For all you Monty Don fans, here he is from the back of the book!
But this is just an excuse to quote a passage from his diaries - which I am so enjoying. Not of the season, I grant you, but I loved this piece from May 1998 on 'Umbellifers', so here is an extract:
"Sometimes England strikes you round the head like a cheap religious experience or a jolt of lust. Just now the cow parsley spins and spills along these border lanes under the shade of the May blossom like a good dream and I am riding it with the careless rapture of the dreamer. These greedy eyes that cannot look enough are me as a child wading chest high in cow parsley and calling out in joy, the feathery leaves delicately brushing my lips and eyelids and white coronets of tiny flowers smelling mustily familiar of something much older than me. Colour is reduced to just white clouds held by the hawthorn branches and a million white flowers gathered in one glance along a line of cow parsley with everything else in this piece of world a hundred tones of damp, glowing green. I do not believe there is a more beautiful sight on the planet. But only a ghost of this can be stored, which is why every spring these moments expand so astonishingly, catch our knowing weariness so completely by surprise."
Wonderful images in the writing - thanks for posting that. I'm unfamiliar with cow parsley - will have to look it up. I don't know why but I had an image of Queen Anne's Lace while reading that - but it probably grows closer to the grown than I imagined in that passage.
Posted by: Nancy | 21 September 2009 at 12:28 AM
Oh, heck! Make that '...closer to the ground...'
Posted by: Nancy | 21 September 2009 at 12:29 AM
Can't bear the man myself but as you've enjoyed his books you might seek out The Prickotty Bush, written before he was a TV star. It's an autobiographical tale of gardening obsession.
Posted by: Barbara | 21 September 2009 at 08:41 AM
I agree with Barbara; I read The Prickotty Bush before I'd heard about him in any other context and loved it. The above mention of cow parsley reminds me of how he wrote about seeing it cut down when he was in a depressive phase and being grief stricken at its loss.
Posted by: Mary McCartney | 21 September 2009 at 09:53 AM
I love Monty Don's writing and have never really seen him on TV which may be just as well. I thought The Jewel Garden was one of the best books I've read. Not a lot of folks are willing to be so frank about the bad times in their life. I liked the fact that it was about a gardening life and not just a garden. Thanks so much for having a link that makes it possible for U.S. readers to order the book.
Posted by: Linda Brazill | 27 September 2009 at 03:31 PM
Linda, I've just had news of Monty's next book - another "must read", I think, and due out in March. Meanwhile, I am so enjoying The Ivington Diaries.
Posted by: Cornflower | 28 September 2009 at 10:13 PM
I was just wondering what this book of Monty Don's is that will be released in March. Do you have any further details?
Posted by: Deborah at Kilbourne Grove | 07 October 2009 at 05:28 AM
Deborah, I haven't a clue why I didn't reply to you at the time you asked this question - my apologies! The book in question is My Dream Farm, but I see publication has been postponed until next year. However, I'm expecting news of a forthcoming cookbook by Monty and Sarah Don soon.
Posted by: Cornflower | 01 June 2010 at 02:07 PM