No such thing as perfect?  Not so.   During the last fortnight I have been gobsmacked by the perfection of the  Eyebright garden.   Gentle nudging in the right direction and the arrival of Spring  created perfection.  For this I can only take some of the credit.  Eyebright’s co-founder, Adrienne Matthews chose all the original plants, and we collaborated on their placement. 

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That was sixteen years ago.  Since then the garden has been a delight for different reasons. The lush lawn, the profusion of grannies bonnets, the roses, the weeping willow, the pond, and the dahlias. 

  

I have been hugely lucky in the way the building shelters the garden from nasty south-westers.  I knew it would help, but never thought it would be as effective as it is.  Solid walls are a bad idea.  Wind curls over top of them and around their edges causing swirling eddies worse than just letting the wind rip.  I believed that back-eddies would be something I would have to live with.   But thankfully no such thing has happened.  The building has performed beautifully as a shelter.  Wind slips over the gentle pitch of the roof, and just enough air slides in under the veranda to cancel out the down-wind low pressure which sucks down air and causes mayhem on the ‘sheltered !!??’ side of solid walls.

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My other unexpected blessing has been Tony Ford.  There are people who make things and then lose interest, and there’s people who maintain things.  I’m the former, while Tony is the latter.  He deserves a lion’s share of the thanks for our happy guinea pigs, sheep, and garden.

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Every morning and evening throughout the winter, Tony transfers all the residents of Wendelton between their cosy night-time accommodation and the village.   He shifts the sheep and makes sure they have water, and throughout the spring, summer and autumn he tends to mowing, edging, and removing spent flower heads, and sneaky weeds. 

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Please come and enjoy the delights of Eyebright.  You’re the reason that we go to the trouble of creating them.