White Roses and Red Geraniums

 Available as a printed book or Kindle download from Amazon, this story is set in an English village in the post war period. It's all about prefab houses and gardens, with a bit of theatrics thrown in. Here's an extract: With her diary marked midweek and Mrs Bidder likely to want to make a visit soon, Marigold rose on Monday morning feeling that she really must get on with making a start in the garden. She took her cup of tea out there, breathing in a mixture of melting frost and wood smoke. They were burning the hedges again to make way for the prefabs. It was a smell of outdoors and her father’s bonfires. It wrapped around her and made her tea taste good. The garden had now been sketched out in a notebook, which Marigold fetched from her overalls pocket. A map of square beds and narrow paths, a potager ending in an immovable bank of brambles. The ground would have to be dug over as a starting point, perhaps twice or three times. She had obtained an old spade from Mr Tinker an...

  One of the most pleasant ways to spend your time in the spring and summer is garden wildlife watching.  It is mindful and relaxing - a great way to reduce stress levels without leaving the comfort of your own chair. Over the lockdown period, I have noticed just how important   water   is in attracting wildlife and providing scenes worth staring at.  Many of us have been feeding birds for years, and planting flowers to attract pollinators - but how much thought has been given to providing plenty of drinking and bathing   water ? I currently have six sources of  water  on my small back garden and each seems to be favoured by different creatures. Firstly, there is the pond. This is home to the frogs, whose spawn provides entertainment every spring and summer as it develops into tadpoles and froglets. To me, the arrival of frogspawn is a joyous occasion as then I know that winter really is on its way out. But the pond also has a shallow end which is...