Tag: botanical gardens

Maine Time: Trolls & More

JWF Leave a comment

TROLLS IN THE GARDEN

We made the first of this year’s visits to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens yesterday.  It was lovely and mostly sunny.  We were impressed with some new annuals and the expansion of beds near the entry bridge.  These gardens get better every year!

Lisianthus in purple
Pink member of the canna family

This year’s highlight is the presence of some gigantic trolls. These wooden sculptures are the work of Danish artist Thomas Dambo.   They were built on site over several months by the artist with assistance from garden staff and more than 150 volunteers.  Dambo has been working with wood since early childhood, and his trolls are found around the world.  

Soren Troll by Thomas Dambo

I was told that these five trolls will remain in place until they deteriorate and fall apart, estimated to be about five years, longer if they receive some maintenance.  They are impressive works!  We tramped around and found two of them, Soren and Birk.

RECENT READING

Baghdad 2002

When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson

I must confess to buying this paperback book partly because of its very attractive apricot-colored cover.  It’s a novel set in Iraq in 2002 when Sadam Hussein was ruling the country.  The author is a former international correspondent who spent a year living under that regime.  Her depictions of the city and the environment are picturesque and chilling.  

Wilkinson has created three female characters, one based to some extent on her own experiences.  Ally Wilson is the wife of the Australian ambassador, Huda is a village girl who has advanced in life to working at the Australian embassy, but also acting as an informant for the government.  Rania, born rich and privileged, has fallen on hard times; she and Huda were close friends as children.  How these three women come to interact with one another and how Huda and Rania’s concern for their teenage children makes them compatriots is the heart of the novel.  

I found the descriptions of daily life fascinating, but noticed a lack of tension in the narrative until about the last third of the book.  Nonetheless, it’s worth reading about Bagdad during this brutal time.  (~JWFarrington)

VIEWING—BRITISH CRIME

Unforgotten (Season 4, PBS Masterpiece)

Cassie and Sunny (radiottimes.com)

Detective Chief Inspector Cassie Stuart and Detective Sunny Kahn are partners in solving cold case crimes. Bodies turn up years later in odd places, in this season, a freezer.  This duo must identify the victim and then excavate his or her past to determine how and why the individual died.  Was it an accident or murder?  And who were the principals in this person’s life and what role did they play in the demise?  One incident and one quick decision decades ago reverberated through the lives of four people.  

From the haunting and ethereal opening song, “All we do is hide away,” to the detailed interviews with possible suspects, each season is gripping drama. This season is exceptionally so.  Nicola Walker as the lead (familiar to some viewers from her role in Last Tango in Halifax) is superb, as is Sanjeev Bhaska as Sunny. This pair like and care for each other as friends as well as colleagues. Their mutual respect is echoed in the respect shown to victims, suspects, and family members.  Complex, involved, and compelling—highly recommended!

Note: All garden photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

North Carolina Spring: The Triangle to the Piedmont

JWF Leave a comment

GARDENS

The greens are different in North Carolina and spring is softer than Florida.  We were in Chapel Hill and Greensboro over the Easter weekend visiting my two sisters and their families.  Lots of laughter, plenty of good food, and a chance to wander in several gardens.  All the trees had leafed out, but the shade was between the yellow green (lime) of early spring and the robust hunter green of high summer.  The azaleas were in full flower, iris too, with only the late variety tulips still hanging on.  On our way to Winston-Salem, we stopped in the small town of Kernersville and explored the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Gardens, a small public garden with lots of potential.  The visitors’ center is closed on weekends (strange, we thought), but we’d been told there were still tulips in bloom.  The first beds we came upon were disappointing, but then on another side of the property were beds and beds of tulips still upright and mostly intact.  A pleasing array of color.  In Winston-Salem, we wandered around the Reynolda Gardens, on the former estate of R. J. Reynolds.  Aside from the trailing wisteria, there was more to see inside the conservatory than outside. I was particularly struck by the bold gerbera daisies.

 
  

EATING AND SHOPPING

It was a family tradition for many years that every Hancock Reunion (held in the summertime) included a ham dinner.  That was roast ham served with scalloped potatoes, a vegetable such as green beans or corn, and, most likely, a green salad.  For dinner with my sisters, their husbands and my niece and her husband one night, it was potluck style.  Ham provided by the hosts was the centerpiece (Honey-baked), along with a salad of greens and herbs from one sister’s garden, and a porcini mushroom rice dish from my niece and nephew, followed by brownies and lemon squares for dessert.  Times do evolve; the previous generation would not have related to those mushrooms!

In Kernersville after the Ciener garden, we had lunch at a small place called Bistro B.  Their claim to fame seems to be specialty wine dinners with a set menu and also a nice selection of tapas.  Our lunch was simpler fare, but very satisfying.  I had their grilled chicken panini while others enjoyed a classic Reuben and a Cubano sandwich.   All were enhanced with beer from their wide range of choices.

Pittsboro is a very small town south of Chapel Hill.  Founded in 1787, it’s the county seat for Chatham County.  Along with some attractive historic buildings, it boasts a street of arty shops and an old-timey soda shop.  It was the S & T Soda Shoppe that drew us back for our third or fourth visit.  Re-created to look old fashioned, it has a wooden counter and a series of booths and tables.  Menu items are mostly sandwiches and burgers and a host of ice cream flavors.  Their tuna melt on sunflower bread is consistently good as are the hot dog and the cheeseburger (my choice).  We were there on Good Friday and followed our post working life rule of “always be early.”  Arriving at 11:30 we had our choice of booths.  Half an hour later, the place was packed with family groups waiting.

After lunch, we did the shops—that is, my sister and I.  The men mostly sat on one of the several benches on main street.  Several shops include artists’ note cards and other gift items along with painting and sculpture.  French Connections is a treasure trove of French fabrics and table linens, statues and art work from Africa, lawn art, and baskets, while Circle City Books Music, ostensibly a used bookstore, had more new books than one would expect.  

I’ve touted this other bookstore in the past, but it’s such a great store, I have to mention it again.  It’s McIntyre Books in Fearrington Village (a bit south of Chapel Hill) and it’s a wonderfully well-stocked independent bookseller.  We spent a good hour browsing and then, of course, buying!  I picked up several paperback novels for myself, a children’s book for my granddaughter as well as several note cards.  Simply heaven!

On our last evening in North Carolina, we were back in the Triangle area and enjoyed a lovely dinner at a small French restaurant, Rue Cler, in downtown Durham.  We had the place mostly to ourselves and appreciated host Ryan’s warm welcome and friendly, efficient service.  The black North Carolina sea bass entrée I had was superb!  The fish was sautéed and served on a bed of spinach and capers with roasted potato cubes crusted with grainy mustard.  Equally pleasing were the scallops of salmon with béarnaise sauce and the beef.  To start, some of us had the house green salad, while others liked the frisee with French fries and the onion soup.

Images:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)