Category: Diary
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The Resilience of Swans: Parenting Lessons from Pond Cottage
On another wet and windy day we return to Pond Cottage after a night away, pausing by the gate to check the postbox. And there’s a surprise package, a gift that brightens the gloom: a delightful sketch of our Mother Swan by the talented artist Rowena Millard.
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Mud pies and memories of freedom
Open the door and there’s a big green velvet curtain to keep the living room warm, in granny’s bedroom a pretty dressing table set decorated with pink – maybe purple? – flowers. A potty tucked discreetly under the bed. No bathroom. The toilet is outside in a whitewashed washhouse. At bedtime the grandchildren are marched…
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A gift of hope
Green shoots of hope – I’ve just had a lovely message from a generous man, a rare philanthropist, who is offering to match the money we raise this year for CHAS (Children’s Hospices Across Scotland) through our Scotland’s Gardens Scheme openings. He means it, he was so impressed by what he learned about CHAS when…
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Galanthus “Trumps” at Pond Cottage
Here we are. At the start of our visiting season I’m not in the best of moods but I stop reading the news to take a walk round the garden and I can’t help smiling when I find the snowdrop given by a dear, gardening friend last year. Perky, eye catching, Galanthus “Trumps” could do…
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A Himalayan birch for Ronnie
“I just enjoy being among the mountains, that’s good enough, I don’t need to get to the top…” Ronnie Faux, born Burnley 8 November 1935, died Carlisle 16 July 2024. Before this turbulent 2024 ends, there’s still just time to add one more tree story. We have planted a Himalayan birch in memory of our…
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Rewilding: or how to be led by Nature
It’s been ploughed and cultivated for perhaps 200 years. How to turn an acre of field into a wild garden?
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Plants, pollinators, people: welcome to the Pond Garden
How to plan and plant for wildlife in our new climate of uncertainty? I’m searching for ideas in the era of adaptation. There’s great advice from experts but I can also learn a lot from close encounters with the pollinators feasting on self-sown flowers at Pond Cottage. Great opportunists. True survivors.
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Close encounters with birds: our best start to the day
Possibly our most enjoyable experience at Pond Cottage. Counting birds has a serious scientific purpose but in a world of human chaos, I find few sights more cheering than close encounters with these beautiful unblinking creatures. Thank you @BTO_Scotland
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Every tree tells a story at Pond Cottage
Planting a tree is to have hope for the future… The old oak tree The story so far. On a sunny afternoon in May a small group gathered among the trees at Pond Cottage to explore how storytelling can reconnect people with the natural world. And what we all gain when we do.
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Tree stories stir hearts and perhaps a sense of hope
I hadn’t expected to be quite so engrossed. For the next two hours I never once thought about taking my phone out of my pocket
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A blossoming welcome to The Pond Garden
After a hard winter it is good to see signs of new life. As climate change blows hot and cold, spring feels both fragile and determined. Winter storms destroyed our oldest wild plum tree. But she has left us a promising legacy.
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Here’s to a new season of unruly gardening
Which season are we in, exactly? Looking through old blogposts it’s almost quaint to note how I marked the comforting rhythm of the four seasons. Four seasons? More like two now I often think: winterish and summerish.