Keep off the grass!

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

Be prepared for something entirely different - and a beautiful border which I absolutely love. I don’t think it’ll be something we recreate here, although the yellow red hot pokers could be a contender!

This garden designed by James Fenneberg takes the brief of ‘my garden escape’ to an entirely different level. He has designed a space which transports you through his choice of plants and materials. Agaves with their texture thorns feature prominently and symbolise ‘the sense of protection he wanted to create in his border’, and the results are stunning.

In addition James was also inspired by our ever changing climate to create a drought tolerant design which also features repurposed volcanic sand and rocks to create an ecological habitat for insects. And the weather on the day we visited the border couldn’t have underlined his message any more. We spent some time chatting with James and remarked how he was noticeably less flustered than some of the other garden designers who were watering the plants in their gardens so that they would look their best for the duration of the show.

Not so for James though, that’s definitely a design element that paid off - and one that I think we will all need to incorporate more and more into our garden spaces. Though if it means having sculptural plants like this, then it would be relatively easy to get on board with that wouldn’t it?

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

The loos in the bank vault

Yes that’s right, and it’s definitely a first - even for me - but it was kinda fun, and very well done. Before we get to the loos though, we were in Nottingham for a visit to the opera, like you do. Well we don’t that often actually, it’s probably only our third or fourth opera and it was a fabulous production of Romeo and Juliet by Northern Ballet. It was our first time in the Theatre Royal, which was a lovely old theatre and completely in contrast to the Concert Hall which we’ve been to many concerts and productions in before.

Before the opera though we went for pizza - we’d seen a restaurant we wanted to try on a previous visit, and then neither of us could remember its name or where it was. But, after some internet searching we found it and so found ourselves enjoying pizza and mocktails in Rudy’s Pizza admiring the architecture, the high ceilings and the plasterwork and so much more.

How beautiful and grand is it? It’s definitely a statement of wealth and prestige. So even before my visit to check out the loos we knew we were sitting in an old banking hall - we’ve both been in a fair few of those in our time working in the City!

The thickness of the wall and doorway into the Ladies confirmed the prior use of the building - the thickness of the wall confirmed this was a previous bank vault.

And the safe’s doubly confirmed it!

It makes total sense to leave them in situ - as not only will they be heavy (to say the least) they’re huge and more than likely would struggle to get out of the vault, and they definitely wouldn’t have got up the stairway I went down. The ladies cubicles were built around the safe, sadly though I wasn’t able to look inside the one with half a safe in so I’m not sure if it was visible inside or not. Though I’ll happily go back and try another time as the pizzas were pretty good too!

So quite a different vibe here, but one that reuses a space creatively and with a nod to the building’s heritage - and another post in the Loo Series, which just a week or so ago I wasn’t sure when the next one would be! And I’ve another one to share too, but I’ll save that one for a moment.

Treasures at Orchards Brocante

I do like a bit of brocante, and so a brocante sale is always a plus - even more so when it’s relatively close by and takes place in a lovely garden on a sunny Saturday. It’s been in my diary for a while now, and I was hoping we’d get to go along, and we did.

The sale was held at The Orchards in Somerby which is where I went for the Christmas wreath workshop last December - and this time it was much easier to find. Obviously that was helped by having been there before, and it being daylight! As ever with these kind of things, you’re never sure quite what to expect but I was hopeful that I’d find the something I was looking for.

And I did, but more on that later - let me show you a snippet of what was on offer.

@Maisieandludd

@Maisieandludd

The large and intricate ironwork panel drew me into this stall - and isn’t it gorgeous? - but it was the blue dragonfly above that I nearly left with, but didn’t. I think I’ll be back for something similar at some point, but I was being strong as this didn’t meet my brief for the ‘something’ I was after.

That was something for the lower shelf on our new console table in the lounge; I wanted something relatively solid looking to detract from the double plug socket. I knew it could be fairly tall and fairly chunky, it had to be solid and not transparent - but other than that I didn’t know what it would be until I saw it, which of course was no good to MOH to help locate the said item.

However I got an inkling of what I was after on the next stall.

@Maritimebluedecor

@Maritimebluedecor

Yes, I don’t know why I hadn’t considered a vintage enamel jug before! If you remember I’ve got the vintage enamel bread bin (for my pasta) in the pantry and the modern enamel first aid box in the utility room, so it wouldn’t be out of place anywhere in our home.

An idea was definitely forming, but first I needed to check out the rest of the stalls, but not before MOH pointed out this lobster plate, which has a certain appeal, doesn’t it?

@Maritimebluedecor

Moving on I was struck by the prettiness of this display and quite taken by the fish on the pink background, however that wasn’t in the brief either so it was only just admiration today.

@Decorativecountryliving

There were many more stalls to visit, but my photos appear to have stopped, or are at least a bit more sporadic I suspect because my mind was processing the enamel jug information, however I also admired items by @Thespottywren and left with some eucalyptus stems from @sage_and_satin_floral who led the Christmas wreath workshop before.

And I needed eucalyptus stems for the vintage enamel jug we bought, which as it turns out was neither of the two I photographed and included above. Instead we opted for a grey mottled version from the same stall, which will fit in better in our all white new build.

It was absolutely the right choice for our house, and already the sun’s warmth is bringing out the fragrance from the eucalyptus.

Oh, and the lobster plate also came home with us too and is already right at home on the dresser.

But that wasn’t all, by the refreshments area there was another stall selling the most amazing feathers from their black peacock (which moult over winter) - and they are amazing. It reminded us of when we stayed at the place outside Melton Mowbray with the peacock a few years ago now, but these were completely different.

The pinky bronze colour is completely natural, and you can imagine how much these glisten in the sun and it’s easy to see where the phrase ‘as proud as a peacock’ comes from! While these weren’t technically on the brief, as well as being too pretty to leave without, in my defence I’d been after some long stems for the tall glass vase for a while now. I’d assumed the stems I was after would be plant based though, but I’m more than happy for my assumptions to be challenged in this case!