Study in Brown and Green

A perfect lawn is a pampered lawn; and pampered lawns, like pampered people, are apt to develop a number of tiresome diseases.

Beverley Nichols, "Garden Open Tomorrow", 1968

For months now, I have gazed at a brown landscape in my back garden. Our gardener Bernardo laid down a gorgeous new carpet of grass back in September and then day by day, Piero and I watched it slowly wither away. Who knows what the cause was; I'm a newcomer to horticulture and Bernardo never got beyond scratching his head and mumbling something in Spanish. Perhaps my aforementioned case of thumb noir infected him, too.

In photographs, I've resorted to trickery, avoiding the lawn entirely or waiting until sunlight blows it out of focus...

...or making sure something big and bulky obstructs the view. 

Two weeks ago, however, Bernardo reseeded the back lawn. With mounting palpitations, I have been waiting for a first exuberant glimpse of green.

Well, it's hatching. And I feel quite maternal about it.

I am going to spoil that baby grass, I am going to pamper it, I am going to cosset it, I am going to spoonfeed it. This time, I am making no mistakes. The trees have been trimmed, the sprinklers have been re-adjusted...

..and the toads have been put on high alert.

After all, isn't there so much more potential pleasure to be gained through perseverance, obstinacy and not giving up than to be handed a garden in perfect and constant bloom? 

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

Shiny Happy Things

Yesterday I took Luca to an Easter egg hunt. We arrived a couple of minutes early...and one day late. (I should have looked more closely at the Evite. Bad, bad mommy.) 

Then Piero arranged for us to meet some friends in Griffith Park in the afternoon. But everyone in California must have had the same idea because Hollywood traffic was at a virtual standstill, and that plan was cancelled too.

We returned home to ponder our next move. The Divine Italian suggested that he and Luca watch a movie together, which was his way of saying, "I shall be taking a nap on the couch." 

I felt a need to be productive. Ever since reading TartanScot's glorious post last Friday on the joys of silver, I've been jonesing to get a little tarnish on my hands. And so yesterday afternoon I booked some pieces into the The Kenmore Arms Spa for a little exfoliating scrub and body polish.  (By appointment only.)

The healing benefits were unmistakable.

Seriously, isn't my sugar and creamer set exuding total body confidence?

The pitcher gave off such a boastful shine that the monkey fell prey to a bout of insecurity.

And you have to admit that my tea set is working it. Watch your back, Derek Zoolander.

Did you all have a shiny Sunday?

Light vs. Dark

The Kenmore Arms has been bustling this week.  My climbing roses are finally gathering courage and beginning to wrap themselves with long graceful sweeps around the front balcony. 

Maybe it's good karma rubbing off from this book I'm reading...

...because I have what's known in horticultural circles as the dreaded "thumb noir". Even cacti wither around me. But speaking as a newfound optimalist, the bright side could be that I have undiscovered talents in composting.

Anyway, let's move inside, where the painters have been busy priming and painting since Monday. I have been itching to redo my upstairs office for a while now and, after much consideration, settled on Farrow and Ball's "Old White." It's a beautiful color, gentle and soft. 

And I liked it for all of four hours.

(Tuesday, April 5th)

Unfortunately, as soon as it dried I had a huge revelation that what I actually wanted was the complete opposite. (Why do all revelations come after you write the check?)  I craved drama, mood, mystery. My office needs to double as an occasional Lilliput-sized screening room and I wanted a destination that would feel sophisticated by day and ever-so-slightly sexy by night. A bit Babington House...

with just a dash of 18th century Spitalfields.

(Photo of Dennis Sever's house, which I discovered through a 

commenter... Thank you, Linda! I am officially obsessed.)

Dark doesn't scare me. As you can imagine, life here in California is very, very sunny (to put it mildly). To me, the sun is a huge Klieg light in the sky with its spotlight relentlessly trained on every man, woman and child. It's fine for The Divine Italian; he's a heat-seeker. I, however, am Norwegian and Irish and I am a pale snail looking for a dark refuge. 

So I bit the bullet and told the painters to come back on Thursday so that they could redo what they just that minute finished doing. 

This time, I went with Farrow and Ball's "Railings", a deep bluey-black...

(Thursday, April 7th)

...and I can't believe how much more I love it. It's a totally different room. It was suffering from an identity crisis and now it's found itself.

And see, it still gets a lot of light. And despite its admittedly more masculine feel, right beyond those French doors are all those sun-loving roses, entwined in pink splendor.  So it's all very yin yang. 

Of course, now that it's painted, I am itching to change everything else. Like the curtains, the couch and the desk chair. Last November, I was lucky enough to visit Peter Dunham's "Gentleman's Study" at Veranda Magazine's Greystone Mansion Showhouse and I still can't get it out of my head.

I would love to create my own mini homage to it at The Kenmore Arms. His "Globe" curtains speak to me in a profound way. They're very Royal Geographic Society meets Diana Vreeland.

And I might have to reupholster my desk chair in his "Almont Stripe".

Stay tuned.

And The Winner Is...

...Mary Rowe who has won her very own copy of "Mapp and Lucia."  Congratulations, Mary!  Email me your address and I'll send it to you posthaste. (FYI, entrants were assigned a number according to the order in which I received their emails.)

And a special mention to those of you who wrote such lovely sentiments along with your entries. You touched my heart with your comments. I only wish I had books enough for all of you.  xx

Yours For The Asking

I recently purchased an extra copy of one of my favorite books, E. F. Benson's "Mapp and Lucia", for a blog giveaway. If you'd like to enter, just send an email to [lborgnes@mac.com] with the subject line "Giveaway." The deadline is Thursday, April 9th at midnight PST. I'll use a random number generator and send it postage-paid to one of you wonderful people, regardless of whether you live in Ohio or Oman. Only one entry per person, please.

I recently blogged about the book here, so if you didn't read my post, find out why Noel Coward, Nancy Mitford and W. H. Auden famously decried, "We will do anything for Lucia books!"

As Lucia would say, "Buona fortuna, my caros!"

Paper Beats Scissors

"Wear the old coat and buy the new book."

(Austen Phelps, 1820-1890)

When I was in London recently, I didn't buy anything that was cut, sewn or stitched, which I think is the first time ever that I've come home without indulging in some sort of sartorial fix. I did purchase some books, however. Thirteen, actually. And Luca bought twelve.

The night before we flew home to LA, the stack of tomes had grown to an alarming height on the desk in our hotel room. Using my expert packing tactics, I managed to cram most of them into my suitcase but when the zipper threatened to throw a fit, I buried the rest in Luca's.  The Divine Italian muttered something about bricks the next morning when he heaved the suitcases into the cab, but I busied myself with looking for my sunglasses and pretended not to hear.

Here are my new companions in their new Hollywood digs, with titles below...

1. Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner

2. Three Men and a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome

3. Diary of a Pilgrimage, Jerome K. Jerome 

4. All Passion Spent, Vita Sackville West

5. The English, Jeremy Paxman

6. Craven House, Patrick Hamilton

7. Two People, A. A. Milne

8. Voices from Dicken's London, Michael Paterson

9. The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett

10. The House by the Churchyard, J. Sheridan Le Fanu 

11. Widow Barnaby, Fanny Trollope 

12. The Haunted Hotel, Wilkie Collins 

13. Rhapsody in Green: The Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols 

And here are Luca's:

1. Read Me and Laugh, Gaby Morgan

2. Horrid Henry Robs the Bank, Francesca Simon

3. Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman, Francesca Simon

4. A Hat Trick for Horrid Henry, Francesca Simon

5. Legend of Captain Crow's Teeth, Eoin Colfer

6. Digory the Dragon Slayer, Angela McAllister

7. Secret Agent Jack Stalwart, Elizabeth Singer Hunt

8. Scream Street: Fang of the Vampire, Tommy Donbavand

9. Beast Quest: Torgor the Minotaur, Adam Blade

10. Beast Quest: Sepron the Sea Serpent, Adam Blade

11. Beast Quest: Epos the Flame Bird, Adam Blade

12. Beast Quest: Trillion the Three-Headed Lion, Adam Blade

I highly recommend this one. Luca begs me to read it aloud to him when he's in the bath, which of course I am more than happy to oblige. His favorite poem so far is "The Day I Got My Finger Stuck Up My Nose" by Brian Patten, which he can now recite by heart, complete with dramatic effects. Despite the cautionary message of the poem, his finger has yet to leave that particular refuge, but I'm still hoping.

Here's the reading nook I had built in his bedroom. 

I filled the little side shelves with some of my favorite childhood books like "The Phantom Tollbooth", "The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles" and "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", but he hasn't reached for them yet. Maybe when he's exhausted his "Beast Quest" obsession, but I think they publish them as quickly as he devours them; at last count, there were 18 different titles on Amazon. 

I know I need to remind myself that half the adventure of reading is in the choosing -- the narrowing down of endless possibilities to the author whose story you want to discover. If I want Luca to love books as much as I do, he needs to embark on his own journey and I need to keep quiet and let him.

Ooh, but it's hard.

If You Want To Blossom, You Have To Plant A Blossom

(Unlikely berry patch, Scotland, 2007)

There is a great article in Time magazine this week about positive thinking. It's no shock that it cites studies which show that looking on the sunny side of life really does affect your health in the long run.  

(Children at a Tibetan orphanage, 2007)

What is surprising, however, is that some experts don't suggest being optimistic. It appears that being wildly hopeful and seeing the glass as relentlessly half full is what positive psychologists call being "cheerfully deluded."

Instead, they recommend "optimalism", a combination of optimism and a healthy dose of realism. Optimalists are not people who believe everything happens for the best, but those who make the best of things that happen.

(Prayer flags at Dalai Lama's palace, Lhasa, Tibet, 2007)

I so agree with this. I've always had an issue with the whole "everything happens for the best" concept...because it doesn't. Bad things happen to good people, a lot of good people. Life is freaky. Accidents happen. At times, we struggle.

(A determined bee, Sussex, England, 2007)

Having said this, wallowing in sadness does nothing but entrench you more firmly in a quicksand of depression. You have to find a way out. Apparently, happiness is "contagious." Scientists have noticed that people who smile in their Facebook pictures tend to have other friends who smile. 

(Tibetan monk on pilgrimage, Lhasa, 2007)

Go check your Friends list.  It's true. :)