Cats on a Wet Green Roof and Rooms With a View

It’s been a busy few weeks here. Victoria and Albert have had a new summerhouse installed and we’ve had a proper roof put on our conservatory.

The summerhouse was royally declared open and we sat in it with cups of tea and iced buns, enjoying the autumn sunshine. Its long windows to the front and sides provide not quite 360 degree views of the V&A garden, but not far off. Victoria set-to painting the exterior, in what I think is a very tasteful Farrow & Ballesque colour of green. Their cat, Sweet Pea loves the summerhouse too – the roof has become a lookout post. We were a bit worried a fight was about to ensue when a new kid on the block decided to investigate. I think you can see by Sweet Pea’s stance (she’s the one with white tail tip) that you’d have to be a brave kitten to stick around for long, so fortunately fur did not fly on this occasion!

I’ve been painting too – funnily enough while listening to Elizabeth Taylor’s biography, which naturally includes stories about her making the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman. Elizabeth had an interior designer as part of her entourage, so I doubt she ever did any decorating herself. The idea behind having the roof replaced on our conservatory is to conserve heat, so that we are able to spend more time enjoying it during the winter months. Sitting in there we have a great view of our garden, the visiting birds, the antics of the squirrels and various feline visitors. To date, even with heating, it was cold. Painting the ceiling was a precarious task. The style of the roof is Edwardian, meaning that in places it is over 3 metres high. The first coat on the new plaster was a messy business. I read up that for fresh plaster, the first coat should be a ‘mist’ coat. This involved mixing 3 parts emulsion to one part water. I think I ended up wearing more of it than was on the ceiling. I did use a roller on a pole for as much as possible, but doing the edges and crevices necessitated balancing on the top of Victoria’s ladders, paintbrush in one hand and paint pot in the other. I spent much of my time hoping I would not soon be featured on TV as the latest victim on 24 Hours in A &E – you know the scenario – bleep bleep of a phone, followed by nurse scribbling down ‘65 year old woman, fallen 6 ft from ladders’. Anyway luckily I survived unscathed, other than sporting white hair and freckles.

I have been doing some gardening too – well, more like tidying. I’ve repotted the geraniums I had in hanging baskets and cut them back for overwintering, taking cuttings from the offcuts. I’ve sown some sweet peas – the usual annuals, but I’m also trying some of the perennial type this year. I discovered that some lavender in my front garden had seeded in the cracks of the block paving. I used to love my mum’s patio which was overrun with self seeded lavender – the bees were in their element – but I knew GR would not take kindly to this look on our front drive. So, I yanked out the seedlings and potted them up – even if only one survives, it’s a plant for free!

I have to say, that for this time of year, I’m pretty chuffed with how colourful my border at the bottom of the garden is looking – what do you think? I’m just hoping my Café au Lait dahlia flowers will get the chance to open before Jack Frost finishes them off.