London Bridges
by Jane Stevenson
This is a delicious book: clever, erudite, witty, funny, generous . . . silly, and charmingly self-indulgent. All very like Sebastian Raphael, doctor of Classics, perhaps the most central (and perhaps the most charming) of its central characters, whom we see first through the eyes of another important character, Jeanene Malone: ‘ . . . an expansive and zestful individual, not unlike the late Oscar Wilde in appearance. He had longish dark hair, bright blue eyes, and an unEnglish ability to address a shop assistant as if she were a human being rather than a mechanical answering device . . .’ Jeanene is Australian, in London to study ancient Greek, working as a pharmacist. After Sebastian leaves her pharmacy, a couple enter, wanting a prescription filled. They say it is for ‘their uncle’, but the name on the paper is Scottish, as is the address of the doctor who had written it, and the couple are clearly Greek: she hears them arguing in their own language when she comes silently back into the front of the shop: ” ‘Just shut up. Even if we killed him, it wouldn’t matter. Who’s ever going to know?’ ”
London Bridges is a murder mystery, although there’s no mystery. You meet the chief villain in the second chapter, which begins: ‘It is acknowledged by all right-thinking persons that an Old Etonian scratching about for a living is a melancholy sight. One January day . . . Mr Edward Lupset emerged from Holborn tube station in his customary state of rage, frustration and despair. . . . he found his gaze arrested . . . by Hackett’s windows. . . . his reflection returned to him . . . tall, slim, blond, and designed both by nature and nurture to wear such clothes. Fashion victims may be sad, sick people, but a frustrated dandy is a dangerous man.’ And when he finds himself, as the most junior (and most disliked) lawyer at a large firm, lumbered with sorting out the tail end of a several-hundred-year-old bit of business with a Greek firm, business of no use to anyone except a few presumably clueless monks on the holy mountain of Athos, his sense of personal grievance increases even further. But then as he wades through dusty files of ancient correspondence in order simply to understand what the business is, he discovers that it might be a great deal of use indeed–to him. The two Greek lawyers acting in the matter, a man and a woman, are coming to London, and propose to meet with him; and at that meeting the three discover that they are really very like-minded about the situation.
Perhaps the main thing, to me, about London Bridges is that Stevenson has bags of style. I yearn for style, and there seems to me rather little of it about. Of the Great Three of novel-writing, plot, character and style, while I put character first, if a book doesn’t have at least some flash and glint of style I can’t be bothered to read it; nuts and bolts, getting-the-story-told writing bores and irritates me. This, however, makes me laugh: “[Sebastian] was delighted to find George Beckinsale himself in the staff common room . . . George was a man with theories about many things, not excepting ancient Greek government, but among the most persistent, and fervently held, was that Sebastian would be none the worse for a good hanging. . . . He recoiled skittishly as Sebastian came up behind him in a waft of Guerlain, as if he imagined you could catch queerness, like headlice, by contact. ‘Hello, ducky,’ said Sebastian cheerfully. . . .”
Or this scene, near the end, where our motley collection of heroes and heroines is about to catch up with Edward: “Dil['s] eyes were very bright . . . he stood very straight, looking suddenly like a Rajput warrior prince about to give Clive of India hell on a plate. ‘We need the cavalry,’ he said suddenly, and strode purposefully out into the road to flag down the bikers. . . . A tall, thin man in worn leathers . . . pushed up the visor of his battered helmet, and looked them over.
‘Need some help, mate?’ he asked, civilly enough.
‘We need to catch a bent lawyer on a big bike. . . . Can you give us a hand?’
The biker absorbed this statement impassively, and nodded. ‘Who’s coming, then?’ “
London Bridges is also an affectionate, extended salute to Margery Allingham*, who also loved London and the colour and diversity of its population (as another colonial living in England I especially relished some of Jeanene’s outsider’s bewilderment. In one scene Sebastian’s lover Giles offers to take several of them to lunch and a tour of his bit of Gloucestershire: ‘Jeanene looked imploringly at Hattie for guidance. One aspect of English English which still had her confused was sorting out polite insincerities from genuine offers.’ –Yessss**). London itself is a major character (as it was in Allingham’s novels). Dil and Hattie, old friends, go for a stroll together: ‘. . . the Thames was placid, grey, empty, spanned by bridge after bridge: Westminster, Hungerford, Waterloo, shadowed by the concrete Gulag of the National Theatre, Blackfriars. Crows bounced in the spring breezes amid the slicing, economical flight of the ever-present gulls. . . .’ Hattie works for the Bridge Trust: ‘We’re a very old charity . . . if anyone’s trying to get a project off the ground, we offer support . . . we broker information between groups. . . . We’re for London, and our basic question is, is a new project going to make London life better. . . .’ As it happens, Hattie’s latest project is a squatter garden-allotment that has grown up on a piece of waste ground, bombed out during WWII and never redeveloped, possibly because its owners are a few unworldly Greek monks.***
For anyone else who adores classy, literate mysteries where good is a better driver and evil is caught up with, may I warn you about one thing: you know who’s for the chop as soon as you meet him too, just as you know that Edward is going to be the bad guy. Forewarned is forearmed. But he’s a lovely old gentleman, and you’ll probably cry at his funeral, just as Sebastian does. †
* * *
* Jane Stevenson herself has said so: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/aug/19/fiction.shopping1
Any of Stevenson’s essays are worth reading, but in the circumstances I particularly recommend:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jun/21/featuresreviews.guardianreview31
** There’s also a very sweet, understated romance between Dil and Jeanene; the south London native ‘Rajput prince’–as the unspeakable Edward, who is in the same law firm, describes him: ’His father and mother ran an Indian sweet business somewhere in Southall and had laughable curry-flavoured accents, yet he cheerfully admitted to them in public’–and the anglo Australian. Another of this book’s pleasures is Stevenson’s blithe, deft juggling with multi-cultural-ethnic-gender-sexual-proclivities-whatever.
*** And now for the real, true, secret reason I like this book so much, but any of you who read it will collar me immediately: Hattie has a lurcher. She even once refers to her as ‘hellhound’. ‘Alice’s air of injured innocence intensified: could anyone believe . . . that this neglected and suffering animal was capable of slipping into anyone’s kitchen and eating an entire coffee-and-hazelnut gateau and a side of smoked salmon in a minute and a half?’ –Ah ha. My problem with my hellhounds’ indifference to food is obviously that I haven’t tried them on coffee-and-hazelnut and smoked salmon. Can’t be gateau, though, flour being the root of all evil, but I do have a recipe for coffee-and-hazelnut-and-chocolate meringue somewhere.
Humbly I will insert here that I do have a minor caveat about Alice. Yes, you certainly can have a dog in London, and you can take it about with you. But it’s not that easy. Alice does not sound like a small lurcher, and you have to carry–or at least be able to carry–your dog(s) on the tube. I am also appalled at the idea of leaving her outside a restaurant: I’m not (just) paranoid, dog theft is an enormous danger.
† And if we’re talking about homages to Allingham and Albert Campion, as Stevenson does in that essay, I want to know if Stevenson has any plans to turn Raphael and friends into a series. I find Hattie very open-ended, for example, and the feud between Sebastian and the dreadful George has barely begun. Stevenson might not, of course. Or she might want to, and the Story Council hasn’t sent her anything she can use. I would sympathise.
Another day, another crisis
So, there was a backlash to all the adrenaline yesterday, of course. Got out of bed this morning wearing full body armour . . . invisible full body armour, but it weighed like two broadswords and a Shire horse. Daisy dropped round after I was more or less upright and dressed, giving me an excuse not to go hurtling for another half an hour while we exchanged dog news: Mike is reconstructing her garden in a new* dazzlingly stark and austere style to look like the surface of Mars. Very striking. Daisy is expecting the Innovative Garden Design Award in the post any day now. She looked out the kitchen window at my plant-pot garrison and said, awed, that’s a lot of work.
Hmm. Well . . . yes. I’m just not very good at doing things the easy way.** I even remember looking at this tiny garden after I’d fallen inappropriately in love with the cottage–originally my office-cottage was supposed to be farther out of town–and thinking, never mind, I’ll just have to get heavily into alpines: ie teeny weeny things requiring endless amounts of fuss. Instead I’m doing original research in pot garrisonry. I’m sure if I ever found myself in a flat with no garden and no balcony*** I’d manage to create labour-intensive window boxes. As well as hanging a grow light in the sitting room and turning it into a jungle.†
Don’t your dogs jump over that little fence? said Daisy.
No, I said.
Why not? said the latest recipient of the Innovative Garden Design Award.
Um . . . because I used to nail their little paws to the floor when they were puppies? Daisy’s problem is that she has a family. She actually leaves Mike to amuse himself now and then. I spent a lot of time during the hellhounds’ first six or eight months of tenure peeling them off the stakes-and-netting fence that Atlas put in first. By the time I’d given up my fantasy of simply training them not to trash the garden and asked him to put in the little picket fence, I figured I could however afford to make it sturdy but symbolic, which is to say I can step over it carrying a (large) pot with a plant in it†† although hellhounds can jump twice that high. Easily. Especially after, for example, fleeing pheasants.†††
And so, speaking of jumping. . . .
After Daisy left I had no more excuse, so we went out and hurtled. And I felt odder and odder . . . and odder . . . this isn’t just‡ ME any more . . . and came back to the cottage and even black tea did not assuage me.‡‡ And eventually I gave up work and lunch and life and so on as a bad job and went and lay down. It doesn’t take long for the patter of little feet and the little pointed faces with the little bright eyes peering at me to follow. So I made room and . . . er . . . lay at attention to grab them as they arrived, because it’s not merely a very high bed but there’s no good launch-space either. About an hour later the phone rang. I don’t know why I decided to answer it‡‡‡ but hellhounds, as hellhounds will, followed me, so we had to go through the whole rocketship thing again.
And this time, as Darkness came up, he screamed.
I’ve been worrying about Darkness for a while. For a long time it has seemed to me that he jumps into the car rather cautiously, and he also holds himself more . . . intensely. I don’t want to say ‘tense’ because if you weren’t already worrying I think it would just look like his style: he’s not the loose-limbed looby that Chaos is; and while Chaos in full flight drops down a gear and goes into red shift, Darkness is the true sprinter, so it’s not surprising Darkness is the more heavily muscled. But he’s squeaked a few times going upstairs this last week, he was slightly lame for the duration of one hurtle a few days ago, he has strangely restless fits as if he can’t get comfortable . . . and I’ve been poised for some clear indication that it’s not just a pulled muscle§ and I should take him and my chequebook to the vet. I am of course terrified that it’s a hernia or an ulcer or something to do with two and a half years of chronic diarrhea: although I’ve felt him all over (top and bottom) and he says Hey! Attention! Yes! Rub my tummy while you’re at it!, and haven’t been able to find any sore spots. And the funny thing is that he’d had one of his restless fits the first time he jumped up on the bed–but after the second he flopped down instantly and didn’t move again.§§
So a little before the evening surgery at the vets’§§§ I dragged myself out of bed, took them for their final hurtle–during which Darkness appeared entirely normal–and tottered off to consult the experts.
And the vet said no, his gut is soft and he doesn’t mind me prodding him . . . but he does not want his hind legs stretched out, I think it’s back trouble.
So I’ve come home with a name and a flyer, and I’m about to enter the wonderful world of animal physiotherapy. Stay tuned.
Oh, and I’m a little better too.¤
* * *
* One might almost say ground-breaking.
** Yes, yes, I know. But Superman has ME, you know. You don’t really believe all that guff about Kryptonite, do you?
*** Perish forfend
† Twenty years ago–pre Peter–gardening was something other people did.
†† Which is a good thing, since I managed to choose the wrong places for the two gates to be put in.
††† Oh, gods, Darkness caught another rabbit the other day. I should really try to find someone to teach me to dispatch only half killed rabbits. Escaped is fine. Dead is fine. In between is . . . so extremely not fine.
‡ Just she says! JUST!
‡‡I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it is perverse that the three best stomach-settlers I know are strong black tea, champagne and dark chocolate. Possibly not all at once.
‡‡‡ Computer Man, to see how the RaspBerry and I are getting on. Ask me tomorrow, I said.
§ Possibly since the recent rabbit
§§ Since my nerves are now completely shattered I keep checking to make sure he’s still breathing.
§§§ Yes, again the vets who were going to send me to a fancy GI specialist in London rather than suggest I try hellhounds on a no-cereal kibble. I’ve agonised about this endlessly, of course, even after I took Chaos in a few weeks ago because he was bleeding from the anus,^ but I’ve more or less come to the conclusion that this is Life. You’re ultimately responsible. Experts are only experts. And you’re all mortal, and things fall through the cracks. And these are the guys who pay house calls so you can have your beloved friend put to sleep at home, even if it’s a Sunday afternoon, if she reaches the end of the road on a Sunday afternoon.
And today, furthermore, I managed to say something about the two and a half years of chronic diarrhea during which no vet ever said to me ‘try taking them off all cereal grains’ and felt that I was heard, so maybe I can stop needing to take a deep breath before I cross their threshold again, and the vet who told me to put them back on chicken and rice till he could set up an appointment with the GI specialist can stop avoiding me in the street.
^ Remind me again why I wanted dogs? Certainly not because they’re a huge amount of expense, worry, and trouble.
¤ I’m immediately better because it probably isn’t a hernia or an ulcer. Also Peter applied champagne to the problem. Champagne appears to have succeeded where black tea failed earlier. I’m about to see if dark chocolate can finish the job.
Predictive Insomnia
Last night I just thought I was having a bad night. They happen. Ugh. And when I shot awake–again–with that sense that someone has just shouted in one’s ear, the Visigoths are at the gate! Flee!, the way one does when one is Having a Bad Night, and it was about twenty minutes before the kitchen timer*/alarm clock was due to go off I staggered out of bed and began wrestling my wardrobe into submission.** And it was one of those days that the wardrobe seemed to be winning***, which meant I was still rumpled and snarky when Atlas turned up.
Meanwhile I had finally rung Computer Man Central yesterday and whined since I Have a Little List† plus I’ve bought a new toy†† which was supposed to be delivered††† last week. Computer Man was contrite, and offered to come this afternoon. So hellhounds and I capered out brisk and frolicsome‡ . . . and I promptly decided to take a slightly different way because . . . I don’t know, because . . . and we found ourselves running about ten minutes late, which was not an enormous concern, but then the trail we were about to turn down revealed itself as infested with off-lead Labradors and I just didn’t feel like dealing with this scene so we didn’t turn down it.‡‡ Whereupon we got back to the car nearly twenty-five minutes later than planned. Never mind, I said nonchalantly to my companions, Computer Men are always late. So we went back to the cottage and I made my pot‡‡‡ of tea§, put my salad together and began the complex ritual known as Feeding Hellhounds, and . . . the phone rang. Computer Man is arriving thirty five minutes early.
The RaspBerry is of course utterly strange and inexplicable so within about ten minutes of Computer Man’s arrival I was hyperventilating and trying to see through the flickering pixelated mist before my eyes. Which is when the phone rang again. And it’s my builder who needs a decision about radiators right now. The plumber’s there, you see. Now. Today. This minute. Okay, where’s the leak in the system? Why didn’t someone look at someone’s schedule and say to someone, hey, let’s go tear out some more walls at Third House tomorrow, and the someone someone said it to can say, great, I’ll tell the victim, I mean the mark, I mean the gudgeon, I mean . . . what do you call the person that writes the cheques? Never mind, I’ll ring her that we’re going to prey on her again tomorrow.
I feel that someone could have given me, oh, you know, an overnight’s warning that a final decision was going to need to be made. They did this to me about a week ago about the location of the new electric meter box, but there really was only one logical place for it§§ . . . there’s a whole 200 page catalogue of radiators§§§, and even having thrown out three quarters of them with utterances of, you mean someone would spend money on that?, that still leaves about eight hundred and twelve to eliminate individually. Gah.
So the builder gave me ten minutes to look frantically at the catalogue while Computer Man got on with the Little List¤ and then the builder came round and took instructions, I went back to the RaspBerry, the builder rang again in about fifteen minutes and said could I possibly pop round to Third House that afternoon before 4:30 when the plumber leaves?–have I mentioned that I haven’t had lunch yet? Hellhounds, who like to be confusing, did eat theirs. . . .
I finally got up to Third House at about 4:10. The builder had left. The plumber had left. The plasterers were there and a Builder’s Minion was there. I’m getting rather fond of this Builder’s Minion; he’s the one who’s always there. He’s also the one who grabbed me bodily before I pitched over the top of the ladder the other week–I’m not quite as dumb as I look, but I daresay one twittering heights-shy middle-aged cheque-writer is very like another and builders and their minions prefer not to take chances. So today the minion explained the situation to me, I said I would attempt to Hold Myself in Readiness for Further Bulletins Tomorrow, and he then, almost wistfully, I thought, took me on a tour of the Story Thus Far. The attic is almost beginning to look as if it might be a room some day. Might be. It’s all become so mind-reeling I’m almost losing track of the weight-bearing floor. Except for the fact that there’s still no floor downstairs so the view of all those cement blocks newly holding up the walls is rather eye-catching.¤¤ There’s also a brand-new enormous hole in the outside wall where they took the old boiler out, and if I find a family of badgers under the sofa next week I am not going to be happy.
* * *
* I’ve told you I don’t seem to have a functioning alarm clock.^ But I’ve got so accustomed to using a kitchen timer that the alarm clock concept is coming to feel alien and perverse.
^ More to the point, if I do, I don’t know how to use it. All your electronic calendar devices have alarm clocks, I think. Fancy being awoken by your computer. Ewwwww. It’s not enough that your computer has a charter to pester and torment the rest of your day+ , you can invite it to be the one to shout in your ear that the Visigoths are coming, and it hopes you got those pressure bandages into your knapsack because you don’t have time to hunt for them now.
+ And in some cases your night
** I don’t think I’ve ever got round to a Wrestling with My Wardrobe blog entry, probably because the chief wrestling goes on in the morning and by the time I’m eating supper, trying to feed hellhounds, and writing an entry, success or failure was hours ago, shouldered aside or buried by the exigencies of the pursuant day. But I’m one of these sad people who minds about clothing–as opposed to, say, Peter, who dresses off the clothes line or whatever is on top in the drawer. ^ I dress for me–and for the fact that I will be spending two hours striding about the landscape and possibly if I’m lucky two more mucking about in the garden–but I’m a fairly demanding clientele. No, no, no, you can’t wear that neckline with that! And that is completely the wrong green!
^ Note: arrrrrrgh.
*** A daring sortie a little later however left me in possession of the field. And the right green.
† Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, Outlook, printer, software and frelling log in on the blog.
†† A non-BlackBerry life minder. One might say . . . a RaspBerry. But my old PDA, which dates back to before BlackBerries or the BlackBerry tradition took over the planet, is fading.^
^ See? I know when something is on its way out. Wolfgang is not.
† Silver platter, parsley, and a Computer Man in a penguin suit.
‡ Some of us were brisker and more frolicsome than others.
‡‡ To the hellhounds’ sorrow, of course. However, we’d earlier had an encounter with a Jack Russell puppy which had been so eager both to meet us and simultaneously to indicate its lowly status in reference to godlike hellhounds that having come pelting toward us it did a kind of corkscrew thing in the air so that it arrived at the hellhounds’ feet belly up. The interesting thing is that Chaos, who is not known for either maturity or restraint, especially in relation to other dogs, let it be the puppy.
‡‡‡ large
§ strong
§§ unless something has gone terribly, horribly wrong. Shhhhh.
§§§ Including the £1,000,000,000 cast iron one with twiddly bits which I realio trulio cannot afford, especially because if I decided to spring for just one, which I thought about, just one in a conspicuous spot in the sitting room, it would just . . . sit there, conspicuously showing up all the other ones. And probably giving them an Ugly and Boring Complex, whereupon they would become too miserable to work and produce heat.
¤ I also managed to find a couple of immediate problems with the RaspBerry. I can’t help it. I was born this way.
¤¤ And a good thing too, speaking of pitching over edges.
I Always Need More Pots
Tiiiired again. Booooooored now. Booooooored.*
And I got down to the mews late for supper due to wrestling plants in the dark. And I was wrestling plants in the dark because America is already on summer time, and our clocks don’t spring forward till the end of the month.
There, that was perfectly clear, wasn’t it? I had a phone call booked with Merrilee this afternoon for what I blithely assumed was 4:30 and then later realised with a cold thrill of horror was 3:30. Three-thirty is like barely lunchtime in my lexicon. And Peter and I were planning on a bolt to the garden centre this afternoon: we both need alpines, so called, little things to put in tiny little-things beds, and I need that pair of large pots for the two weeping standard roses I had managed to forget I had ordered.**
So we bolted. And I was somehow irresistibly drawn to the plant tables . . . well I do need alpines, I have two sinks*** that are just lying there tapping their little cementy† fingers and waiting to grow something. And I bought some little bitty things which are too cute when they’re flowering, of which there will be photos in due course if I remember††. I also bought two more hellebores. Even as I put them on the cart I said–out loud, to the distress of the two well-dressed, plummy-vowelled County Types discussing phormiums in the next aisle–McKinley, you need more hellebores like you need a sled team of greyhounds. But they’re doubles! I wailed (using a different voice, to the further consternation of the County Types who could be seen to be sidling farther away, bearing their phormiums in front of them like shields). I don’t have any doubles! And they’re so pretty! And they vary a lot so when you order them out of catalogues you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get!
Right. A lot of little things, two hellebores,††† and two Large Stately Pots. And by then we were late, so we hared home and I made a dive for the telephone because Merrilee is always on time when I’m late.‡ And then because it was a whole hour earlier than it usually is after I’ve talked to Merrilee, I went back to my desk and Forgot About the Passage of Time, and when I looked up it was nearly dark, and I was only looking up then because the pressure of two pairs of beady golden eyes staring was becoming oppressive, and so I had to take them–the owners of the beady golden staring eyes–out for their hurtle first by which time it was dark, and because of the diving for the phone the car was still full of plants, and I couldn’t get hellhounds in till I got plants out.‡‡ Plus I don’t like the bite of the evening air, so I had to bring the jungle indoors again and I have to go to bed early however late I started supper, so as to be up and at least dressed if not fully coherent by (ahem) 9 a.m. tomorrow when Atlas shows up. This sleeping nine hours a night is very high on the Booooooooored Now list.
* * *
* I’m having Truly Horrible Thoughts about having to give something up permanently. Life is too godfrellingdamn short. Why are there so many interesting things out there if we only have time to investigate .000000000000000000000000000000001% of them? What kind of a set up is that? And I’m definitely to the stage of recognising that I haven’t got time. When you’re twenty-five there’s time. You can take up belly dancing, sky diving, horse vaulting^ and translation of Kalaallisut next decade. Although you might want to get started on learning Kalaallisut now. I know, we’ve had this conversation before, and I may have a minor deluge in my inbox tomorrow, or on the forum, about people becoming lawyers or marine biologists at seventy-nine and hiking across Mongolia at eighty-four, pausing for a spot of polo^^ on the way. Yes and there are women who have their first children at my age, but I’m not one of them. Aging is an individual process, and there are probably women who would not have brought home a pair of hellhound puppies at fifty-four. But the bottom line is still that you’re running out of time and you’d better choose carefully. I have chosen carefully! It’s just a slightly too-long list! And I still want to get back to drawing! And one or two other things! And I did not choose to have ME!^^^
^ I remember coming out of the Big Apple Circus about twenty years ago, when I was in my mid-thirties, having adored watching the acrobatics on horseback. After that part of the show one of the rider-gymnasts announced to the audience that they ran a summer programme in teaching people horse vaulting, and anyone interested should pick up a form or a flyer or whatever. I don’t remember anything about the rest of the show: what I remember is my sense of outrage that it was already too late for me to learn horse vaulting. I made a poor companion for the taxi ride home: my friend was very glad to get rid of me. And in hindsight, I was right too: it was already too late for me. My life already didn’t have time, space, energy or focus for something like horse vaulting–taking the seminar as an adventure and letting it go at that is not likely to have been my reaction–and that’s aside from any questions of how well you still bounce when falling off horses at speed in your mid thirties.
^^ Horse and camel
^^^ I didn’t exactly choose to run a blog. But I now can’t imagine not knowing some of you.
** Having now had another raid on the garden centre and its large pot selection I assume that other parcel of fifteen^ roses I’ve forgotten I ordered will arrive tomorrow.
^ Fifteen?
*** also so called, but old ceramic sinks are actually very popular for this use
† You’re supposed to cover your old ceramic sink with cement to make it look more, uh, rustic. Or at least less shiny.
†† If I really am being driven to reduce and retrench, there may be more garden photos. You can still potter in the garden even when you’re incapable of much else, signing your name to accept delivery on ten copies of the bound galleys of your new book^, overwhelming hellhounds, rational thought, etc.
^ I managed it in the end, but this deliveryman has known me ten years or so, and doesn’t take the signs of extreme effort as manifestations of fraud. Also you don’t sign your name for deliveries any more: you make a few occult slashes at the screen of a little plastic box. Occult slashes are easy.
††† . . . one or two other things . . . or three . . .
‡ Note with reference to Other Media, which has come up on the forum lately. Merrilee says there is no longer any question that we aren’t looking to make my books available in Other Media, ie various electronic thingummies^–we most definitely are. It’s negotiating what the blistering contracts are going to look like and who owns what and with whom and why that is taking time.^^
^ We are not talking about film. See my FAQ. It is extremely unlikely any of my books will ever be made into films. Although I seem to have another option contract to sign. It ain’t for much, but as Merrilee cunningly pointed out–she being well aware of my feeling about filmed books–it’s another few risers of Third House’s new stair.
^^ . . . and they argued all night/ About who had the right/ To do what, and with which, and to whom
‡‡ Although hellhounds are missing their final little one a.m. jaunt home. They look wistfully at the archway out of the mews courtyard as I’m busy bundling them toward the restored and legal Wolfgang.
As Tidy as It Ever Gets . . .
. . . early spring garden. 
With hellhound. And that’s Robert (ahem) Plant on the little round spaceship, I mean portable CD player.
I love this time of year when everything is racing out and, for example, my unsprayed rosebushes are still green.
This won’t mean anything to you, but this is the Baron Girod de l’Ain, who is a martyr to black spot–all Hybrid Perpetuals* are martyrs to black spot, in my experience, it’s just you can kind of stay ahead of it with the more vigorous ones by feeding like crazy. (There’s also a jasmine mixed in if you’re wondering why not all of the leaves look like rose leaves.)
The Baron is one of my idiocies–I have so many–I just about kept her alive at the old house but she wasn’t exactly a poster girl for the cause of inspiring more people to grow roses because they are lovely and elegant plants. I put her here in a pot and laughed hollowly all the first year while I waited for her to die. This is now coming up her fifth year, I think–she was one of the first in–and she’s doing really well. How the fitzwilliams did that happen? What am I doing? –But she’ll still be covered in black spot, and probably rust, by August, unless my mad new scheme of seaweed foliar feed works**.
And speaking of What am I doing?, will you look at all those buds on these camellias? Eeesh golly wow gosh. I’ve never seen anything like it–well, not on my camellias. I admit I’m waiting in terror for them all to fall off at the last minute–which is one of the things camellia buds do***–but the loyal and dreaded† Jingle Bells is already coming out which is a hopeful sign for the rest of them, which are prettier. These in the photo are only two bushes. There are more, scattered around.††
And my hellebores mysteriously predicted among themselves that this winter was going to be a ratbag and did not start coming out in December the way they usually do. I thought I probably wasn’t going to have any this year–as I don’t seem to be having any epimediums†††, sob–but they suddenly burst out all over the place a fortnight or so ago. Yaay. I have kind of a lot of hellebores too. Here are just three of them.
* Um. We’re still talking roses here, for you non-gardeners. I mean, I’m not always talking roses. Sometimes I’m talking camellias. See below.
** Possibly because I’ve actually got myself organised to do it, like I was going to last year. And didn’t. I wouldn’t exactly put money on my doing it this year either.
*** This is supposed to be because you didn’t keep the plants well enough watered the end of last summer when the flower buds were forming. Maybe. I think it’s just another manifestation of evil plant humour.
† I have spent the last x years wondering what brain spasm caused me to buy one of these damn fuzzy-centred (anemone) camellias–I know I hate them–and in a horrible flat red colour. Sigh. Unfortunately–and I know I wrote all this last year, but, get used to it, I’ll write it all again next year too–she’s such a doer. She just sits there causing no trouble whatsoever and producing flowers every year. She’s going to outlive me, I know it. In a hundred years when somewhere or other has a blue plaque because Robin McKinley lived here^, there will Jingle Bells be in the garden. Probably in the same big ugly black plastic pot. If I move again, I’ll take her with me. Just like last time.
^ This will presumably mean I eventually got published in this frelling country
†† And will be more yet next year if it looks like turning out that camellias are doing well for me in this garden. Mmmm. Camellias.
††† A lot of remarkably useless photos of epimediums on the web, and I don’t feel like diving for mine. http://www.plantsforshade.co.uk/acatalog/epimedium_warleyense.html
This doesn’t really give you much sense of how really lovely and delicate they are. Despite being the horny goat weed. No, really. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimedium