THE GARDEN
The garden has recovered from a cold frosty April and a very wet May. So many plants, both vegetables and ornamentals, just sat and sulked for weeks (although surprisingly and counter intuitively here at Rose Cottage mostly untouched by slugs and snails until the recent drier weather arrived). But as the weather improved the garden came to life. Cosmos kept inside against the cold grew strongly enough to escape slug damage which had destroyed an early planting of French marigolds, and French beans caught up with some planted earlier. Tomatoes in the polytunnel were also adversely affected by the cold April nights but are now growing strongly And again, later plantings did better. The moral seems to be, don’t be in too much of a hurry. Continue reading “Ken Mine’s Gardening Page for August 2021”
‘Little Lily Harley’ is about Charlie Chaplin’s childhood in Lambeth. With a drunken but charismatic actor father who was rarely around & a beautiful young actress of a mother who had three children by different fathers, he had to learn along-side his big brother Sydney how to survive a very precarious existence. Sometimes fostered by other people, sometimes in a school for destitute children, sometimes separated from Sydney & sometimes living on the street (as a child!) he nevertheless managed to triumph over all this to become arguably the greatest film actor ever. Pete Talbot, the director, says, “When I wrote the play in 2019, I could not have known how apt it would be for today. The message of hope, triumph over pain, through the imagination and laughter, is really important for today.”
