The harvest has begun a few weeks earlier than normal. The whole countryside is turning yellow under the baking sun. My cherries ripened and were eaten by the blackbirds before we could lay a finger on them, but we've enjoyed the replacements bought from the farm shop.
British cherries have had a torrid time, with hundreds of acres grubbed out as they were unable to compete with foreign imports, but there are signs of a revival thanks to new lower-growing varieties and, blackbirds permitting, they are a delicious alternative to the ubiquitous strawberry.
On Sunday, there was a surprise 70th birthday party for my mother. Dad had managed to organise it due to Mum's inability to use a computer combined with a series of hushed phonecalls-that could be cut off at any moment when she slipped outside to water the garden.
For a man who has spent almost a year in hospital, followed by another in a wheelchair, it was some achievement to organise the whole thing. For my mother, who has nursed him, it was a wonderful and occasionally emotional thank-you. The fact that Dad managed to walk to the table with his zimmer frame was the cherry on the cake.
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21 of the greatest craftspeople working in Britain today, as chosen by the nation's best designers and architectsWe've persuaded some of the most celebrated names from our Country Life Top 100 to name the craftspeople they have in their own personal little black books.
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The garden created by a forgotten genius of the 1920s, rescued from 'a sorry state of neglect to a level of quality it has not known for over 50 years'George Dillistone’s original Arts-and-Crafts design at Knowle House, East Sussex, has been lovingly restored and updated with contemporary planting. George Plumptre tells more; photography by Clive Nichols.
