Tempus fugit carpe diem.

Oh dear, another year has flashed by, just like my pal Virgil said it would, and another 365 days of our allotted 29000 have been used up. Have we seized the day as my old friend Horace (not Batchelor of course) recommended we should? If so, doing what, I wonder, or are we just older and none the wiser?

It’s a thought to ponder upon during Christmas, as is, as you munch your mince pies, should it be ponder over, ponder on or ponder about? One or two of my Loyal Readers may care to answer such philosophical and pedantic questions while others might prefer some pretty pictures. So, doing my best to please all parties, here’s a few of our lovely county of Sussex taken during the past twelve months:

Not that I read Virgil or Horace. No time. I was just dropping names to impress. Our time - Rosie’s and mine - is of course much better spent raising plants, pulling up weeds and generally maintaining the garden in order to have it looking wonderful by the time we fling it open to the general public. But for no longer, as from 2024 onwards we’ll only allow the select few to come and see it. It’ll be serious horticultural groups only, garden lovers who know their plants and, who knows, will probably have to pass a test before they’re even allowed in. No more riff-raff who only come to gobble up Rosie’s cakes. That’ll be left to me. But as a tribute to past visitors, and as it’s Christmas and a time of good cheer to all, here’s a glimpse of some of the lucky 388 who attended our final opening this year:

Completely changing the subject: Sophie’s daughter Bay, now eight, is at school learning about the Romans.  Their roads, plumbing, currency, towns, architecture, how July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus, how they invented central heating, the wall Hadrian built, the baths they lounged in and the aqueducts that brought them water. Bay, adding to the sum of human knowledge, has found interesting facts about Roman sanitation though it has to be said that Virgil might have struggled with her literacy and Horace with her truth:

Finally - for 2023 - our Christmas greeting to all my Loyal Readers. And for those not on our Christmas card list, apologies for the oversight, but here it is, complete with very best wishes for an enjoyable, indigestion-free Christmas and a reminder that 2024 is election year. Vorfreude!

Making up for lost time.

In March, when I posted my last musing, I was contemplating how I would mark my next, my 100th. Because anniversaries are the thing, particularly the hundredth. Perhaps a look back at some of them: ‘A mucky business’, ‘Friend or Foe’, ‘And so to bed’, ‘Colds, whistles, buttons and plywood’, ‘How we met Bob and Bob’, ‘Lynda Snell has got a point’, ‘Beethoven keeps your ears warm’, ‘Cummings and goings’, ‘…hee iv feree fis dog’, ‘Litter, offal and Samantha’, ‘Shuffling along’, ‘You can never tell with bees’, ‘A right royal cracker’ and the 86 others should give me something to write about. Then I counted them all up and found that the last, ‘The excitement of February’, actually was my 100th, so that was that.

But it did make me think I should make up for lost time because nine months have gone by since I last penned anything. Just as I was scratching my nose and wondering where to start daughter Sophie rang and began talking about bucket lists and how about taking a trip on the Orient Express before we popped our clogs. And then, being even more helpful, suggested she be given Rosie’s antique rings now because her fingers are too swollen with arthritis to wear them and anyway it would help with the de-cluttering.

But she has a point. De-cluttering. Someone’s got to do it, sooner or later. Pre or post Grim Reaper. But getting rid of stuff is a physical and emotional nightmare. There’s so much of it. Where to begin? Old wood off-cuts, kept because they’ll come in useful one day, that’s easy. Bonfire. Old leather bound books, some in German, rescued from my mother’s house when she died, less easy. Auction. Legal documents, c1820’s, hand-written on vellum, difficult. Law Society?

And what about the 86,706 photos stored on my computer? Who’s going to be interested in them? Maybe some of them, but who’ll sort those out? Maybe it’s easier to change the subject and instead select a few I’d like to show you.

So, to begin with, the most topical: we’re marooned in Westdean as the Cuckmere Valley and surrounding roads are flooded. Beautiful but a bit inconvenient.

As a complete contrast here’s a few taken in and around Radda in Chianti where we spent a week in September. Not that you need or want to hear about our holiday but, ever thinking of my Loyal Readers’ mental health, it might cheer you up in miserable November.

Talking of holidays, our visit to Crete last year inspired Rosie to take up her brushes again. A photo I’d taken of an elderly Cretan gent having a leisurely frappé was deemed to be worth painting but, composition-wise (if there is such a clunky compound), it was lacking something. An extra chair perhaps, and maybe a dog lying patiently at his master’s feet. A quick thumb through the 86,706 photos and I found just the very thing. What do you think?

Whether or not you approve of that, the praise showered on Rosie by the owners of Dourakis Winery for her untampered painting of their garden was effervescent: “OMG, How wonderful it looks!! May I also say how honored to see amazing pictures like the one your wife created! Rosie you are SO TALENTED!!”

What else has happened since March? Well, the subject of Meet Molly, January’s musing, has, sadly, departed. Not from this life I’m glad to say, but to another home. Lovely as Molly was, her saluki genes meant she was very strong-willed and her recall non-existent if her attention was elsewhere. Fruitless hours were spent searching and calling for her when she absconded to the far corners of the forest chasing rabbits or investigating badger setts. So, after four months and with great reluctance, she had to go.

As also did our public garden openings. After 34 years our last was this year and we marketed it as such on our posters, getting 388 visitors through the gate as a result. It’s sad to call it a day but after baking well over 300 cakes over the years (Rosie of course, not me) and spending countless hours tending the garden we decided we’d make up for lost time and do other things. Probably tending the garden if truth be known.

And finally: this arrived through the post the other day. Not many of you - if any - will know what it is (apart from, obviously, it’s a tie). So I’ll tell you: LX=60. And that’s how long I’ve been an MCC member. Not only do I get a tie, which I’ll never wear of course, but my membership is free from now on. So after paying subs for sixty years totalling a sum that I dare not admit to Rosie I can from today go up to Lords and watch cricket completely free. Now I can truly make up for lost time.

The excitement of February.

Poor old February. About the only kind thing to say about the month is the wonderment she brings at the beginning and the end of the day (that’s why I think of February as feminine). In between she’s back to being dreary, boring and miserable (maybe not). So, on balance, that’s why every year we’re all glad to see the back of her (gosh, aren’t pronouns a minefield). However, Loyal Readers, let’s not be too ungracious and show a couple of her plus points:

February only gets a little more interesting every fourth year when it (perhaps safer to revert to it) manages an extra day, Leap Year Day. According to folklore, that’s the day women are allowed to propose marriage to their partner, though in Scotland only if they are visibly wearing a red petticoat. Woe betide any man refusing her…if he dared he’d be issued with a fine, anything from a silk gown to 12 pairs of gloves to enough fabric to make a skirt. Cheap at the price you’d think, because, according to the Greeks, if they tied the knot in a leap year it would surely end in tears. The pessimistic Scots think anyone born on Leap Day will live a life of untold suffering, while their farmers believe that Leap Year is never a good year for sheep. Astrologers - a more optimistic bunch - reckon if you’re unlucky enough to be born on Leap Day and have one birthday every four years the compensation is you’ll have unusual talents, a unique personality and perhaps even special powers. So there you are: trying to get merriment out of February is like getting blood out of a turnip.

Better to tell you what’s been going on here. We’ve discovered Instagram. Posting little nuggets most days is quite fun…our usernames are ‘longhousegarden’ and ‘westdeanwalker’ if you’re interested. Here are some of our highlights of the month - photos only here - for the full stories you’ll jolly well have to follow us:

Meet Molly.

My Loyal Readers will no doubt have been on tenterhooks to know if there’s any news on the search for an Inky replacement. Well, you can rest easy because JR Whippet Rescue produced Molly four weeks ago. Not that she knows her name…completely clueless though to be fair she was only given it the day before we got her. She’s a saluki lurcher…very gentle but with a puppy’s boisterousness and a very strong will, demanding to be fed first and to occupy the most comfortable sofa. Poor Taz has yet to be totally convinced that she’s his ideal companion but, as they say, it’s early days.  But with her looks, she’s difficult to resist.

All we know about Molly is that she was rescued from the streets of Nottingham along with three or four other strays. She’s obviously not feral because somewhere along the line has had some sort of domestic life. But not enough. She has yet to learn to come when she’s called and because she runs at the speed of light we dare not let her free-range so she walks at the end of a long lead, frustrating for her and dead boring for us.

Since we’ve had her the weather’s been all over the place: rain, mud, frost, ice, more rain, floods and latterly, just to encourage us, a touch of sun. And we could do with a bit of cheering up as Forest England have been churning up the forest with their heavy machines, felling the stricken Ash dieback trees and in the process obliterating the paths and tracks through the woods and quite dramatically altering the familiar landscape. No sign yet of them picking up the logs which are strewn everywhere, though when they do it will add even more to the look of desolation.

I’ll finish with a landscape of a more floriferous hue: this is the plateau of Omalos in Crete, taken in Spring 2018.

Sheep, goats and bees abound there as well and for reasons that escape me we have, over the years, picked up the skulls of several of them (not the bees of course, too small). We went there last again last September with son Sebastian and wife Gemma…the flowers were over but animal remains were visible here and there. Gem’s latest linocut creation may or may not owe something to dem dry bones.

A right royal cracker.

My last blog promised you tales of our occasional encounters with the now King. Even if you’ve had enough insights into the House of Windsor this week I’m still going to let you into a few secrets of my own. More interesting than those of H&M but much more truthful…well, my truth anyway.

The first time: my ad agency had done a successful marketing campaign for 1982’s Royal Tournament and because the Prince of Wales was Patron of the Royal Tournament Rosie and I were invited to attend a Garden Party at the Palace the following year. And, presumably because of the show’s record audiences, I was selected to stand in line and shake a Royal Hand. The two Royals on duty were the Prince and Princess of Wales…I drew the short straw and met instead the future king. Can’t recall if words were exchanged though I do remember looking a prat and the size of the Moss Bros bill.

Not long afterwards Rosie and I began Pots and Pithoi, importing terracotta from Crete, and in 1990 Rosie found herself featured on the cover of Country Living. This time luck was definitely on our side as Princess Diana saw the magazine and showed it to her husband. He fancied a few pots for Highgrove, later bought several more and before we knew it we’d been awarded a Royal Warrant.

But by 1995 there was trouble at t’mill and we opened the newspaper to discover the Prince of Wales’s Christmas card. No Diana but to our delight the two children standing in our pots. We couldn’t resist: if you were lucky you’d have got one of our cards that year…if not here it is.

In the late 90’s we exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show and in 1998, because we were one of his Warrant Holders, Prince Charles visited our stand. This time we did speak. Standing beside a four foot high pot, he asked how they were made. Quick as a flash I said by genetically-engineered long-armed Cretans. He chuckled (politely) while Rosie, sensibly, gave him the correct answer.

Later that year the Prince had his 50th birthday. The Cardiff Business Club, of which he was Patron and knowing he liked our pots, decided to present him with one. They asked it shouldn’t be like any he’d already got at Highgrove and so we suggested, to make it extra unique, it should be inscribed around the rim, just like the Cretans traditionally do for special occasions. It took ages for the wording to be agreed, leaving time short for the making, firing and transportation, so three were made to guard against breakages en route. All arrived intact, the best is in Highgrove’s garden and my lips are sealed on the whereabouts of the other two.

One of the perks of being a Warrant Holder is to be invited to Highgrove, meet the Prince and to tour the garden. To prove we were there in 2000 the official photographer managed to snap Rosie’s handshake and my nose.

Our final arm’s length encounter was in 2005, the year Charles and Camilla got married. As Warrant Holders we were sent a piece of his wedding cake…still looking edible to this day and no doubt worth a bob or two now.

So there you are. Reminiscences to rival Netflix’s. But hey, it’s Christmas, time to be cheerful. In case the striking postmen have failed to deliver our card to you, here it is:

And as Christmas is the season for silly puzzles, here’s mine. Spot the Dog. He’s in every picture, somewhere. If you fail to find him, you’d best get a prize at Specsavers.

Happy Christmas!

Here we go again.

A couple of days ago I was finally getting down to the latest musing (sorry about the delay, Loyal Readers) and it would have been a follow-up to the Queen’s death, telling tales of our encounters with the King, a royal slice of cake worth thousands and how my nose made it into a Highgrove photo-opportunity. But you’ll just have to suppress your excitement because it’s been raining quite a lot, the waters have risen and I’ve a different tale to tell.

Apparently we’ve had more rain in Sussex so far this November than we usually get in the entire month. And when it rains in Sussex most of the water drains downhill to the sea, a large proportion of it coming from the Weald via the Cuckmere River. And the Cuckmere - normally a peaceful little fellow ambling through the Cuckmere Valley - gets excited and overflows, flooding the entire area. We think he’s getting his own back for not being looked after properly by the Environment Agency, whose responsibility it is despite the local farmers offering to take it on…a long saga, too long to tell here but a classic example of bureaucratic stubbornness.

Anyway, here’s a birds-eye view of the flooded Valley, taken in 2019 though looking much the same today: https://sw-ke.facebook.com/SussexAirImaging/videos/devastating-effects-of-flooding-on-cuckmere-valley-at-exceat/2532928383699262/  And to bring you up to date here are a few photos taken in the last day or so:

When the Valley floods so too do all the low lying roads and that in turn besieges our small hamlet of Westdean. Our only escape route is via what used to be, in earlier times, the road through the Downs, but now is just a track through the forest: potholed, muddy, narrow but at least not flooded. But because the track runs through the forest the leaseholders, Forest England, call a very pedantic tune: they decide when we can use it and only then are we are given a code to unlock the rusty padlocks on two dilapidated barriers. Difficult enough in daylight particularly for us old codgers with arthritis but virtually impossible after dark. Still, as it’s our only route to freedom we have to be grateful for their small mercies.

Sort of changing the subject: no luck yet in replacing poor Inky. We’ve tried five dog rescue centres so far, all according to the press chockablock with lockdown returnees but each imposing ever-stricter conditions on who can take them. Worse still, they are mysteriously able to tell whether a dog will suit their prospective owner without ever meeting them. Baffling and frustrating. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s large corporations or small charities, they all have power in their hands…and they sure like to use it.

But to end on a less cynical note, and since everyone likes doggie photos, here’s a few of Inky in her prime:

Things happen.

Sad, inevitable of course and understandable to us adults. But to granddaughter Bay, just seven a month ago, perplexing and worrying. Sophie found her in floods of tears. ‘Mummy’, she sobbed, ‘does that mean we’re all going to die now?’

But as we get over the shock life can return to some sort of normality and Bay can go back to school reassured that her days are less numbered than she first thought. And I can return to the blog I was going to write ten days ago. But before I do, here’s how Alfriston gently marked the Queen’s death, from muffled bell to simple window displays:

We’ve had our own sadness here too: dear Inky, our black dog, had to be put down at the end of July after suffering a severe injury to her spine. Goodness knows how she did it but we suspect she careered into a tree at high speed during one of her many nocturnal outings and a day or so later something happened to turn it fatal. It’s left Taz (the ginger one) bereft (and us too) so a replacement (if that’s ever possible) is on the cards. Meantime one of many memories: Inky muscling in on a garden visitor’s photo-op of Taz:

At the beginning of summer we celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. That seems an age away now but since then, here in Westdean and beyond, we’ve seen sun, heat, sun, rain, sun, heat, even more heat, drought…you get the picture. Maybe pictures tell the story best.

White horses and dark horses.

One of our favourite walks - the dogs and me - is alongside the River Cuckmere, under the watchful eye of the chalk horse some 200 metres above us.

The other day, when I was ambling along the bank and the dogs were sploshing in the river getting coated with mud, I noticed activity within the body of the horse. It was, as you can see below, a much needed scouring - weeding and replenishing the chalk - being carried on by National Trust volunteers.

But it set me wondering how many other chalk horses there are in the UK. Good old google gave the answer: sixteen white horse chalk figures (or 17 if you include the painted one at Cleadon Hills, but then Tynesiders are an odd lot). The best horse, our horse of course, was first cut in the chalk on High-and-Over hill above the Cuckmere Valley, supposedly by a couple of local lads in 1860 as a memorial to a local girl whose horse bolted and threw her to her death there. But in 1924, because the original got overgrown, it was re-cut and improved during a single night.

Of the other fifteen, 8 are in Wiltshire and the rest scattered around the place. Here they are, in age order and left to right: Uffington (bronze age), Westbury (1778), Cherhill (1780), Marmond (1790’s), Marlborough (1804, cut by naughty schoolboys), Osmington (1808), Alton Barnes (1812), Hackpen (1838), Woolbury (1846), Kilburn (1857), Broad Town (1864), Cleadon (1887), Pewsey (1937), Devizes (1999), Heeley (2000), Folkestone (2003) and Lutterworth (2012). If you’re on the ball you’ll realise I’ve listed 17 but shown only 16…three are ringers, aren’t chalk and shouldn’t count but are white horses so make the list by default.

More famous perhaps, and certainly more interesting, are the three other hillside figures: the Cerne Abbas giant (Roman by legend but probably a mere 400 years old but a symbol of fertility for some mysterious reason but enough so that local ladies, wanting to get pregnant, are wont to rub themselves along a certain part of his body), The Long Man of Wilmington (wishfully thought to be Iron Age but more likely 16/17th century…over the years has been blessed with a phallus and even given a sex change but now is discretely unclothed) and The Bulford Kiwi. This was cut by New Zealand soldiers waiting for their demob in 1919, impatient and overcrowded at Bulford camp but put to work by their commanding officer to prevent further unrest.

Which brings me to the wonderful work of Eric Ravilious. What needs to be said?

As for dark horses: haven’t they said enough?

Memories of Coronation Day.

You need to be a bit of an old codger to remember Coronation Day. But at eleven years old on June 2nd 1953 my memories of the day are inevitably a little bit hazy. Luckily I owned a Kodak Brownie Box camera and kept a diary so, as we approach Jubilee Day 70 years later and feeling just a touch nostalgic, I thought I’d dig into the archives. Here’s my entry for June 2nd:

“Coronation Day of Queen Elizabeth II. Take photo of the house and the Coronation bunting. Mummy gives me a Crown Staffordshire cup, saucer and plate. Have breakfast quickly because lots of people are coming to watch the coronation on our new television. Everyone sits quietly during the processions and the service, even us children, but it’s a bit boring and we go upstairs to play Owzthat. Denis Compton captains my side and Hutton the other one. I win by three wickets. Mummy says the service was very lovely and most touching and the Queen was supremely dignified and beautiful. Have lunch of cold salmon, ham, salads, strawberries and cream and ice cream gateau. The grownups have champagne, we have orange squash (swizz). After lunch there’s another procession, then we have tea, then we are made to watch the Royal Family’s appearance on the Palace balcony. At last the guests leave and we’re allowed to watch the fireworks on the television. It’s been bitterly cold and rainy for the last few days…Mummy says she can’t imagine how so many people have slept on the pavements for the last two nights.”

“June 3rd. Mummy drives us five children to London in the Morris Eight (EOX 758). On the way we pick up our cousins Tanga and Gaby and Aunt Betty and cousin Anthony. We drive through Hyde Park and see many of the colonial troops returning from an investiture at Buckingham Palace. We follow part of the Queen’s route ending at the Palace. I take a few photos. We persuade Mummy to stay to see the Queen and the Duke start out on their ceremonial drive at 2pm. We climb on a platform on one of the stands and wait for one and a half hours. It’s extremely cold and some of the younger ones get very bored. Mummy gives us a few sweets and has a small bar of chocolate which she keeps giving to Alan (11 months old) to keep him quiet. We get a good view of the Royal car. Alan sleeps in his little seat on the way home and Simon is sick at Esher. We get home and have lunch-cum-tea at 3.45.”

“June 6th. In the afternoon I represent St Martins at an athletics meeting at Stompond Lane so I miss (another swizz) the great excitement at home. The Queen is to drive along the Queens Road past our house on the way back from the Derby at Epsom. The others start waiting on the pavement at 4.00. At 4.45 Sir Winston Churchill goes by. At 5.00 two Royal cars pass with the Queen and the Duke in the first and the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret in the second. In the evening Mummy and Daddy take me and Isabel and Michael (two of the neighbours children) to Wokingham for an ox-roasting. We wait at the Wheatsheaf, Virginia Water for our Uncle Aubrey for quarter of an hour but as he hasn’t arrived we take a stroll to the waterfall. He still doesn’t arrive so we drive on, only to find the ox-roasting was last night. We have supper in a pleasant little cafe and drive home.”

You can never tell with bees.

One of the few things we all know about bees is that there’s a queen bee. As in life she rules the hive and is waited on hand and foot by the worker bees. And though most of us know there are drone bees too we probably don’t know the difference between the two. As for virgin queens, royal jelly, pheromones and piping noises…well, that leaves us baffled and ready to change the subject.

Swarms of bees are different though. They appear from nowhere and are scary. And very buzzy. They make us feel helpless and want to scuttle indoors till they go away. Or don’t. That’s usually the problem. They often don’t.

And that’s exactly what happened to us last week. Twice. The first time Rosie was propagating in the greenhouse (behave yourself, you know what I mean) when she heard the mellifluous hum of fifty thousand bees outside the door. Sensibly she stayed inside, watching as they circled the apple blossom and began to settle on the nearby rambling rector (come now, you know I mean climbing rose not local vicar). Luckily it wasn’t too long before they’d formed quite a cluster and she was able to make a dash for it. And a few hours later they’d all gone, back, one presumes, whence they came.

But a couple of days later they were back. And in hot pursuit of the bees was the swarm’s bare-footed owner, Joe. He’d spotted their departure from his hive and tracked their flight to our garden. This time the bees decided our olive tree took their fancy and it wasn’t long before the cluster was a good eighteen inches long with the queen bee buried alive somewhere in the middle of them all. Joe assured us they’d be happy there for a while so he disappeared to dress more suitably and I grabbed my camera to capture the drama. As it transpired there was no drama…Joe snipped a branch of the olive and the main cluster obediently dropped into his box. The few remaining outriders formed a secondary smaller cluster on the quince tree but even they lost interest by dusk and were gone by morning.

If you’d like to know more about bees, who does the work (the females of course), what role the male bees play (to mate with the virgin queens) and why they swarm you could do worse than go to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee).

On the other hand, you may prefer to accept Winnie-the-Pooh’s thoughts on bees:

“That buzzing-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise, somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason that I know of is because you’re a bee.” 

“And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.”

“And the only reason for making honey is so I can eat it.”

And that’s the only explanation you’re going to get from me.



All photographs © Robin Lloyd