Author: Annie Graham

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in July

/ Annie Graham / 1 Comment

It has been very hot so it’s enough to have just enjoyed the dog days of summer reading old classics by Henry James and Scott Fitzgerald. Beachcombing in the evening is better as it is cooler and all the visitors have gone. Down in the old Tudor harbour, some of the locals have tied up their boats and gone in for tea. It’s all very peaceful here and you have space to think.  

In the veggie garden, the harvest has come a bit early as the intense heat has stimulated the growth hormones to go early. The result is a summer bounty of fresh veggies. The grapevines have recovered, and we’ve got some grapes, albeit they are on the small side; the garlic is out and drying in the sun; and the statuesque artichokes are ready for the cut and the pot.

And the remedial work is going ok despite the drought. The olive tree is sprouting from its pollarded stump; and the fuchsia is recovering well from being cut to the ground following an infection. As for the Rosa, it gets its cutback after the hips have had their time in the sun, and we have a pop of vibrant candy colours in the flowering gladdys.  

There is progress on the new Book. We have just about settled on a title. The one I wanted has been used by a famous writer, so I’ve had to switch ideas. And the brief for the cover’s artwork is now ready. You will have a preview in a few months as we gear up for the production run. Just got to get the content finished over the summer…

Come back next time to find out what’s happening as August and the last of the summer turns to herald the autumn, and the new book take shape.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in June

/ Annie Graham / 1 Comment

Summer has arrived and there is much to see! Fabulous long sunny days and cooling sea breezes, and the odd (so far) tip of rain, make for a potent stimulant to growth. My seaside garden has filled with blooms, intense colours and sweet perfumes. It’s a pleasure to wander around with a morning coffee to see what has opened overnight.

It’s all spinning by so fast. The strawberry moon and summer solstice have already been and gone, and June’s first flush of roses have started to fade. With some enthusiastic deadheading, we’ll get another blast of colour soon. But for now, what could be better than this show?

The self-seeded poppies just keep going, growing where they please. Despite their delicacy, they manage to survive in this difficult terrain, as do the ubiquitous nasturtiums. Their pop of colour is a testament to summer’s vibrancy.

Down on the beach, there is ever present danger. Cormorants like to perch on the warning obelisk to steer passing ships off the rocks which are covered when the tide is in. Those rocks will hull any boat. And land slips are everywhere after the harsh winter.  

Nature is certainly red in tooth and claw. Our resident gull family and their chicks have gone. The jackdaws in the adjacent tree swooped in and destroyed the nest to pinch the materials for their own rookery. The parents cried for days.

Book work is progressing with a big edit of the first section. The test readers are being readied and the cover’s design channelling a Rembrandt is now in hand so come back next time to find out what’s happening as summer progresses and the script develops.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in May

/ Annie Graham / 4 Comments

Days and days of mostly warm sun and balmy evenings by the sea this month. Hardly any rain or wind resulting in much growth and colour as summer has arrived a bit early. Forget the Chelsea Flower Show and its fancy show gardens, it’s all happening here at my seaside garden. Some days, it’s too hot to do anything but stroll along the beach and take in the briny atmosphere. And we’re about to be famous as the medieval chapel on the bay’s eastern peninsula features in a new movie called ‘The Salt Path’.

May’s garden panorama is a meditation on pink. The show includes the early roses, especially my favourite, the ever-fragrant Rosa Ragusa; and the statuesque foxgloves set off by the gentle tamarix.

The self-seeded poppies have burst out and they give glorious pops of colour, but sadly, they are so short lived they need to be enjoyed in the moment as they open.

After a long winter’s rest, some intense blues have arrived. Old stalwarts like campanula and aquilegia never let you down.

And an unwanted guest has taken up residence on the roof for the next three months, a nesting gull. When the chicks pop out and start learning to walk, this site and its surrounds, including our balcony, will be a right mess.

Oh, the joys of summer with the gull chicks and their aggressive noisy parents!

Book work has been slow as there is too much to do with mucking about in the garden and down on the beach, but I’ll try to catch up through June.

Come back next time to find out what’s happening to the gull and as summer gets underway, I promise you a fabulous Rose Garden.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in April

/ Annie Graham / 2 Comments

Springtime in the Bay has a distinctive look. It’s bright, sparkling and full of life. Shades of sky blue to muted grey-blues are set off by the white surf and the various greens on the banks as they come into life. And the canoes have left their winter store and are on the march down to the sea to join the surfers who are back despite the frigid temperature.

In the garden, the look of Spring is everywhere. It’s a real show with muddles of blue and vivid green punctuated by an abundance of early pink clematis climbing over a fence. In the veggie terrace, the giant garlic plants have sprouted to kick off the ratatouille collection.

And the annual Spring clean is underway. The (inherited) hot tub, used twice in thirteen years- Gone. The fancy garden lights, broken for more than five years- Gone. And the ugly tree stumps left by the winter’s storms- Gone. It’s so refreshing to get on with the jobs list.

It’s Eastertime and right on cue, here come the calla lilies, symbol of peace. They are this month’s star. Enjoy the look of spring.

Book work has slowed while I learn about the difference between playwriting and script writing. It’s another new world to get to grips with but book-writing will resume shortly as I have deadlines to meet. And there is some good news too: although sales of Louisa’s Lament have slowed, we have still made enough money to make another contribution to the Students’ Hardship Fund. Thanks to everyone who bought the book or borrowed a library copy as each loan is worth £1 in the pot and it all mounts up.

Come back next time to find out what’s happening as May arrives and the book’s characters, based on an amalgam of those crazy people I have known, take shape.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in March

/ Annie Graham / 3 Comments

Spring has arrived. At last. The clocks have changed so we now get more than twelve hours of bright sunlight a day. And it shows. Our bay is twinkling in the sun but looks are deceptive as the sea is very cold at this time of year. Best leave that to the fishermen for now, although the hardy surfers and wild swimmers are already giving it a go.

However, in the garden, everything has taken off in the last few days with the cascading rosemary waterfalls, which are alive with bees, giving off their intense fragrance that fills the air as you step down to the house. The muted pink hellebores, not to be left out, have successfully muscled in to give their annual show before returning to the earth to rest until next winter.

And of those signifiers of the new season, the giant snowdrops, daffodils and primroses? They are out and about kicking off the Spring burst.

The storm damaged wooden terracing facing the sea has been replaced so we now have a sturdy rather handsome Cornish stone wall and a crunchy path of shingle that leads down to the lower garden. There, the berberises and agapanthuses are waiting until Easter time to burst forth.

My new book is progressing, but I must admit to a distraction. A playwright is looking at Louisa’s Lament for its possibilities as a play focussed on the four women at the centre of the story. I think I’m about to enter another new world of putting on a play…

Happy Easter to you all and come back next time to find out what’s happening as spring gathers pace and the book, and maybe a play, take shape.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in February

/ Annie Graham / 1 Comment

Eerie sights emerging from the morning mist after another stormy night. It has been a cold wet winter peppered with storm surges, debris everywhere and trees down. This one had had a dangerous lean with its root ball lifted so its considerable topweight was removed by our local tree surgeons in readiness for the final chop.

These great guys go out in all weathers to make things safe for us. And we now have logs galore, enough firewood for a lifetime. Just got to store them somehow. The frothy tops are going in the shredder when it has been mended. Recent overuse has taken its toll.

Meteorological spring starts tonight and, right on cue, the rhubarb, after its long winter’s rest, has sprouted in its new dedicated bay. Delicious stodgy crumble is back on the menu for tea.

Elsewhere, the tough leathery hellebores are muscling their way through and showing the pretenders whose boss while a red camelia has popped out of the shrubbery in the upper tier looking for some light.

It has been a long wait for the sun but now and then the weather breaks for long enough to bay watch and enjoy the seascape. It’s only four weeks until the clocks change and the spring burst will be upon us.

Book work is bowling along with lots of edits as I try to maintain narrative pace. It is set fifty years ago before all the tech we take for granted was available. Looking back, it was a simpler very different world.

Come back next time to find out what’s happening as spring arrives and the book takes shape.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in January

/ Annie Graham / 2 Comments

Can’t beat a late afternoon walk by the sea, so quiet, just the gentle lapping of the water. ‘Make hay while the sun shines’ they say is so true. A few hours later, ferocious Storm Eowyn blasted in to pound this lovely harbour that’s been landing fish since Tudor times. And then, as it abated, Storm Herminia arrived from Spain with such force, it uprooted trees already loosened by the earlier gale force winds.

The drenching rain is loved by the plants that can stand the salt blasting like the agapanthuses and heathers that grow wild here. And while the garden is on its winter break, pops of colour in the daffodils and primroses remind you that spring is on its way.

Time to retreat to my writer’s den for book work. The revised and further reworked all important first chapter is now with my test readers for their opinions on whether it has sufficient pace, tension, and ‘turn the page’ quality. But work has stopped for now as the builders have moved in to take shelter from the storm. It’s a bit crowded and very messy!

Will I get my den back? Will chapter 1 hit the mark? Will I get chapter 2 done by the end of next month? Come back next time to find out.

In the meantime, have a happy Chinese New Year as we start the lunar year of the Snake – very auspicious. To all my Chinese friends, zhu nimen xin nian kuai le, and lots of health and fish to eat too. 

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in December

/ Annie Graham / 1 Comment

 ‘Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’ – that old saying is so true. A couple of hours after this sunup, storm Darragh barrelled in, and its force felled a few more trees. Such is life by the sea, nothing to do other than wait it out and then clear the debris.

When Darragh had blown itself out, tranquillity returned and look what we found sheltering under a berberis, a jolly bright yellow daffodil. It is about ten weeks early but there is no doubting it, and many more followed for Christmas from those sprouting shoots.

Christmas was calm and, as ever, all the seaside gear had been neatly stowed waiting for the spring. It is now that quiet post festival time to think about plans for 2025. More writing and a new book; travelling around Europe to see its magnificent medieval cathedrals; and just enjoying the seaside garden and planting the new veggie terraces.

And my bucket list is one item shorter. Been to Lourdes. After more than fifty years of resenting not being included in the school trip, I got the Bernadette snow globe at last, and all is well.

Best Wishes to you All for 2025

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in November

/ Annie Graham / Leave a comment

An afternoon walk along the old Tudor harbour wall to see the sun fade is such a treat at this time of year. It clears the head when writer’s fog and procrastination set in. It is cold now and very quiet as the visitors have gone so we have the place and the sea to ourselves.

But that tranquillity is disrupted from time to time when the sea rises in a ferocious storm like ‘Bert’ that slammed in 24 hours later. Gale force winds, continuous drenching rain and the howling noises of the storm persisted for a couple of days. Debris and flooding are everywhere. All you can do is hunker down and wait for it to pass.

After the storm, calm returns and the lower garden is bathed once more in the meagre sunshine.

It will be Advent tomorrow and time to prepare for Christmas. Right on cue, the bright red stems of the dogwood and the kale give that seasonal look.

The light will come back after the winter solstice in three weeks but we already have a portent of spring in an early flowering hellebore.

So have a Happy Christmas and keep well while I write a few blistering chapters of my new book.

Postcard from a Seaside Garden in October

/ Annie Graham / 1 Comment

Before the clocks went back and the days got so short, a couple of jobs that have been on the ‘to do’ list forever got done. The pizza oven got painted. It now looks very smart and quite mediterranean. But its renovation gave rise to a heartsink moment when the guys asked where the chimney was? Chimney? It’s never had one, which, they explained, is why everything cooked in this contraption is burnt to a cinder. So that newly painted lovely dome is about to be drilled to accommodate a chimney.

Our cherished olive tree has enjoyed its spot over in the west garden rather too much. It is now over 30 feet tall and top heavy. It was a retirement gift from the Academy for Healthcare Science ten years ago when the garden was first planted. The decision to pollard part of it was another heartsink moment when the electric saw sliced off one of its arms. It has taken a few weeks, but new sprouts have emerged to everyone’s relief.

The big clear out had just started as the first storm of the season, Ashley, blasted in. Drenching rain and gale force winds lifted piles of debris and tossed them all over the place. It has left a right soggy mess which has to be gathered into the recycling bins when there is a break in the weather. But now and then, we still get a clear day, although cold and windy, where the medieval chapel at the tip of the western end of the bay can be seen. And there is still a show of muted pinks and autumnal reds to brighten the day.

The summer’s luxuriant growth will stand us in good stead for next year. Items on the spring watch list are the agapanthuses down in the secret garden and the wild rose hedges lining the lane down to the beach.

And of the book? I’ve had some critical feedback which has left me crestfallen. But I’ll start again soon and fire up a spikier version to see if it has sufficient ‘hook’, ‘propulsion’ and ‘tension’ to satisfy the TikTok generation who want everything on the first couple of pages. Middlemarch and Our Mutual Friend would have had no chance.

Comeback next month for news of the autumnal clear-out and the book.