Monday 15 April 2013

Regency Snippet - Buckingham Palace

This snippet is pre-Regency but I think it deserves a mention.

In May 1762 King George III and Queen Charlotte moved into Buckingham House, which was called Queen's House.

In 1800 Wyatt built a new grand staircase with a central and two branching flights....Although the palace was being gradually adapated for ceremonial use, Queen Charlotte continued to find nostalgic pleasures around her. The royal 'Bookbinders Shop' was there and in the Queen's Garden she had carnation stages, and evergreens as in earlier years. Her elephant and zebra were gone, but the King's flocks and herds remained, and the patoral scene, enlivened in due season by haymaking and harbvesting of crops from plantations of fruit trees, preserved unchallenged the tradition of the Duke of Bucking ham...

Queen Charlotte by Olwen Hedley.

Writing and Gardening


I have been busy with many writerly matters but had set myself a deadline to begin a new novel today - Monday's Child - the sequel to my Regency Novel, Sunday's Child - and kept to it. I've spent so much time thinking about it that the first few pages flowed well.

I didn't have time to write for as long as usual because the gardener who works for me once a fortnight arrived and I needed to give him some instructions etc. We removed my peach tree from a large container and planted it in the the garden. He then laid wee suppressent over an 5 foot by 8 foot vegetable patch bordered by fir trees. The trees drain the soil and nothing flourished in the patch so we put two four by four foot raised beds over the weed suppressant which will filter the water.

After the gardener left I finished cleaning the greenhouse and repotted more of my orchids in a special growing medium.

All in all, a very satisfying morning.