Busy days and the cool mornings on the plot | Allan Jenkins

There’s still much to do on the allotment – and just time to sow some late-summer salads

Two weeks now playing catch up. Fire-fighting: hours at the weed-face, hoe in hand. Some speed is of the essence. I rip out the tired tear peas, a bit too pallid now and exhausted, like me. I pick through for dried pods to save seed. I leave the two hazel structures. I am still craving the height. Not ready yet to pack the summer wigwams away. I have hopes for hand-high morning glory.

Visits are twice a day, early and late, most days. Hoeing, weeding, feeding, no longer standing totally straight. A penance of sorts, paying in the hours I owe. The plot is a stern taskmaster. I wish for an osteopath.

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What is a mortgage in principle? Nottingham Estate Agents

There are a number of hoops to jump through in the process of securing a mortgage and getting an agreement in principle is one of the most important. Here, independent mortgage broker John Charcol explains everything you need to know. What is a mortgage in principle? A mortgage in principle, also known as an Agreement in […]

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Busy days and the cool mornings on the plot | Allan Jenkins

There’s still much to do on the allotment – and just time to sow some late-summer salads

Two weeks now playing catch up. Fire-fighting: hours at the weed-face, hoe in hand. Some speed is of the essence. I rip out the tired tear peas, a bit too pallid now and exhausted, like me. I pick through for dried pods to save seed. I leave the two hazel structures. I am still craving the height. Not ready yet to pack the summer wigwams away. I have hopes for hand-high morning glory.

Visits are twice a day, early and late, most days. Hoeing, weeding, feeding, no longer standing totally straight. A penance of sorts, paying in the hours I owe. The plot is a stern taskmaster. I wish for an osteopath.

Continue reading...

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There was nothing groovy about renting stuff when I was growing up

A slick marketing scheme might not appeal to a generation priced out of home ownership

Maybe it shouldn’t come as such a huge surprise that Generation Rent… rents. John Lewis has unveiled a furniture rental service, starting at £17 a month for a desk or chair for 12 months. Similarly, Ikea announced last year that it was looking into furniture rentals and a system of environmentally friendly customer returns, embracing the circular economy.

Maybe, like me, you’re thinking: “Eh?” The rent-everything revolution has passed me by, though it’s fashionable big business. It’s not just about homes and furniture, it’s cars, technology, clothes, music, vacuum cleaners, blenders… anything! Unsurprisingly, as much as this is ideological it’s rooted in economics: home ownership is at a record low among 25- to 34-year-olds. In the UK and the US, more people are renting homes than at any point in the past 50 years, with tenants moving regularly. People either can’t afford or don’t desire Forever Furniture. Conceptually, the idea of home has morphed from ownership to flexibility and turning impermanence into a positive.

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Mexican wave: a brutalist shrine to hand-crafted design

This striking concrete house in Mexico City is full of local artists’ furniture and artwork

What does a house from the future look like? The Mexican sculptor and architect Pedro Reyes thought long and hard about what it means to build a house in the 21st century, away from a canon of modernity, classical styles and fleeting trends. He and his wife, fashion designer Carla Fernández, also wanted to avoid the usual type of architecture you find in Mexico, because “so much of it ends up looking the same”.

The result is this “future cave” – an amalgam of modern and ancient, where brutalist architecture is made from concrete in varying degrees of coarseness and yet the human hand, visible in layers of centuries-old, artisanal craft – furniture, artwork – is also evident. Minimal this is not.

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Mexican wave: a brutalist shrine to hand-crafted design

This striking concrete house in Mexico City is full of local artists’ furniture and artwork

What does a house from the future look like? The Mexican sculptor and architect Pedro Reyes thought long and hard about what it means to build a house in the 21st century, away from a canon of modernity, classical styles and fleeting trends. He and his wife, fashion designer Carla Fernández, also wanted to avoid the usual type of architecture you find in Mexico, because “so much of it ends up looking the same”.

The result is this “future cave” – an amalgam of modern and ancient, where brutalist architecture is made from concrete in varying degrees of coarseness and yet the human hand, visible in layers of centuries-old, artisanal craft – furniture, artwork – is also evident. Minimal this is not.

Continue reading...

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How gardening helped me live with love and loss

My love of gardening is a constant comfort and has a deep resonance with my family’s history

When lockdown began, the forget-me-nots were blooming in the garden, a sea of pale blue. The lilac tree, too, was flowering, and the clematis I’d planted. They filled the air with scent as I sat outside on an unusually sunny April day, feeling fortunate to have this rented outdoor space, and thinking about my family, not knowing when I would next see them. These flowers all hold some significance for me – a lilac tree grew in the garden of my childhood home, as did clematis. There’s a photograph of me, aged about six, in a puff-sleeved dress, in front of a mass of pale pink blooms. In these strange times, the emotional resonance of plants has never felt more powerful.

The forget-me-nots came from my 86-year-old maternal grandmother Jean, my last remaining grandparent. They were the first thing I planted in this garden, four years ago. I have lived in the flat for almost a decade, but it was only in the summer of 2016 that we finally found the energy and enthusiasm to clear the 8ft-high knot of brambles. I was suffering from agoraphobia as a result of post- traumatic stress disorder, and my world had shrunk. So my then boyfriend, now husband, built me a garden. During that year, when I was frightened all the time, this sanctuary became my entire world. And so, during the pandemic, it has come to be again.

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