7 January 2006

Are you paying attention at the back?

It snowed here today for a while. Our undressed Christmas trees sitting out in the garden were covered with snow and looked more festive than they had done decorated. I guess there’s no trumping Mother Nature.

With all the cold and wet it’s been a day for snuggling and reading. I’m something of a bibliophile and will shamelessly spend a sizeable proportion of my salary on books of all descriptions - fiction, reference (for work and study) and, of course, stuff to do with planting. The upside of this is that it does make me very easy to buy Christmas gifts for.

Hmmn. I wonder what I could get for Clare? Well, I know she likes books and I know she likes gardening, so…

This year I was given The Jewel Garden by Monty and Sarah Don which I read on the plane to Florence. I can certainly recommend it, but I preferred their account of the slide into depression and bankruptcy which was alive and poignant, rather than the healing effect of their gardening together which seemed a bit disconnected and passionless to me. But then, I don’t really get on with Monty’s style anyway (can’t stand him on the telly - I much prefer Uncle Alan’s easy-going manner), especially when talking about himself. I do trust his ability, experience and clear instructions so I like to dip into The Complete Gardener for factual advice, or occasionally into Fork to Fork for the odd recipe.

Another gift - given to Owen rather than to me - was The Gardener’s Companion. It’s one of those Schott’s Miscellany -type books, choc full of interesting and quite useful snippets of information. For instance, did you know that an earthworm produces 11 times more potassium in the soil than it ingests from it? Or that blakbirds can be found in 89% of gardens? No, nor did I.

Who would have thought that something as humble as a book could be so much more than just great shelf furniture?

Filed under: Review & plan, Today's Bible — Clare @ 6:36 pm