Around and about

Just a couple of bits

Cut-price shed book via Alex The Shed. The RRP is actually £25 not £20 - so even more of a bargain, for a book with a title made up of two words that don't immediately appear to go together.

And a review of one of my heroes Ken Thompson's latest from Emma "Muppet" Cooper. Em has quite a lot of booky stuff if you put book into her site's search bar.

Why she's not a Flange member I really don't know

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Strange habits

I know that I have previously mentioned my terrible habit of having several part-read books on the go at once.

I’m not sure what that says about me. A butterfly mind? An inability to commit? Someone who takes on more than they should? Who knows.

Sometimes this worries me a little and I make a concrete effort to get the number of “ongoing” books down. However this then makes me think that I’m not doing so bad and so I start adding to the “ongoing” pile all over again.

It is, I admit, a bad habit.

But I know someone who has a much odder bookish foible. He can’t go to bed if he has just finished reading a book, unless. He has to start another one before he can go to sleep.

Now that’s just plain weird.

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Advertisement Feature

Kelmarsh at Home
Sunday June 14th

A Book Festival Celebrating
Home and Garden Writing

Kelmarsh Hall welcomes guests who treasure fine interiors and beautiful gardens to its first Book Festival. The event explores good living, good design and the personality of home.
Once the residence of Nancy Lancaster, society decorator and owner of Colefax and Fowler, Kelmarsh Hall still bears the imprint of her shabby-chic flair and gardening panache. The elegant Palladian Hall with its virtuoso gardens is the perfect country house retreat to host a book festival.
Speakers include:

a) Professional gardener turned award-winning author Stephen Anderton on his latest passion, Discovering Welsh Gardens, and a sneak preview of his work in progress: a biography of gardening doyen Christopher Lloyd.

b) Celebrity Granny, cookery writer and gardener, Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, talks on her latest foray into generational perfection, The Good Granny Companion.

c) Decorating expert and Farrow & Ball consultant Joa Studholme guides listeners through the opportunities Colour offers to transform your living environment.

d) Prolific author and academic Katie Campbell’s Paradise of Exiles revivifies the eccentric Anglo-Italian set of Tuscany as they gardened and gossiped their way through the dying years of the nineteenth century.

e) Acclaimed biographer Martin Wood ranges through the tradition of country house decorating and previews his next subject, Laura Ashley, designer and brand queen.

f) Columnist and anthologist Ursula Buchan surveys the bygone post-war gardening scene and its true characters – including Nancy Lancaster in Garden People: Valerie Finnis and the Golden Age of Gardening.

g) Andrew Wilson, Chelsea Flower Show judge and designer, Tim Richardson, landscape critic and historian, and Stephen Anderton debate what makes gardens personal and how they bear the character of their makers.

h) Geffrye Museum deputy director, Christine Lalumia, speaks on the representation of interiors and gardens in painting.

Ticket prices £8.00

To register for a booking form, email enquiries@kelmarsh.com or call 01604 686543

Notes to Editors:
Location Kelmarsh Hall is on the border of rural Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, 5 miles South of Market Harborough and a 20 mile drive from the M1 and M6.
Kelmarsh Hall and Gardens are owned by The Kelmarsh Trust, a registered charity. The Gardens are Royal Horticultural Society recommended.www.kelmarsh.com
For press enquiries and images, please contact: Lesley Denton at the Estate Office on 01604 686543 or lesleydenton@kelmarsh.com

Poo

I'm sorry.

I've been really crap at putting posts up here.

I will try harder.

Promise.