Scenes From Village Life

John Hillaby once wrote "Few things are more pleasant than a village graced with a good church, a good priest and a good pub.” I would add to that a labyrinth of lovely walking trails, a little town square with a enchanting cluster of shops and perhaps also a decent newsagent, cafe and grocery store (although my partner would add a good wine/beer store), and finally, a hamlet of gorgeous houses of all shapes and size, each with their own unique style and their unique garden, so you could walk a different route each day and never tire of the architecture and charm.

We are getting ready to leave our idyllic little village. It will be a shock to move to a city of 20 million people. I'm sure we'll miss walking our dogs down the middle of the road knowing there are no cars in sight, or waving to our neighbours over the garden gate, and stopping for a chat about the best way to cultivate peonies, or care for espaliered pears. So, as a small photographic tribute to the delights of village life, I thought I'd post some of my favourite scenes here.

Even the village church takes its gardens seriously. 

Our road dressed in the bright green of new spring leaves.

Our kitchen garden, with the leaves burning in the sun behind it.

Our pitiful harvest from the kitchen garden last year.

Our neighbour's house, 'Longacre'. This was once the home of the famous Australian painter Arthur Streeton. It's now owned by his grandson. The driveway is lined with blue hydrangeas, which look glorious in high summer. You can't see the house but it's an Arts and Crafts-style cottage and still has Streeton's old studio in the rear.

Walking the dogs through the forest.

Are Books Dead?

I apologise. Yesterday I did a funny little Style Icons post about two of our leading political ladies, Julia Gillard and Carla Bruni, and what they do and don't have in common. (Both favour form-fitting suits. Both eschew sartorial fussiness. And Carla is reportedly a big proponent of the power of pelvic exercises. However, I can't say for sure whether our Jules is. Only her partner Tim and possibly her sexy personal bodyguard know that secret.) Anyhow, after downloading a particularly intriguing image of our Jules, strange things started happing on my laptop. Files disappeared. Entire paragraphs flashed like lights on Times Square. Terrified of the dreaded 'V' word (and passing it onto you lovely readers), I immediately deleted the post. It was too late. The laptop is now in the Apple hospital having a triple heart bypass, and I am using an old MacBook and an archaic Safari browser. Which doesn't support Blogger.

But I'm persevering because I want to tell you about the significance of this week. March 1st  is World Book Day. It's the biggest literary celebration of its kind, and is designated by UNESCO as a world-wide celebration of books, reading and stories of all forms. More than 100 countries mark the date. I'm very proud of those countries. More should do it.

I grew up in a house full of books. Because my brother and I read so fast my frugal parents (who were both teachers) thought it a waste to buy books for us and told us to go and get a library card. We duly did what we were told. It was the start of a love affair with books, bookshops and libraries that has lasted 30 years. Last night I told my partner that if a bushfire came up the mountain, I would leave everything except my beloved books. Books are the one thing you should always save.

I spent most of last year lamenting the slow death of books in this, the iPad-and-Kindle age. Judging by the number of Google hits on the phrase "Are books dead?" (11 million and counting), many others did too. During a moment of literary lamentation, a wise and famous writer challenged me by asking "Well, what is a book anyway? Is it its body? Or its soul?"Well, I'm old-fashioned girl and I think books need a body. Just as humans need their spines to live and move, so, too, do books. An e-book can still be a great read (and like many I love the convenience of iPads), but a book with a jacket and pages and that papery smell of promise... now that is a beautiful thing. That, my dear friends, is a book. A soul without a body is a mere ghost of its former self.

Curiously, many people seem to think the same way. Last Christmas, many bookshops had their best sales season ever. My favourite bookshop, Avenue in Albert Park, sold more copies of my books than at any other time. I was as puzzled as you are. What does it possibly all mean? Well, I think it means that many of us are trying to save books from being endangered. From sinking into oblivion. We are stock-piling our stories – just like Carlos Ruiz Zafon's celebrated library in The Shadow of the Wind.

Sadly I fear it's too little, too late. The end of the book might be nearer than we think. One newspaper believes there will be no books left at all by 2020. None. And I admit that it's easy to see how e-books will win the reading war. 

And so I say this to you all. Read. Read. Read. Or as my Italian teacher used to say "Leggi! Leggi! Leggi!" Buy books. Download the e version if you have to, but don't discount the paper versions either. Embrace books. Remember how wonderful they are. For I am afraid there will come a time when most of us will stop reading them completely. When we will be distracted by other things. Such as Twitter. And gossip sites. And the Oscars. And life. Left for dead, books will disappear. And some of the world's greatest stories will then be lost forever.

"The art of reading is slowly dying. Great readers are becoming more scarce by the day..." 

– Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Shadow of the Wind.

There is a wonderful game lots of people are now playing called Page 61. You pick up a book, flick to page 61 and read the fifth sentence down. I loved reading some of the discoveries, such as:

"Great elephants!" said Gandalf. "You are not yourself this morning! You have not dusted the mantelpiece!" (From The Annotated Hobbit)

and

In later life, Dottie had a dog called Woodrow Wilson." (From The Uncollected Dorothy Parker)

I was quietly thrilled to see one of my books mentioned on a Page 61 website. The Page 61/Fifth Line was: "And, perhaps, also for their souls". It made me quiet for a moment or two. But then when I picked up my nearest book a few minutes ago – an old, much-loved dictionary that I still refer to – and saw what the fifth line on page 61 was – 

bibliophile   n. book lover 

I was moved beyond words.

"To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul" – Cicero

I agree Cicero. I agree.

The above images are from one of my favourite libraries, a private library on the island of Nantucket in the US. Designed by my favourite book-loving architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen, the entire house is white – and I mean everything is white, from the stairs to the living room. The blank canvas was an intentional design move. Jacobsen and the owner felt that the books were the most important things in the house, and as such they were given first priority. The minimalist, all-white backdrop offered a kind of gallery for their literary beauty. Now, the only colours in the house are the bright tones of all the spines. Truly lovely, don't you think? 

Gardens, Films, Fantasies...

What is it about gardens that appeals to so many of us? (Even those, like me, who seem to have the black thumb of death when it comes to plants.) Why is it that if you put a model in a haute couture ballgown and place her in between some Versailles-style hedges, it immediately lifts the fashion shoot to a whole new level of Grace Coddington-style sophistication? Why is it that whenever Karl Lagerfeld tosses some formal French parterres into his fashion shows, the collections receive so much more media coverage? (Witness the incredible amount of column inches given to his spring/summer 2011 show, which was inspired by the gardens of Last Year at Marienbad.) And why is it that whenever a film director introduces a horticultural element to a movie, it immediately attracts a legion of garden-loving fans?

There's no doubt about it. Gardens give a mise-en-scène character, beauty, charm and mystery. And so here, in Part One of a special post that merges three of my favourite things – flowers, fashion and films – is a look at some of the most beautiful botanical-enhanced movie scenes we've seen over the last few years.

LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD

I'm still not certain what this film is all about. None of the characters have names. Some of them don't seem to know what they're doing there. It's all a bit enigmatic. But who cares when the gardens are so beautiful? Just turn the sound down and gaze at those perfectly clipped topiary trees.  {Top image is also from Last Year in Marienbad)

IT'S COMPLICATED

The spectacular kitchen garden in this film (remember Meryl Streep flirting with Alec Baldwin over a couple of plump, blush-ripe tomatoes?) caused a LOT of complaints, particularly among gardeners. For a start, the beds featured warm and cool-season crops together. And then there was the issue of plant envy. Lots of people felt that it made ordinary gardeners feel utterly inadequate. I mean, where were the weeds? The butterflies? The straggly bits? The film's production designer eventually admitted that the vegetables were grown in a greenhouse for two months before the garden scene was shot, and "any plant that looked a little scrubby was not used". Scrubby plants? The horror! Can someone please tell me how I get my garden paths that neat?  {Photo credit:  Melinda Sue Gordon, Universal Studios}

UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN

Frances Mayes' villa at Bramasole in Tuscany Italy, was pure property porn. The enchanting house. The idyllic garden. The whole luscious Italian-ness of it all. No wonder people still trek here to see it year after year. It's locavore love. As Dean Martin said "That's amore".

A GOOD YEAR

Normally Russell Crowe is a superb actor but he was terrible in this film. Terrible. It didn't matter, because the dilapidated garden and the decaying vineyard that his character inherited more than made up for it.  Russ coulda worn a burlap bag and wandered around bumping into cypress trees and it wouldn't have mattered because the setting was so spectacular.

ENCHANTED APRIL

This film was a big hit in 1992. And no wonder. Just look at that garden. One reviewer summed the story up beautifully: “The enticement of an enchanting Italian holiday captivates the hearts of two British housewives on a drizzly London afternoon in 1922, and fills their imaginations with wisteria and sunshine. By the time they arrive at their Mediterranean villa...the gardens, sea, cinnamon and pasta are just the beginning of the transformation they discover.” Wisteria and sunshine. Two words to bring joy the heart of any gardener. Add in Italy and you can see why everyone wanted to rush off to do their own Enchanted April.

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Director Ang Lee knows the power of a good bit of garden porn. Remember how he sent Kate Winslet rushing out into the topiary garden in a moment of romantic despair? Yes Ang, we know there's nothing like a yew to cheer a girl up. Mind you, most Jane Austen adaptations are filled with shrubberies, woods, a hedge or two, and smattering of clipped topiary. It keeps the characters on their toes, you see. All that hopping about the hornbeam adds to the action.

NOTTING HILL

The garden that Julia Roberts (Anna) and Hugh Grant (William) snuck into for a spontaneous pash behind the petunias is actually a private garden called Rosmead Gardens, in Rosmead Road, Notting Hill, W11. I always envied those Londoners who had the keys to these private gardens. Obviously a lot more goes on behind those walls that the rest of us realise!

GREEN CARD

Remember this film? Remember Andie McDowell (Bronte) fighting to keep her New York apartment, simply because it had a luscious rooftop garden? Remember the indoor atrium with the sprinkler system and the hand-tiled pool? I would have married Gérard Depardieu for that apartment too. Then again, I always had a soft spot for Mr Depardieu. He can tend to my herbaceous borders any day.

HARRY POTTER

I was watching the Mandrakes-in-the-greenhouse scene from Harry Potter on TV tonight, and I realised I was more enthralled with those enormous conservatories that the storyline. The aerial shots were amazing.

THE SECRET GARDEN

Frances Hodges Burnett's classic novel has been adapted to the big and small screens more times that my garden has grown weeds, but it's still a great story. There are few things more irresistible than a hidden door to a secret walled garden. {All scenes from the movies indicated.}

Is Periwinkle The Perfect Blue?

It's a tough discussion, the Blue Debate. I mean, how do you possibly choose the perfect blue?

There's the sophisticated, dignified, thoroughly distinguished blue that is navy. (Which I have always had a soft spot for. And I suspect half of Paris does too, judging by their wardrobes.) There's the rich glamour of royal blue. There's the crisp smartness of French blue, which always reminds me of dress shirts and school uniforms. And finally, there's the soft elegance of periwinkle blue; a blue that's so quietly beautiful, it makes all other blues look flashy by comparison.

Some people think periwinkle blue is simply a pale, watered-down blue, but it actually has a hint of mauve swirled through it. It's a delicate blue and it can be difficult to do. If the paint is tinted too dark it can turn out to be lavender. Too light and it fades to a wishy-washy shade.

It can also be difficult to decorate with, or dress in. Many designers and decorators suggest using it as a dominant feature, which shows off its loveliness, rather than hiding it behind another principal colour such as white. Personally, I love seeing it with a sweep of glossy black; a colour combination that's unexpectedly glamorous and surprisingly sexy.

However you feel about periwinkle (or plumbago, porcelain, sky blue, or whatever else you want to call it), one thing seems certain: it's sneaking its way into the fashion and design worlds. Just look at how much of it was in Chanel's Spring-Summer 2012 show. In fact, many people think that pale blue, and its equally delicate and elegant cousin pale turquoise, could be the colour(s) to watch in 2012 and 2013. {Above image via the inimitable Rodney Smith.}

"It's an ahhh colour! Completely uplifting!"  

– Designer Jamie Drake on pale blue

The new Mondrian SoHo hotel, in New York, a poem to periwinkle. {Via Mondrian and Hotel Chatter}

Chanel's Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2012 show, which was more or less a tribute to the prettiest, palest shades of blue. {Via Chanel}

The Hotel Ferrero in Valencia Spain, which is owned by Spanish tennis champ Juan Carlos Ferrero. Look at that blue. It's so unusual for a hotel facade, isn't it? But so perfect for the elegant architecture, the petite size and the gorgeous, glorious, sun-kissed Spanish setting. {Via www.hotelferrero.com}

Pale blue in a French-style interior. I've misplaced the credits for these images and I wish I hadn't because I adore this space. Look at the silk-taffeta drapes, the high-gloss floor, the stunning armoire... If you know whose home this is, please do let me know so I can credit accordingly.

My old apartment in South Yarra. The stripes on the walls were painted in Porter's Paints' Nebular blue (low sheen and pearl gloss), which gave the tiny space the feel of a French salon. (Curiously, it also made the space seem larger.) Oh, how I loved this blue! I'd love to do another apartment in the same colour palette.

JK Place hotel in Florence. I never tire of staring at this beautifully designed space. In this image, the blue looks more turquoise, but in real life it's a pale blue. And while not strictly periwinkle, it's very much in the same family of pale blue hues.

My favourite Jonathan Adler sofa. In fact, this could be my favourite sofa ever. Look at those sexy lines. Doesn't it make you want to pour a martini or a gin and tonic, slip into a white silk dressing gown and spend an entire evening watching episode after episode of Mad Men? {Via jonathanadler.com}

A few of the spectacular pieces from Oscar de la Renta's recent collection. Oh, Oscar. You do know how to do a magnificent blue! {Via Vogue and Dustjacket Attic}

Chanel's alluring blue nail lacquer, highlighted at the recent Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2012 show. {Via Chanel}

The Kelly Wearstler-designed restaurant, BG, at the top of Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York. This is one of my favourite restaurants in New York. The views up Fifth Avenue and across Central Park are as sublime as the interior. {Via Apartment Therapy and Carlos Melia}

The Hotel de Vendôme in Paris. Flashy, but still fabulous. {Via Vendôme}

A print of Lulu Guiness's London home by the talented Anne Harwell of Annechovie. {www.annechovie.blogspot.com}

And more inspirations...