Primroses love the vicarage garden (see below) and give your heart a real lift as they are about the first flowering plant to appear in spring, just as the Hellebores are starting to look spotted and unhealthy. (I know I’m badly out of season.) I finished reading Molly Peacock’s The Paper Garden: Mrs Delany (begins […]

I recently retired from my job in Balliol Library and it made the seamstress in me very happy that my last job was mending the lampshades. Until a couple of years ago lamps in both libraries were variants on that shown above – sturdy oak bases with parchment-like linen shades. The ones in the Old […]