The (amazingly comfortable) night boat from Harwich was followed by a train journey across an icily beautiful Netherlands. As ever, lovely things seen but not photographed from the train windows; fixed in the memory that morning were the windmill covered in perching cormorants, and a white cat walking delicately across a frozen canal. We stayed in the Boutique Hotel View which fully deserves this plug – perfect in almost every way.

the view from our room - could you ask for more?

We did the things one does in that lovely city – the Rembrandthuis, of course, and the Rijksmuseum – and other galleries – and eating – and drinking . . .

Rembrandt's studio

Rijksmuseum - Fishing for Souls (Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne, 1614 - detail)

Other events – the candle-lit launch of Ian Marchant’s excellent new book Something of the Night. Funny, moving and filled with wise and correct observations on sex, religion and politics among many other matters.

Another local nocturnal event was the annual Wassail – health and safety happily not in evidence as the blazing globe of the Sun flew over the heads of the onlookers

An advance copy of Gardens of Cornwall landed on the mat – publication due on March 1st

And finally another reminder of spring and summer – remember summer? – with the publication of a cover feature on Sissinghurst in the February edition of The English Garden

Personal hygiene

To the regret of many, one of Herefordshire’s more eccentric landmarks is up for sale on eBay – here it is:

And finally, this month’s new moon seen from Stonewall Hill:

Offa's Dyke

The Black Mixen

A couple of particularly entertaining shoots have also helped to brighten this dark end of the year. One was at Levens Hall in Cumbria – two days in the most haunted house in Britain. No spooks, but fantastic interiors and lovely light.

The other was more local at a bizarre museum in Shropshire called the Land of Lost Content. A collection of all (and I do mean all) those trivial items we’ve forgotten but that once were the unacknowledged background to our lives. If ever you’re passing through Craven Arms, something most people do as quickly as possible, take the time to see it. Highly recommended.

Shameless self-promotion warning: Please vote here for Helena Attlee’s Great Gardens of Britain in the Horticultural Channel Awards. You’ll find it under the resounding title of ‘best non-practical gardening book of 2011′. (Click ‘submit survey’ when you’ve voted).

Finally, did I mention that Sunday was a cloudless day? One cloud did darken it a little; returning home to find some thieving toerag had just slipped out of the kitchen with a laptop under his arm. Not a disaster by any means, but a nuisance, and unexpected in this town. “Don’t often get a chance to do this in Presteigne, sir” said the scene-of-crime officer as he dusted down the kitchen for fingerprints. Long may that be true.

One of the boys' dormitories

The only other people there besides myself were the caretaker and the odd-job man. The building is on such a huge scale that we had to carry walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. The buildings are mostly neo-Gothic – every Catholic architect of the nineteenth century seems to have worked there, including three generations of the Pugin family. Surprisingly there was also a girls’ wing, with cubicles painted a delicate shade of eau de nil and littered with old sewing machines.

The girls' dormitory

Work and prayer in the shadow of the Cross

In the girls' wing

Most of the buildings are in good order, though the Junior School with its grade one listed chapel and its dormitories has long been empty and vandalised. The pupils’ home-made toboggans lie scattered around the floor.

The derelict Junior School

A junior dormitory

St Aloysius' Chapel

St Aloysius' Chapel

A view with a room

Just back from Calabria, a fleeting visit for which I had no excuse other than to accompany Helena Attlee on her research trip to the Jewish citron harvest. This peculiar event will soon be properly described by Helena in her forthcoming book on the role of the citrus family in Italian culture. Briefly, though, the citron (etrog in Hebrew) takes a central part in the annual Feast of Tabernacles (sukkot); what’s more, each fruit has to be absolutely flawless. We met a citron merchant from Brooklyn who talked us through the business, at the same time giving us a crash course in elementary Judaism. Who knew, for example, that the only commandments that apply to us (non-Jews, I mean) are the seven ‘Noahide’ commandments – six of which were given to Adam before the Fall and the seventh to Noah after the Flood?

A perfect citron

Harvesting these fruits is a brutal job – the trees are covered in vicious spines and grow low to the ground, so that the pickers have to crawl on all fours and pick the fruit while lying on their backs. All this in the furnace heat of a Calabrian summer. And then each fruit must be washed and checked by the merchant for the slightest imperfection, variation in colour, etc. before being packed in bubble wrap and foam rubber like a piece of glassware.

Looking for the perfect fruit

The citron merchant

The citron farmer

Checking the citrons

More pictures may be found here. After a brief break for beach time it was north to Amalfi to look at the precipitous and beautiful lemon gardens that hang above the Tyrrhenian Sea. The first picture on this post shows the view from our room, so high above the sea that we could just make out the mountains of Sicily 100 miles distant. Then home – and within 24 hours we were swimming in the rain in Hampstead Ponds. Funny thing, travel.

Amalfi lemons

Amalfi lemons

. . . dried llama foetus from a witches’ market in Bolivia. To be buried under the threshold of one’s new house for good fortune, apparently. As it happens we are considering moving, so perhaps a highly apposite present. More importantly, it proves that we must have got something right in her upbringing – no misjudged woolly hats sustainably hand-knitted in the Andes for us. Fair warms a father’s heart, it does.

We finished with a quick trip to smell the sea at Brixham, and rounded everything off by staying a night with friends near Totnes; a perfect few days away. Pics below.

Ways With Words, Dartington Hall

Readers queue for the next event - ours, perhaps?

Fishing off the sea wall at Brixham

Summer on the English Riviera

Stourhead

Great Gardens of Britain is out at last and so far to a good reception, judging by the first reviews. We’ve enjoyed seeing the other European editions, too – Germany is currently in the lead for the best foreign title with Gartenlust. Should you happen to be in Devon and anywhere near Totnes tomorrow (Tuesday 12th July), Helena Attlee and I are speaking about this book and related matters at the Ways With Words festival at Dartington Hall (4.00 pm.). And if you can find a moment, we’re always grateful for reviews on Amazon!

Just one other picture with this hasty blog post, but I couldn’t resist it – freshly churned butter in the artist Anne Belgrave‘s ‘Self-Reliant Kitchen’, open as part of the local ‘eco weekend’.

real butter

From one court to another. There’s been a royal visit to David and Sara Bamford’s carpet workshop here in Presteigne. I found myself on the royal press rota and being firmly briefed by the (glamorous and charming) Clarence House press officer as to what I might and might not do. It’s tricky, trying to photograph people and yet keep moving backwards in front of them, so that it’s as if you don’t exist and they are moving freely through an empty room. A strange illusion of total freedom for the royal couple, who are at all times surrounded by staff anxiously counting down the seconds until the next stage of the occasion.

Meeting and greeting

A pat on the back for Phil

The Cornish book finished on a definite high with a wonderful last day, an early morning at the open-air Minack Theatre, with low sun striking across the waves beating at the cliffs below the amphitheatre. More Cornish pictures to be seen here.

The Minack Theatre

The ancient chestnut trees at Dartington Hall

With that out of the way I’m free to concentrate on the imminent publication of our latest book, Great Gardens of Britain, due out on the 15th of July. We’ll be holding a small event locally to celebrate, about which more information later. Helena Attlee and I are also speaking about the book at the Ways With Words Festival at Dartington Hall near Totnes. That will be at 4.00pm on the 12th of July (all information on their website, www.wayswithwords.co.uk). I hope we’ll also get a chance to tell some stories about the weird and wonderful things that have happened to us while working together on our books. Incidentally, there are a couple of good reviews of the book out now, one by David Wheeler in the current (July) issue of Gardens Illustrated and the other by Claire Masset in the July issue of The English Garden.

The present order is the disorder of the future - Saint-Just. Little Sparta, Scotland