Bows, arrows and battles keep my godmother credentials fresh

I’m blessed with a fantastic godson, but cursed by distance. We rarely rack up more than 10 days together over the course of a whole year, some of it usually during his expat family's annual "return to Blighty" each August. So when I get my turn, I want to roll out activities that perpetuate my best-godmother-ever reputation. 

The last summer before lockdowns, I scored big with his first baseball game as the Yankees and Red Sox came to London. Last summer, I was a hero thanks to the National Motor Museum and its Aston Martin Day. This year, he'd be staying for a whole week. How to maintain my track record? Archery, battle re-enactments and a few more battles on celluloid. With lashings of American pancakes, barbeques and home made pizza.

His favourite, I'm delighted to say, was the archery.

I probably could have found something closer than the hour and twenty minute drive, but online research showed New Forest Activities to have the best mix of instruction, timing and group size for the money. It turned out even better than planned when we were the only people in our time slot, meaning £27 each got us 90 minutes of exclusive use of their range with instructor Tom. 

It was blazing hot, humid, and we were shooting at things in a corn field. I was flashing back to my Missouri youth. Those days, of course, were why I'd chosen this. I like to have some credibility with kids when trying to impress them, and this was my high school sport. I was physically unfit and chronically uncoordinated, but I was also keenly competitive. I quickly realised that archery was the only "sport" at which I could stand still, not perspire, and be good enough to win Field Day prizes. The bookworm in me, meanwhile, loved all the literary connections. That still works for kids today, though they're more likely to associate with Hawkeye, the Green Arrow or Katniss Everdeen than Robin Hood.

Tom's instruction was fantastic and Sacha was soon getting most of his arrows somewhere on the target. I was doing better at a further distance but this was the kid's day, so after a third of our time further back we returned to the starting line. Meaning I didn't beat the kid by quite the margin I wanted to. (That's my story, anyway) He had a great time and used up almost every minute of our allocation, even though instructor Tom and I were both clearly ready to quit early if he'd wanted to wrap up.

New Forest Activities is only 10 minutes down the road from Beaulieu with its motor museum and adorable village, so you could easily do a kid-friendly weekend down there. New Forest Activities also do kayaking, canoeing, ropes courses and paint ball.

Earlier in the week we were off to the Marlborough 300 Pageant at Blenheim Palace, marking the tercentenary of the first duke's death. History is always dicey territory with teenagers, who may have had a bad experience in school and whose short attention spans can make traditional events boring. Luckily this one had a military encampment full of child-friendly historical re-enactors who were letting the kids beat on their drums, play with their weapons (under close supervision) and try on bits of their costumes. There was a full-scale battle re-enactment with foot soldiers, cannon, cavalry and a commentator on loudspeaker to explain it all. 

But the most captivating bit for teenager and adults alike was the "Meet the Churchills" session, where John and his wife Sarah welcomed you to their pavilion to tell you about their lives and answer their questions. Historical re-enactors are passionate about their periods and part of the game is staying in character, but I've never encountered any as good as these two. It was as if the real people had time travelled for our entertainment. Both were magnificent actors, fully inhabiting the persona of 17th century nobles, but they also both had a staggering knowledge of their subject matter. 

This is even harder than you might imagine because they had to place themselves at a very specific time: 1685. Because that was the date of the day's battle; a re-creation of part of the Monmouth Rebellion. (Re-enacting Marlborough's most famous victory at Blenheim would have required a troupe of re-enactors from Louis XIV's army who were willing to lose. Unlikely in the heart of England.) So the couple could only anticipate the victories ahead, the future residence and Blenheim and the falling out with Queen Anne. Between their performance and some very informed questions from the audience, it was the highlight of the day.

I am not above easy teenage-friendly options, however. Take the kid to a blockbuster summer film, buy him whatever he wants at the snack counter and enjoy the air conditioning. Fortunately, the film was Thor: Love and Thunder. My superhero grasp can be sketchy but is better when characters have links back to mythology or classical literature. With his deep immersion in Nordic myth, Sir Kenneth Branagh as an early director and co-stars like Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins, Thor has always been my favourite. And then there's the delectable Chris Hemsworth.

Not that you really need much prior knowledge for this glorious romp of a film. I didn't think anything could beat Maverick in the summer blockbuster sweepstakes but Love and Thunder is equally joyous. It's a comedy. A love story. An action flick. And while I might not have needed my context setting, a thorough grasp of mythologies of the pre-Christian world makes one plot-pivoting scene even better. I liked it so much I may be going back for a re-run with the husband.

The teenager is gone, the house is quiet, mountains of laundry await and I am perversely excited to have 13 days stretching ahead with nothing in the social or cultural diary. Perhaps I should use some of them to start researching next summer's godson activities. This trajectory of delight is going to be hard to keep up, even if Hollywood gives me a few more epic blockbusters.

Hosta specialist softens loss of Hampton Court show

I should have been at the Hampton Court Flower Show this week. My venerable annual tradition always starts with a leisurely catch up over a champagne breakfast with my friends Alex and Philippa before we wander across the road to the world’s largest flower show, drink in the new trends and shop ‘til we drop. Then we rest, fortify with a restorative jug of Pimms, and keep shopping.

Not this year. Yet another annual milestone fell to the pandemic axe as 2020 moves towards being the year that never happened. We shared breakfast over a Zoom call, but it’s not quite the same.

Lockdown has been steadily loosening, however, and garden centres were some of the earliest businesses released from shackles. So this year I still took my flower show day off, but rather than visiting all the specialist vendors in one place I picked one of my favourite suppliers and went to them.

New Forest Hostas specialise in a plant that claims a soft spot in my heart. Also known as the plantain lily, these shade-loving, broad-leafed plants are native to northeast Asia, but the centre of modern hybridisation is the United States. They were common sights in the woodland gardens of the American Midwest, including my childhood home. One variety ... its name lost in time and its simple appearance dating from an age before showy hybrids ... has moved with my family through every house we’ve owned since my grandfather planted it in the early ‘50s. Taking divisions of the plants was the last thing I did before leaving my childhood home to its new owners. For 40 years there, my mother had fought an ongoing, usually unsuccessful, battle with the deer who would emerge from the trees behind our house to feast on the tender leaves. She was trying to mimic beneath her own oaks the winding, multi-variety beds that snaked through the Missouri botanical garden.

In England, my wars are with slugs and snails. Gardeners seeking an easy life often avoid hostas, given their popularity with multiple predators, but that would be a mistake. They grow in shady spots many other plants refuse. They come in a beguiling variety of leaf colours and patterns, in sizes from miniatures to single plants that demand several square meters.

Some hosta miniatures by my smaller pond

Though foliage is the main point of hostas, they do send up spikes of white, blue or purple blooms in late July and August. They’re great value for money, with the typical plant doubling in size every three to four years, allowing you to separate and plant out (or give away) the spares. While predators may leave the leaves holed or gnaw them to the ground, hostas are amongst the toughest of garden plants and difficult to kill. They flourish in the ground or in pots. A well-planned hosta bed can be a soothing study in green, from deepest blue-greens to pale yellowish shades, sparked with the occasional white. Every year breeders come up with new varieties to tempt gardeners like me.

My main hosta bed

My only criticism? They die back over the winter, leaving bare earth on view for several months. And, of course, the endless battles with the predators. My garden in England is walled, so I don’t have to worry about Bambi and friends. (Though to this day I still feel the victory of revenge whenever I eat venison.) Most people used to control slugs and snails with poisonous pellets, until we got smart to the fact that the frogs and birds who eat the pests were getting poisoned, too. Now gardeners debate their favourite organic defences, from rings of copper, stones or crushed egg shells around plants to garlic concentrate spray to beer traps to a regular dose of nematodes, a microscopic organism that likes to eat slug and snail eggs. Encouraging frogs, hedgehogs and birds into your garden helps. In my experience, growing hostas in pots produces the best results, but that hasn’t kept me from trying beds as well.

Hosta alley; my potted collection

New Forest Hostas is one of a handful of English hosta experts who show up at the big flower shows. Your average garden centre might have five or ten varieties, while these specialists will have more than 100, along with vast knowledge of what grows well where, disease resistance, legacy and speed-to-division. New Forest is a young contender compared to Suffolk’s Mickfield Hostas, who hold the national collection and have been in the specialist game for more than 20 years. But New Forest hails from my current home county of Hampshire and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since I met one of the owners at a local plant fair and she talked me into what’s become my favourite hosta in my garden: Cathedral Window. (Top photo.)

New Forest Hostas impressive collection

They’re only open to the public on certain days and the shopping area is just one shaded poly tunnel with three aisles. But that’s more than enough for an addict. The first aisle is dedicated to their show plants ... champion specimens in pots ... and the other two a tidy supermarket-style array of plants for purchase arranged by name.  All in a Covid-safe one-way system with plenty of hand gel on offer, of course. I spent at least an hour pottering about in deep contentment. Without Alex and Philippa to restrain me (their usual role at Hampton Court when we get to the hosta stands) I had to police myself. I was there to try to identify two of my plants for which I’d lost the name and buy no more than three additions to my “hosta alley”. 

Mission almost accomplished. One of my missing IDs was “Geisha”, the other probably came from Mickfield and remains anonymous. I emerged with “Georgia Sweetheart”, an unusual yellow hue I don’t have anywhere in my collection, “Coloured Hulk”, a deep blue that’s likewise under-represented, and “Sting”, a white centre with multi-coloured green edges I couldn’t resist. I also learned that hosta like constrained roots, and I’ve probably been retarding their growth by putting them in pots that are too big for their current size. A flurry of re-planting followed my trip as I sunk pots within pots to create some squeeze.

Along the Lymington

New Forest Hostas is a little over an hour from my house and provided an excellent excuse to drive down to that eponymous area of ancient woodland. One excellent effect of the pandemic’s social limitations has been to remind me of what’s on my doorstep. Between the annual round of events and holidays that always start with a passport check, I’ve fallen out of the habit of sightseeing in my general area. The forest that was “new” in the 11th century when William II enclosed it as a hunting ground is now a charming hybrid of national park peppered with private properties, charming villages and hotels. It’s a popular place for picnics and walks. I didn’t pack my lunch but I did enjoy a spectacular walk in the woodland next to the Lymington River, a stretch so picturesque in its mossy, sun-dappled solitude you’d think Disney’s early animation artists had visited to sketch their backdrops for Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. (Any of the National Park car parks on the B3055 just to the east of The Pig restaurant and hotel will put you next to this path. Just park and walk into the woods with your back to the road.)

I miss normal life, but my garden and my local knowledge are improving with life’s current limitations.

Lime Wood lives up to the Angela Hartnett promise

There’s much hand-wringing these days about the effects of positive screening on social media. Because we only share the best of our lives, the idea goes, people are lured into a damaging, un-achieveable and unending cycle of keeping up with the proverbial Joneses. The hand-wringers seem to discount the possibility of any common sense that reasons posts are probably the best minute of an otherwise tough day, or understand those glamorous holiday photos as a reward earned after a year of earnest toil. Evidently we need to show our work to get credit on this exam.

Last week, I could have shared my disgruntlement with two consecutive commutes getting caught in train delays through Waterloo after days coping with London’s sticky heat. (The climate may be changing, but England’s ability to deal with a heat wave remains abysmal.) On the second, thinking I was being clever by re-routing through Paddington, I arrived at Reading to find the last train to Basingstoke cancelled. I could have done much better things with the £45 taxi fare it required to get home. Then there was the excessive tooth pain I was trying to mask all week with unwise levels of ibuprofen. Turns out a hairline fracture my dentist has had her eye on for years may finally be giving way. I’m not sure which will be more painful, the root canal to come or the bill that will equal 20% of my first job’s annual salary. Meanwhile, at work, a legal department’s excessive (IMHO) interpretation of data protection legislation just added a Herculean task to a project I thought concluded.

There was, in short, not a great deal worth celebrating last week. I could have Instagrammed a photo of my molar, but … really? Nobody likes a moaner. I suffered in silence. Thus I felt I was getting a bit of karmic reward when I discovered that the restaurant some friends were treating us to on Friday night was the Lime Wood Hotel. (That was on my Instagram feed before starters hit the table.)

Lime Wood is a country house hotel and restaurant sitting in classic Georgian splendour on the Northern edge of Hampshire’s New Forest. The restaurant here was my culinary hero Angela Hartnett’s first foray outside of London, with business partner and fellow chef Luke Holder. It had been on our “must try” list since she started her association in 2014, but we'd never managed it. To get there by unplanned serendipity was a treat.

This is a very different proposition from either Hartnett’s flagship Murano or her Murano Cafes, but her signature touches are there: tiny, succulent arancini as pre-meal snacks; traditional Italian four-course organisation (anti pasti, pasta, mains and dessert); and an Italian-style focus on simple dishes done well. But the menu (top photo) and décor take their inspiration from the house. There's no doubt you're in England here, with formal gardens and classic perennial borders on view outside, cozy upholstery, classic prints and warm wood inside.  The menu celebrates local ingredients:  Wooley Park Farm guinea fowl, Glenarm estate beef, catch of the day from the nearby coast. Everything was presented in a style that, like the room, balanced elegance and informality.

I started with an exquisite little deep-fried artichoke (above) served on a foundation of partially sun-dried tomatoes; they'd been dried enough to intensify their flavour and get a bit chewy, but still qualified as fresh produce. My veal chop main was succulent, pink and substantively different from beef ... something that, sadly, doesn't happen enough in this country. Italian-influenced cuisine typically isn't known for its sauces, but they made both my dishes. There were raves around the table for other choices: a barely-solid burrata on slices of fruit, the day's fresh-caught red mullet, that guinea fowl. Generous portions ... including refills on bread and arancini before the main meal ... left us too stuffed for desert.

We adjourned instead to the courtyard around which the square house was built. No doubt a service yard in its original creation, it's now a chic yet country-casual cocktail lounge with a glass roof that slides open on glorious days. Coffee came with little bowls of new season cherries, another nod to Hartnett's constant message that the finest ingredients need little embellishment. 

I was particularly impressed by the local nature of the place. Yes, there were obviously exceptionally well-heeled visitors staying in the hotel rooms. But our friends weren't the only regulars recognised and warmly welcomed by the staff. At a table near us, two such locals had popped in for a drink and a quick snack in the courtyard before heading off somewhere else. It's basically the local pub every foodie dreams of: Michelin-quality food in a laid-back atmosphere with a staff that remembers you and treats you as a beloved guest. It's a shame ... though probably a blessing for our wallets ... that Lime Wood is an hour away from our house. 

I wonder if Angela and Luke could be enticed to acquire one of Sherfield-on-Loddon's charming but deeply average pubs? Perhaps the power of positive thinking can influence them. I'd better get Instagramming.