Mouse & Muse Blog
by Trevor Millum
An occasional series which I hope is of interest to friends and family. Feedback always welcome.
Coe and Coe
I've usually enjoyed Jonathan Coe's novels, my favourite being one from long ago, What a Carve Up. Middle England is third in a series about characters first met in The Rotters Club and though you don't need to have read the first two, it would help, I think. Coe is...
Priestley and Edgeworth
Unusual bedfellows, Maria and JB, perhaps. Except they have been side-by-side beside my bed recently. Castle Rackrent I had not read before nor had I heard of its companion, The Absentee. Though Castle Rackrent is the better known, I enjoyed The Absentee more, in the...
Meditation in Pieces
Beryl Cook was a quiet, almost reclusive, painter, and, I suspect, quite slim. The fact that she enjoyed portraying big confident women (and the odd man) is perhaps no surprise. And there was often a humorous side to them too. No wonder she didn't appeal to the...
Celtic Fringes
From Donegal to Brittany via Wales, you can see similarities - not least in the place names. Brittany is famous for its stone monuments, of course, and the closest we've come across in the UK are in the Orkneys and Outer Hebrides, though Avebury comes close and...
Wheelbarrow Weekend
Barrow's Wheelbarrow Weekend was back properly this year. 78 barrows throughout the village and a dozen Open Gardens. It just happened to coincide with some other celebrations that were going on. Many did have a Jubilee theme and lots didn't, such as this winning...
Son of the Secret Gardener
Not surprisingly, getting Son of the Secret Gardener out into the world has occupied a lot of my time over the last couple of months. My PR person, Elly Donovan, has been fantastic and as a result I've done a lot of local radio interviews and got coverage in all...
I got distracted…
...by many things, including reawakening my Facebook presence, which I was sceptical about. Having done so, though, I'm glad to be reconnected with lots of folk I'd not been in touch with for a while. The picture is from a garden in the village which always goes the...
The Dolphin, the Cat and the Ettrick Shepherd
The dolphin sculpture sits on a promontory in Portsoy on the Aberdeenshire coast. Portsoy is a small harbour town but with imposing 18th century buildings on the quayside. You can see the dolphin on the horizon here. Not far away is Cawdor with a typical Scottish...
Gardens, gardens, gardens…
It's been a good summer for gardens so far, notwithstanding a couple of periods of very heavy rain and some unwelcome winds. The photo above was taken at Helmsley Walled Garden: always a joy to visit but particularly resplendent in July. The cafe is very good too, if...
Distracted by Diaries
Reading and re-reading my dad's gardening diaries, two of which I have transcribed and will be part of 'The Son of the Secret Gardener', has distracted me from other things, including this blog. But not from my weekly poem for the Wildlife Trust 30-30 campaign. Now...
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