like looking at seed catalogues and also swoon at the David Austin rose catalogue. But what I really enjoy is the Lakeland catalogue. I must confess I don't often buy anything, although their quality is top notch and at Christmas I love the rose & violet creams.

No, I like to read the catalogue and fantasise about a life which would involve lovingly making my own jam and chutneys, and the bread on which to serve it; never burning my arms from the oven because I'd be wearing Coolskins; producing special battle ship or butterfly shaped birthday cakes; always having the right spray or unguent to keep the oven, kitchen and windows grime-free, and always having the sharpest knives and the freshest ground coffee.

Dining would be fabulous with everything piping hot, either in a hostess trolley or insulated serving dishes, and the table would groan under the weight of damask, sauce boats, runners and napkins.

I would rediscover (?) the joys of cooking with a pressure cooker, of steaming my fish and vegetables and perhaps even ditching my oven in favour of the mysterious Czech Remouska, a portable oven which apparently cooks the lighest sponge cakes, crispy chicken and perfect pizzas.

Washing up would always be a doddle because nothing would ever stick to my pans, and the oven floor would be lined with that special Teflon wrap. And the summer catalogue, oh I love the summer catalogue with its pages of all fresco eating, picnics, jugs for Pimms and fire pits.

In fact, looking out now at swirling snow (most unusual for London), I'm wishing I had the Lakeland summer catalogue in front of me now.

Make time to smell the roses

This is the time of year when gardens and hedgerows look their best. Even along the M25 I marvelled at the lushness of the elderflower and the profusion of white frothy flowers on the cow parsley.
In my beloved rose garden, the roses have burst into flower. I have two types, both pink and both David Austin English roses: Gertrude Jekhyll (pictured), a deep pink that's both hardy and highly scented, and Sceptered Isle, paler pink cup shaped blooms. Both are inclined to be climbers so they get a bit leggy as summer progresses. At this time of year, they're in fine form with no pesky diseases. Although I must say this year I am eschewing sprays which are friendly to ladybirds etc in favour of chemical warfare, to try to prevent a recurrence of last year's black fly.

My love of roses came from my dad, Stamps. I was only about seven when, in driving rain, he painstakingly cut out a circular flower bed in the front lawn. For many years it was filled with roses. I remember going by in a coach on a Sunday school outing and Mrs Newnham remarking on the garden with the roses. I told her proudly it was mine.
Stamps loved Ena Harkness, a deep red, highly scented, which is quite disease prone and has a bad habit, so it's not a rose many plant nowadays. That one sprawled over the back fence. It wasn't a very profuse bloomer: literally one magnificent flush and that was that, whereas my Austin roses start in April or May and happily perform until October. He also loved Wendy Cussons, a pink. I remember the arrival of Superstar, a new genre of highly coloured, highly perfumed hybrid tea roses. Shockingly vermillion, my mum thought it was a bit loud. Meanwhile she and Stamps both had an irrational dislike for Iceberg, which I thought was a shame so I used to put my egg shells around it.
My grandma loved Peace and not surprisingly this was the rose that we insisted on at the garden of remembrance, although it never really flourished.

Scrapbook Update

Today we planted some more roses (David Austin's Gertrude Jekhyll & Scepter'd Isle)so I was thinking ahead to a rose themed scrapbook layout and took some photos. Now I have the "befores," with J digging the holes, and in a few months' time I will have the "afters," with (hopefully) masses of roses in full bloom. And now I can start accumulating rose themed papers and embellishments to go with the layout.

That's how it works. And to such an extent that I sometimes change my clothes to make sure I'm wearing a colour that co-ordinates with the paper in hand.

It's often agonizing when I see a particular paper in a magazine and then find it hellishly difficult to get hold of. This happened last week when I decided I to have some daisy papers from the Twelve by 12 range, Colorflowers II. I looked up the UK stockists but none of them had the exact same papers. I looked at the US stockists. Same thing. The designer has her own online gallery, but no shipping to the UK. Then, in an inspired moment, I asked on UK Scrappers if any of their sponsors (scrapbook retailers) had the papers in stock. I struck lucky, and now have these papers tucked away waiting to be turned into a birthday card for J's mum.

Anyway, here are some recent LOs (layouts to the uninitiated). Next week I am off to the US for work, but hopefully might the chance to find a craft store. I've never been in a US craft store, and imagine it must be a veritable Aladdin's Cave. And of course I do need some rose themed materials.