Contrasts

For four days we have our old house back and today it looked at its magical best. The garden is full of flowers, the pool was sparkling and the house was exuding calm and peace.

Having moved to a modernist house with a huge but barren, would-be garden, I felt real pangs of loss today as I walked between the oleanders, mulberries, olives, palms, hibiscus and so on and so on. I miss all that verdant lushness. I miss the flowers at face height.

But if I wait three or four years and work my socks off I'm sure I can recreate it at the new house. I'm planting like a madwoman, so the bones are there. It just needs time. Meanwhile I'll soak up the work of the past ten years at Le Couvent.