Autumn, lamb vegetable and barley soup,  garden talk and  antique-ing!

Autumn has well and truly arrived.  My favourite time of the year.  The Southern Highlands has put on a magnificent show this year.  The streets are awash with Maples and others in shades of burgundy, orange, yellow and gold.   I took the photo above on an early morning walk.  If you look carefully you will see the statue of Mary Poppins in a local park!

The cold weather has inspired  me to cook hearty soups, slow cook casseroles and poach autumn fruit.  

I came across an old recipe book which belonged to my late mother.  The recipe below is for a delicious lamb, vegetable and barley soup.  A couple of Instagram friends asked for the recipe,  so here it is.

4 medium Lamb shanks - less if you prefer less meat

2 tbsp olive oil

2 large brown onions

2 small leeks sliced

4 medium carrots chopped

3 sticks celery chopped

4 medium potatoes chopped

3-4 sprigs fresh thyme

2/3 litres good lamb/beef stock

1 cup barley

Brown the shanks in the olive oil.  Remove.  Add butter, melt and soften all the vegetables.  Cook for 10 minutes.  Add barley, stock and shanks and sprigs of thyme.  Bring to the boil and reduce heat to a slow simmer.  Simmer until shanks are falling off the bone.  Check on liquid and add more water if needed. Remove meat from the bones,  chop finely and return to the soup.  Serve with lots of chopped parsley.  

Lamb, vegetable and barley soup

golden poached pears.

Mr R-I has had key-hole surgery so we've had lots of time at home.  Warming fires at night and trying to make final selections for our English garden tour.   

Grey's Court Garden in Oxfordshire

Wollerton Old Hall Garden

Cottage garden at Sissinghurst.

So looking forward to a return visit to Sissinghurst.  These photos were taken during our visit in September last year.  I'm sure the garden will look entirely different in a few weeks.

Vita's chair

Even the humble Potatoe vine has a place at Sissinghurst.

Finding Spring flowers and bulbs in Autumn is exciting.  I especially love white multi-layered folds of Ranunculus

The pink Echinacea are still flowering in the garden along with the Delphiniums, Verbascum and a few others!   

Antique-ing is a favourite pastime and my daughter and I had a fun day yesterday adding to our treasures!  

Thrilled with the delicate Georgian table above,

the two porcelain herons above.

and this unusual large Asian tureen.

Lastly, I'm so enjoying this bunch of flowers dropped in  by my daughter-in-law and family on their way to the beach.

Have a good week everyone and I'm sure friends in the Northern Hemisphere are loving the Spring!

A VISIT TO GREAT DIXTER

When I visited Great Dixter in Kent UK for the first time in early September 2014,  I felt quite emotional approaching the familiar front entrance of this wonderful 15th century manor house sitting comfortably in the garden.  I say familiar only because I had read a great deal about Christopher Lloyd's garden and the development of his home Great Dixter in 1910 by his father Nathaniel Lloyd and the architect Edwin Lutyens  Parts of this house date back to 1450.  Read here if you wish to know more.  

I was visiting the Loi Thai's charming blog Tone on Tone this week.  Loi fills his posts with beautiful photos of  Belgian style antiques he sells in his shop as well as of his own home and garden.   In one of his posts Loi refers to Christopher Lloyd's quote from his book 'A well Tempered Garden'  -  

" If Hyacinth scent is cloying,  I am perfectly happy to be cloyed"  This delightful quote prompted me to look back on the photos I took when visiting Great Dixter last year and I thought I would share these on the Blog today.    While slowly scrolling through my many photos (apologies),  I happened to be listening to Sir Edward Elgar's  'Nimrod'.  The combination was perfect and moving. If you have access to this music,  try the combination!  

I visited Great Dixter and Sissinghurst on the same day.  This was my first visit to both and I looked at my photos of both for weeks after.  What an incredible experience to visit these gardens at last.    We were lucky that the weather was grey and chilly,  resulting in relatively few visitors.    I did, however,  loiter about waiting for people to step aside before photographing!  Mr. R-I was most patient!

As it was late summer,  Great Dixter was awash with Dahlias, Zinnias, Rudbekia, Salvias and more.  Strong warm colours which I love.  Great Dixter was, and still is an experimental garden and changes are constant.    Fergus Garrett was head gardener for the last 15 years of Christo's life.  It was a garden of consideration.  Every day they would walk around the garden asking themselves, "Is it worth it,  does it grow well, does it stand on it's own".  Many decisions were made, some of which required immediate action and others left as and when the seasons dictated.  

The garden is filled with a great variety of plants offering different sculptural elements, leaf contrast, and textures.    Interestingly,  Christopher Lloyd preferred to call his Long Border a "mixed border" and not a perennial border.  I have added a link to a video at the end of this post where Rosemary Verey pays a visit to Great Dixter.  Christopher and Rosemary Verey talk about Dahlias and much more.  Christo shows her his "Exotic Garden" which I remember from my visit.    Their interchange is so delightful and one feels that there was  a friendly rivalry between them.    They refer often to 'hot colours' as opposed to 'cool colours' which were obviously more popular at that time.  Christopher it seems,  was not afraid of moving against popularity.  

I do hope you enjoy looking through these photos.    It was a perfect day for photos - good light and no sunshine!   

Can you see the Daschund in the topiary?

A pebble mosaic of Christopher's two daschunds - Dahlia and Canna laid in 1998.

Most of the borders were at shoulder height and we walked through tunnels of blooms and colours and textures.

The Long Border designed by Nathaniel Lloyd and Lutyens.

I love the Heleniums in the foreground which I also grew on South Acres.  They flower in late summer.

The sedum in the foreground just being to colour

Look at those wonderful chimneys

I loved this window

I love the three Oast Houses on the right.

Below is the link to the  video of Rosemary Verey's visit with Christo at Great Dixter.  The video was filmed in late September of that year,  a time when this garden is possibly at it's best.  Christo refers to Fergus his head gardener,  and today, Fergus Garrett still manages the garden.  I met him briefly, as he walked about followed by two Daschunds who could be heard barking in the garden from time to time!  If Christopher Lloyd could walk around his beloved Great Dixter today,  I know he would be proud.  To view this delightful video please click 

here - I know you will love it!