One of my favourite books, that I find myself returning to from time to time, is H. E. Bates’s Through the Woods. Years ago, I used to spend a lot of time with my great friends Jane & Johnny Holland at the house they had in North Wales. In those days we were rather eccentric. Our idea of a good time aged 24 was to get pretty drunk then lie on the sofa in that wonderful house (without electricity, central heating, or running water) and read extracts from Through the Woods, sometimes for hours, by flickering candlelight. 

Reflecting on this weekend, when Bridie came to stay in Dorset, I was reminded of those days. There have been a few coincidences today. “What do you want to do, Bride?” I said, collecting Bridie from the station yesterday, running a bit late. “What I REALLY want to do is visit a bluebell wood. I’ve never been”.

So, this morning, we called for coffee with my friends Gracie and Adrian, who run the fantastic Little Toller Books, which I’ve written about before – we sell some of their books in the shop, including the brilliant new re-issue of Barbara Jones’s The Unsophisticated Arts, which is by my bedside table at the moment.  Gracie gave us a tour of beautiful, remote, lost Toller Fratrum, the tiny hidden hamlet where they run Little Toller Books. If you visit, be sure to make your way past the decaying Manor to the tiny chapel, with its extraordinary carved font (memorably photographed by John Piper)…

So, it just so happens that on the Little Toller list is a fine reissue of  the H. E. Bates; I’m not sure we have it in the shop yet, but you can buy a copy here, direct from them. And I note that the cover is a drawing by Nicholas Hely Hutchinson of a transcendent bluebell wood.

Well, we said goodbye and drove back to the Bride Valley – stopping briefly in nearby Wynford Eagle, where you find this remarkable view down to the Manor Farm. Dreamy West Dorset:

And after lunch, we decided to head back to London via Cranborne Chase, where I’d heard of the beautiful bluebell woods at Garston. But nothing quite prepared us for what we found.

The smell of wild garlic was tangible; the colour of the bluebells and their scent remarkable. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anything like it.  As we headed east, through to Bowerchalk, we drove through the extraordinary Beech avenue which opened this blog. There is nothing, nothing, like the saturated green of beech leaves that have just broken in May. Our eyes, which have got used to months of the heavy placid greens of late summer and the browns and yellows of autumn and then damp wintry greys are  literally startled, jolted, by the acid shock of this colour.  This combination of May Beech woods on gently folding chalk hills is one that sends a shiver down my spine.  Travelling today through the woods of Dorset and Wiltshire has been about as close to an idea of heaven as I’ve known for a while. 

One of the more remarked upon contents of The Queen’s Speech, during the State Opening of Parliament this week, was not so much what Her Madge said… as who was sitting on her right hand side. 

Yes, for the first time in 17 years, HRH attended the State Opening alongside his mama, and alongside him was the Duchess, looking really rather splendid. You may have heard the news that the Queen is planning to do a little less this year. While this will doubtless be a disappointment it does rather make sense. We certainly don’t do abdications Dutch style but it’s rather nice, and quite right, as your parents get older, to be able to help share the load, is it not?

Anyway, I was reflecting on all this as I was cycling down the Mall the other day.  You will of course be familiar with the stony grey hulk of Buckingham Palace at its western end, simultaneously one of the most famous and most ugly of the London landmarks; and you will of course know that Prince Charles lives at Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s old house, just next door, which is rather more beautiful being designed by Nash (like the back of Buckingham Palace, before it got refaced by Blore and then in that heavy Edwardian dress by Aston Webb a year before the First World War).

But I wonder if you’ve spotted a quiet revolution that’s been going on in the Mall for a few years now? Yes, it’s the least revolutionary address in Britain, I suppose – but this is real.

I can’t quite remember when it was that I first noticed the wonderful wildflower meadows that now stretch all along the tall brick walls of Clarence House and Marlborough House Gardens.  Certainly three years ago, maybe a couple more. It was a sight of quiet beauty back then, and year after year it’s just been getting better and better.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’ve got a thing about Cow Parsley… let’s face it – probably the most beautiful flower on earth (May 2011, May 2010, and lots of other posts around about the same time of year)… So it is with particular fascination that I’ve been watching what I am sure were once neatly mown regimental lawns… turn in to this:

Incredible, no?

The camassias are perfect touch, a counterpoint to the paler blue…

But the black and purple tulips are even more spectacular

Queen of the Night tulips are like jewels against the light. The trick, I think, is to plant the bulbs very deep if you want to naturalise them in grass. Of course Prince Charles is rather a master at creating tulip meadows, as we know, with the famous wildflower meadows at Highgrove, so none of this should be any surprise to anyone at all.  

If you’ve been drinking in the quiet beauty of the Clarence House planting, it’s all the more of a shock to turn the corner in to the flowerbeds surrounding the giant Victoria Memorial, that fronts Buckingham Palace. 

See what I mean?!

Now we all know that I’ve got nothing against tulips. I love them. And I’ve got nothing against wallflowers. I adore them as much if not more. Let’s face it, I even love tasteless flower colours – my ever-too-slightly-salmon-orange tulips at the Parsonage being a fairly good case in point. I don’t want to be the pot calling the kettle black.

But I am afraid try as I might I do have something against that planting combo. I’d actually be quite interested to see the scarlet tulips and the forget-me-nots growing out of the dark red wallflowers; and the yellow tulips out of the lemon wallflowers, perhaps with a bit of darker yellow wrapped in there… but HELLO!?!?!?! This is bonkers.

But I somehow suspect The Queen finds it very very cheery to look down upon such a display. I bet she peers out of the tall windows of Buckingham Palace just before David Cameron is coming for tea and feels, well, a little less gloomy. Better, after all, to be looking at some riotous tulips than riotous subjects. 

Well, my hunch tells me – than in time to come these beds will subtly change. Or even radically. Yes… if I was those vivid tulips and wallflowers I’d be feeling a trifle nervous seeing Prince Charles sitting at the right hand of The Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. And taking a little more role in the life of the nation…

I’d be even more nervous if I was this bit of desolate lawn to the South of Buckingham Palace and Victoria Memorial. Can it be so very long before this is a glorious, beautiful, soft, mixed meadow grassland? I think that I’m rather looking forward to the future. 

We are pleased to announce that normal service has resumed. No more politics, no more sadness. It was a beautiful early Summer weekend in Dorset and the blog contains nothing more than images of the garden, of houses and landscape. Which is really what we all like. I had my old boss and friend Charles Morris and his wife staying, and their friend Charlie, and Will.

We went for a walk to Abbotsbury and the coast. The grass seemed particularly vivid after months of turning shades of brown; there’s something about that moment when the trees finally break that is magical; and clouds quickly scudding over the folding hills. 

I love the walk to Abbotsbury, and the moment where the land suddenly falls down to the coast and to Chesil Beach. 

Like so many Estate villages, Abbotsbury is picture perfect. Nothing jars. But what I was liking most of all was the little gardens and allotments tucked about the place, ready for Summer.

We returned via Waddon House, to show Charles and Rachel the perfect proportions of the Portland stone facade.  Waddon is a fragment of a much larger house of which the central section and left wing burned shortly after it was built… I have written about it before. It is my dream house.

Back to the Parsonage in time to catch late afternoon sunshine in the garden.

On Sunday, we went to Chettle House, up towards Cranborne Chase; a beautiful, romantic, English Baroque house  in a gently decaying village where not a lot has changed since the 19th century. The house, by Thomas Archer, is strange, restless; I love its curious detailing and tall sash windows with ancient glass. The curved corners used to be at the ground floor only, and it would be so good to see the upper floors removed… a different house altogether.  To be honest, it is collapsing a bit now. How do we define that moment  when romantic decay gets too much? I think that Chettle may have just slipped over that edge. “It’s looking a little Chettled” is a phrase that might make its way into my language.

From Chettle, we made our way through villages and via the Museum at Farnham (The Museum is an excellent pub, in case you were wondering) to Rushmore Park, where a very long time ago I’d been at school. The soft expansive beauty of Cranborne Chase always takes my breath away.

Monday was bright and brilliant. I spent all day in the garden.

I put up my bean poles, and planted beans and peas, sweetcorn and lettuces, courgettes and squash.

The tulips are putting on a crazy display at last. But I suspect will soon be over.

And the auriculas are just turning, as irises and aquilegia come through. It feels like it’s been the shortest spring ever, rather like being in New York, where winter suddenly turns to summer with just a week of spring in between.

But it was, basically, a perfect weekend. Normal service has resumed.