DIARY
Iam fascinated by watching and listening to keen gardeners going round other peo- ple's gardens. Something strange seems to seize otherwise normal folk and, although they have probably travelled miles for their treat, they show themselves to be only really interested in what they have left at home. People who haven't got gardens of their own can stand back and delight in the big picture of someone else's work, but the real gardener fastens on some small plant, pleased if it doesn't look too well and triumphant if it is dead. They relate the plants to their own. 'Oh we've got that but ours is much bigger. I think this one is planted on the wrong wall, it can't stand east, well, wouldn't you think they'd know that?' When the boot is on the other foot and you are taken by the owner on a two-hour tour in foul weather it can be difficult to keep up a continuous flow of admiration. Sometimes, before setting out, you are sized up by the host to see if you are worth it, and it is rather wonderful when he decides you aren't. That is why it is such a luxury to be able to go round so many gardens in ybur own time by paying at the door. You can dwell over what you love and hurry by the kidney-shaped beds with raised concrete edges full of orange rhododendrons. My father-in-law (who understood plants) said people go through five stages of gardening. They begin by liking flowers, progress to flowering shrubs, then autumn foliage and berries, next they go for leaves and, finally, the underneaths of leaves. Alpines ought to come in somewhere. They can become an addiction and get smaller and smaller relative to their importance. In the Wisley collection there is a weeny blob of grey leaves grown in small stones of the same colour. In the spring a label with an arrow says 'Please Notice Flower'. Charles de Noailles, a celebrated French gardener, ended by preferring labels to flowers, foliage or even alpines. I think the atten- dants of the stalls of the magic displays at the Royal Horticultural Society's shows in the Vincent Square halls are the most patient of beings. Just listen to some old trout describing to her trapped victim what has happened to her Desfontania spinosa hookeri and you will realise that the stallholder is taking the place of a psychiat- rist for a free consultation while all is unburdened and the Desfontania lady gets rid of her feelings.
Back to Lismore, where the beauty and the atmosphere of the place stay with me every year long after I have left Ireland. There the local newspapers are a continual source of pleasure. Their pic- tures and headlines are a running commen- DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE tary on current affairs which I greatly prefer to their dull English counterparts. The Cork Examiner can be relied on for eye-catching stuff like 'Mouse in Bottle of Stout' and 'Kerry Lady Dead in Drain', neither of which needs much enlargement underneath for the reader to take in what has happened. But 'Wives May Get Dental Benefit' from the Irish Times conjures up lucky husbands grinning to show off their smart new snappers while their wives dare not smile (even if they felt like it) because of the nasty sights which would show. The Kerryman sums up the work of a hospital committee with 'Nothing Has Been De- cided' while the Dungarvan Leader's" 'Am I Here At All?" Asks Waterford County Councillor' poses a basic question which we must all have asked ourselves at some time or another. Even Horse and Hound, the trade mag of the Sloane Rangers, has got the drift when its Irish correspondent heads his column 'How to Get Farmers Back into Breeding'.
My sister Nancy loved the road signs, specially the ones on the mountain roads which have desperate twists and turns over the streams. The worst are announced in wasp black and yellow: 'DANGEROUS HAIR- PIN'. More surprising is a big notice on a quiet stretch of road which says
`ATTENTION/ACHTUNG. DRIVE ON LEFT. CONDUIRE A GAUCHE. LINKS FAHREN.'
The spot where it is planted is many miles from any port or airport, so the Franco- German driver must have got the hang of how to do it or he would have met his fate long before he arrived on this remote moorland road far from the nearest village. There is a fine new dual carriageway which cuts out most of Cork city on the road to the airport. 'No PEDESTRIANS' it says, but in the middle of the road is a boy selling evening papers. As a shopkeeper I get a lot of letters from people who make this or that, suggest- ing that a stall of their wares would make an excellent addition to our shop. Some- times a parcel arrives with examples of the objects themselves. One of the most usual lines is dolls; dolls dressed to look like Bess of Hardwick, Mary Queen of Scots, sub- jects of portraits in the house or just dolls which might appeal to small children. As it happens I am not very fond of dolls, so they are returned to the senders. No doubt I make a big mistake by this prejudice. It is a pity for the makers that England has no national dress. Life would be easier and more profitable for them if one could be invented. It would have to be easily recog- nised to take its place next to the familiar national costume of other countries. It might make a good competition such as architects go in for when something like an addition to the National Gallery is needed. I suppose it ought to be a smiling, apple- cheeked woman of uncertain age, not thin, with a vaguely Beatrix Potter look, wear- ing a puffed sleeve dress of sprigged muslin and an apron of a different sprig. She ought to look as if she's just about to bath a grandchild or make jam out of fruit grown in her own garden: a reassuring, reliable type we would all like as a neighbour. But after much thought my entry would be the real summer dress of country women: a floppy cotton skirt, bare blue hands and knees, gum boots and a bulgy anorak of a sad and unbecoming green. Any other ideas?
Last week I had lunch with three friends, two of whom live abroad and come to London about once a year. The talk ranged over all kind of subjects and it is refreshing to discover how untouched they are by the pounding of the media. They have never heard of Jeffrey Archer (Is he one of the Archers?'); think a micro-wave is something to do with hairdressing; mix up Laura Ashley with sex-change April of that ilk; and ask if Cecil Parkinson is a photographer (vague memories of Norman and Beaton no doubt). Hoping for even more surprising gaps in their general know- ledge test, my London-dwelling friend and I cast another fly but this time with no success. They have heard of Dr Owen.
Overhead in a London gallery where the Chatsworth portrait of the Acheson sisters by Sargent was being shown. An old man said to his wife: 'Those are the Mitford girls. They are very well preserved considering they were painted by Sargent.' We really are. It was painted in 1901.
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