Mapperton madness

Hurrying over the newly erected bridge over the Ha-ha Ms Tagalong and Mr Ideasman found themselves in the courtyard in front of this magnificent house. Ms Tagalong is sure you readers know what a ha-ha is so she won't bore you with a description but suffice it to say there were no stray sheep lying in the ditch as they attempted to eat all the plants at the plant fair.

Ms Tagalong was on a mission. She wanted a purple clematis and hang the cost. In fact she nearly got hung, drawn and quartered when the price of the beautiful Aphrodite variety she had chosen found Mr Ideasman scrabbling around for some extra small change for a cup of coffee! It was a close shave but the crisis was averted by a cheap coffee and piece of chocolate brownie.


Time to enter the gardens themselves. Mapperton Gardens. They paused at the gates. Lichen and moss covered ancient stone walls dating from who knows what century; they are really old gushed Ms Tagalong and Mr Ideasman said in true Woody Allen style, yes they look it! The walls had obviously withstood centuries of weathering secured by wisteria, their spring growth tapping at the rippled windowpanes.

A harsh crowing and cackling broke the reverie, a lot of noise over some wandering ducks apparently. The cockerel belligerently staking his territory with the assistance of a lady hen. The others just continued pecking around the plants, taking a nibble of an euphorbia here, a daffodil there.

Ms Tagalong played lady of the manor strolling through the grounds, admiring the orangerie, the topiary and imagining her superb game of croquet. The purple prose trips off the tongue of the official website Mapperton Gardens is a romantic valley garden deep into a lost Dorset combe among tumbling hills and unspoiled countryside. Well, dear reader, it is exactly as described. Mr Ideasman raced around with the camera taking the garden from every angle.


Not quite a community garden this, more a manorial masterpiece, housing a Lord and Lady but open occasionally for viewing by the community!

As they left, negotiating the bridge, Mr Ideasman said 'Ewe'd better be careful,' and fell about laughing. 'Ha ha' retorted Ms Tagalong.

A Jubilee Job?

Ms Tagalong nearly fell over her feet in her haste to grab her camera out of her carry on bag and rush across the train aisle to photograph this poster. Smacks of Dig for Victory, she thought, and wondered if she had the gall to apply as a local leader! 'Garden for the Games' what an opportunity and in this Jubilee year.


Well, she thought,what could she offer? Experience in co-ordinating a community garden? Container gardening in her own small courtyard garden? Hmm. Ms Tagalong had been fortunate to see some gardens in the last weeks. A community garden in Waterlow Park across from Highgate cemetery sports raised beds individually gardened by groups and is of course limited by space. Aren't they all? One hopeful advertisement in the window of the local shop here in Bridport is offering garden space for someone to garden. How lovely, how attractive in a small town with premium garden space.


Mr Ideasman had taken some lovely photos of Spring flowers in Hampstead at Fenton House, a National Trust property, and admired the espaliered fruit trees surrounding the vegetable garden and the twiggy tepees for supporting sweet peas and the like.
So green, so green at this time of year and with the blossom all around it is quite magical and giving Japan a run for its money! The may trees are blooming and the horse chestnuts are threatening to light their candles far too early.

Ms Tagalong has been missing her fresh herbs and salad so two large pots are full of these and two peat free compost bags are arranged so neatly on the patio with lettuce seedlings peeking out, growing to garnish plates and fill sandwiches.

Pandemonium in the car park

Spring has definitely sprung here in sunny Dorset. Ms Tagalong has to contain Mr Ideasman's enthusiasm. He was convinced it was going to be all drizzle and grey skies!

Cruising around local villages this week we visited the New Inn at Stoke Abbott. Not new, of course, more like 17th century, but it's all relevant when the village boasts a 12th century church!


So why is Ms Tagalong telling you about this place? Well, Luke Stephens, the young, really young, owner told me that they were expanding their garden. Not just a beer garden, this. A proper growing vegetable garden with herbs and veggies. There are plans afoot to put in a hot and cold smoker and also to have chickens. The garden showed signs of industry with new borders and turned soil. The polytunnel was full of tomato plants, varieties of lettuce and starter plants for the hanging baskets of colour which are obligatory in English country gardens come Summer!


There was a bathtub being put to good use, no clay in this one, just a contained space for the mint. Mr Ideasman's gentle sipping of coffee was interrupted when a fracas occurred in the parking area. This being Stoke Abbott, the majority of the car park was taken up with horses, (about twenty of them) and two very skittish ones, having been spooked by a pheasant's whirring and crowing as he was flushed from a nearby garden, pulled the palings off the fence to which they were attached and sent the others into wild frenzy.

It was a bit much. The riders had to put down their pints and tend to calming the horses. Peace restored, one rider nailed back the paling and the Sunday afternoon in the sun continued.


Ms Tagalong and Mr Ideasman wandered up to look inside the church and marvel at the 12th century font, listen to the bells (5 dating from 1613-1764) and ogle at some of the medieval stained glass.Wandering around the daffodilled graveyard brought to mind Pure by Andrew Miller, the novel Ms Tagalong has just read about disinterring a whole Parisian graveyard. Somehow, she suspected, this was not going to happen here!

Toads in Holes

While the magic elves have been working wonders in the garden, Ms Tagalong has been marvelling from afar, going to regular yoga and cooking using local ingredients.

Mr Ideasman never believed Ms Tagalong when she talked about Toad in the Hole. He said it was some strange dish featuring an unwholesome piece of white bread with a hole in the centre filled with an egg! No, no, no! said Ms Tagalong. Wait until we get to England and I will show you a proper toad in the hole!

And so it came to pass. Ms Tagalong cruised the local market held in stalls along the streets in Bridport, and purchased some local Cumberland Sausages. Yes, meat sausages full of local piggies and herbs. Organic of course. Then she looked for the freshest eggs she could find. This multi-coloured selection took her fancy and they did not disappoint.


The batter was made with the golden eggs and after the sausages were part cooked, poured on top to rise and cook in a most fantastic way. Even Ms Tagalong was impressed with her batter. It rose and looked golden as she took it out of the oven and so she whipped out her camera to make sure she could share it with you across the sea!

Spring and plastic chickens

Ms Tagalong sits contemplating her navel. She is doing a lot of that lately – she's certainly not in the garden or minding the chickens.

Funny, she ruminates, did she never notice how many of her old friends were equally besotted by chickens? One friend recounts how she thrust 5 precious freshly laid eggs upon a young lady she had just taken a pushchair off. Bartering, of course, alive and well in this neck of the woods. Retort, “I just bought some at the supermarket.” With gritted teeth my friend forced them upon her. 'Precious, they are,' she told me,'they are only laying a few a week at the moment.' Maybe LETS currency should be eggs?

Entering a small courtyard garden crammed with things growing in containers of all kinds, wooden boxes, old metal dustbins, watering cans, tubs and wellingtons,
Ms Tagalong smiled. There pecking amongst the flagstones were two chickens. No ordinary chickens these; white, frilled and well... stationary, made out of recycled plastic bags, they were good enough to assuage the chicken homesickness which has been threatening to engulf Ms Tagalong this week.


Spring has not yet sprung but snowdrops are out gracing the lane banks with their clumps of snowy cheer. Bluebells are pushing their luck, appearing in the woodlands before the last frost has even been thought of.

As Ms Tagalong crept downstairs this morning to the sound of birdsong, sweet smells assailed her nostrils. The clement weather has brought on the blue hyacinths on the table as they strive to outdo the bright primulas flanking them.


When Ms Tagalong was much, much younger she gathered primroses (country cousins to the primulas) in the copse , a soft yellow nosegay to present to her Mother on Mothering Sunday (March 18th this year). Unfortunately she proved herself allergic
to these blossoms and her Mother spent her day looking after a red, blotchy, swollen daughter. Carefully, carefully Ms Tagalong handles the pots today! It will be March 18th soon and no mother here to look after her.

All things green

Mr Ideasman is sick of Ms Tagalong oohing and aahing over everyone's chickens although he was the one to spot a starter pack being advertised comprising a mini incubator, OvaView candling lamp, an Ovascope, Ecoglow 20 chick brooder and 1ltr drinker and disinfectant all for the bargain price (50 pounds off) of 149 pounds and eighty-one pence!

I think it might be cheaper to rely on chicken donations!!

So now to all things green. Ms Tagalong was amazed at all the beautiful vegetables in China, specifically all the Chinese cabbage varieties all fantastically displayed. Looking good enough to eat, Ms Tagalong's mother would say.



The small succulent bunches of bok choy are now grown out of the cities and brought in. Ms Tagalong was unable to verify their organic credentials but she did spot many growing in small plots, around trees, and in front of houses which surely were not subject to intensive farming. Readers may remember the method which the Satyananda garden used at the ashram at Mangrove Mountain. Buy seed in bulk, cast thickly and cut often. Looks like the way to go. Display those bunches from the community garden like these and everyone will want them!

UK chickens

Ms Tagalong has been so exhausted from all her travels she has been very remiss in updating the worldwide vegetable and chicken goings on! So she has paused for a moment, removed the cool compress from her forehead and staggered over to the laptop.

So what could top a golden chook, one might ask? The sight of different varieties of lovely plump hens as Ms Tagalong strolled down her sister-in-law's garden? Ms Tagalong paused, taking in the misty hills arising out of the bracken covered land, brown and battered waiting for the gentle hand of Spring to colour them and inspire them to unfurl new green fronds.


Maybe the chickens in the vegetable garden of a friend at the bottom of Lewesdon Hill? Astute readers might remember a photo of these chickens in snow last year. Talking to Ms Tagalong as she brings scraps, the same the world over, fussy and forever looking for more! Attacking the spaghetti with fervour, ignoring the fresh vegetables until later.

So it is in chicken world. Funny, the chickens don't squat like ours, waiting to be picked up. Maybe a lack of little chicken holders?