As I was going to St Ives....

...Spent another glorious week in my favourite English Town last week. I love the place, it has so much character, beautiful beaches, wonderful restaurants, and to top everything off, we rented an amazing holiday home with a huge decking overlooking Porthmeor beach. The only thing that wasn't a 10/10 was the weather, but hey, this is Cornwall. We had one very wet day and some drizzly days but a few glorious beach days too.

Here's the view from the double tiered full length decking of the house toward Porthmeor Beach, during the day and evening. The living room had full length glazing that opened out onto the deck.

Portmeor Beach is a bit of a Surfer's haven. Me, I can't see the big attraction but each to their own. The water was cold!

My little lad  loved the beach, even when the weather was overcast.

Marazion is another favourite destination with the picturesque St Michaels Mount dominating all vistas.

We also visited Trebah Exotic Garden (for the umpteenth time - I never tire of it) but it was a very wet day and we missed a lot of the gardens. I don't mind rain personally, but my wife and inlaws are not too keen on being soaked to the skin to look at bamboos and treeferns and the like!

Overall, we had a great time!

Jungle Climbing Frame

Ever since my son was born, two½ years ago I have thought about building some kind of funky climbing frame in the garden to blend with the 'jungle' look of the planting. So, for the past 3 or 4 months, I've been working like a demon to transform the garden from an 'overplanted plant collectors plant collection' into a family garden with a backdrop of handsome architectural plants, and a Jungle Climbing Frame!


Using a mixture of materials I got free from work, materials I had left over from previous projects, and stuff I had to buy, I designed and constructed this....








It proved a real headache to consider all the safety issues for a 2½ year old (and for a 38 year old!) and I still have a few concerns about one or two things, but I can always modify things as I go along. My little boy loves it!

Surely you can't grow that here?

Not had a lot to blog about lately as the weather has put paid to all outdoors activity - almost. The TV news said it had rained every single day in November here in Wales. I can't ever remember it being this dry.Anyway, thought I'd take the chance, whilst nowt else worth mentioning is going on, to post a photo or two of a few gardens in the UK, that look anything but. All the following photos were taken in private gardens in the UK. And contrary to what you might think, none of them are in the subtropical southwestern tip of Cornwall. Granted, they aren't in Aviemore either, but it goes to show just what an exotic range of plants can be grown in the UK