Frogs and Toads by Paul May

On my allotment in Friern Barnet I have an old cast-iron bath. When Friern Hospital closed in 1993 an Italian named Mario laid claim to the bath, and transported it a few hundred metres to the allotment site. The hospital was originally known as Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and at one time had more than 2000 inmates and hundreds of staff.

There are many Italians who have allotment plots near mine. Many of them arrived after WW2 when the British government was recruiting staff for places like Friern Hospital. Others, like Mario, followed family members or friends who were already here. Mario came from Naples in the early 1960s to work on the hospital's farm. Yes, a farm! On its 75 acres the hospital had extensive workshops, kitchens, recreation grounds, a gasworks and a brewery. It had its own water supply, chapel and cemetery, and even its own railway station. Where once there was farmland, now there is a huge retail park stretching down to the North Circular Road. The hospital also had the longest corridor in Britain and quite a few cast-iron baths, one of which ended up on my allotment.

Source: Wellcome Collection

I took on the allotment in 2016. Half of it was then planted with grapevines which I quickly discovered had been planted by Mario. Apparently at one time the whole plot had been covered with vines. Mario had taken cuttings from a vine belonging to a neighbour of his with the intention of using the grapes to make wine, only to discover that these particular grapes were useless for winemaking. At one time he had cultivated three adjacent plots but now he only had the one next to mine, from which he dispensed horticultural advice to anyone who'd listen, and where he kept a vast collection of stuff that he'd salvaged from skips because it might come in handy one day. He had also salvaged the bath, which was now partly a water store and partly a seat. Mario sat down often because he was really very ill, but he continued coming to the allotment, digging and grumbling and dispensing unasked-for advice despite the efforts of his family to stop him. Looking at his plot, which, despite all the junk he'd collected, was very picturesque, a friend said to me that it could have been anywhere in rural Europe. 

Mario

It was to try to preserve something of that atmosphere that I took over Mario's plot, in addition to my own, after he died in 2019. I cleared all the junk and turned the bath into a pond. I'd already moved the bath once, from my plot to Mario's, but now I had it back again. I moved it to a new location and planted yellow flag iris and marsh marigold. I made a mound so that wildlife could get to the water, but recently I decided that it would be better if the bath was sunk into the ground, so I started clearing it out in order to move it. That was when I found the frogs. They keep themselves to themselves, those frogs. I never see them out and about, but there were at least four in the bath. Hopefully they've all survived their move to a new location.

I like to think that the frogs are like Arnold Lobel's famous Frog. I love the Frog and Toad books and I was delighted to discover, in a children's bookshop in Bologna, that they have been translated into Italian. It's very good fun reading a book like this, one that I could almost recite with my eyes closed, in another language. Toad sounds great in Italian: "Questa casa è un distastro. Ho un sacco di lavore di fare." It's almost better than the English.

And there's a great story for gardeners where Toad's seeds don't seem to be growing and he shouts at them so loudly that Frog tells him he's scaring them and he needs to leave them alone. Mario didn't need to be told how to grow things and he would no doubt have offered slightly scornful advice to Toad. Like most of my allotment neighbours who come from Kurdistan and Italy, Macedonia and Albania, for Mario growing his own food was just something you did, not a lifestyle choice. Perhaps that was why Mario was so keen to offer advice to those he thought were bungling part-timers. The trouble was, there was only one proper way to do things, and that was HIS way. He also ordered me not to cut the grassy path where the oregano was growing. He'd brought it all the way from the hills above Naples, but he really didn't need to worry about losing it because it has seeded itself everywhere. I also have a very fine white-flowered variety of oregano that was brought by another elderly Italian, Giacomo, from his home in Sicily. Giacomo has also since died. 

Most of the Italians are now in their 80s. Half a dozen have died in the ten years since I came to the allotments. But for at least two of them their memory is preserved in the plants that they brought with them from their childhood homes, and that are now flourishing in North London. And the memory of London's most famous lunatic asylum is preserved in a pond in a bath. The asylum was once a byword or perhaps a synonym for lunacy, and even gets a mention in a children's book. "Three cheers for the Hempress of Colney 'atch," jeer the Londoners in The Magician's Nephew when Jadis, escaped from Narnia, proclaims herself Empress.

Oregano from Naples

Oregano from Sicily

The bath in its new location

* There is a famous philosophical article inspired by the Frog and Toad story Cookies entitled Frog and Toad Lose Control by Jeanette Kennett and Michael Smith which is only available via subscription to JSTOR, but there are also numerous discussions of the story online, and if you search hard enough you might even be able to find the mentioned article republished somewhere. I know I did manage to read it once.

Fair Isle Filling the Well - Joan Lennon

Like Penny's post a few days ago JULY - and NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE, I too have been filling the well, though I was taken in the opposite direction and as far from the delights of cities as it's easy to get.

Time on Fair Isle has become an essential part of my year. The big skies and the sea that change by the moment, the weather and the birds and the flowers and the people - photos give just the barest flavour of how vivid a place and an experience it is - images and sensations to feed me and my writing until I can return - next year! 

Joan Lennon website

Joan Lennon Instagram

JULY - and NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE by Penny Dolan

There’s little writing angst with this first of July post, as I am still in a ‘What I did in my Holidays’ kind of mood - so do grab a cup of tea or coffee or whatever and read on.

Over the last four weeks, my life has been unusually blissful,  mainly because, for a few days, we met up – yes, person to person, in real life, in one and the same place – with the lovely people in our family and with time to be with each other: to sit, walk, talk, wander about, be with or away from each other when needed, as well as sharing a few meals together, from simple to splendid. Online contact, when you’re miles and oceans apart, can be fine but this patch of time together, feet on the same ground, was so much better.

The imminent sociability, I felt, meant stepping away from the drama-studio-black ‘uniform’ and becoming a different self for a while. I spent money on showy-off clothes, and I enjoyed wearing those showy-off clothes too because they felt totally necessary for an elegant Afternoon Tea and an important gathering or two. Not my usual life at all, but such very lovely fun. What will you wear? A jade green silk kimono decorated with cranes? How wonderful! A pink and orange over-shirt printed with lemons, oranges, a message across the back and large lobster? Yes, please, and with a smile!

Additionally, there was gadding about. I swanned across to the V&A for the Schiaparelli exhibition, in the company of a friend who knew about seams and fit and tailoring. During the pre and post WWII years, Madam Elsa designed stylish clothes that fitted women’s bodies and lives, adding touches of trademark pink and surrealism. However, Daniel Roseberry, Maison Schiaparelli’s present designer, seemed to me to see bodies as structures underpinning his impressively fantastic designs. Though these outfits would create impact at award ceremonies, on red carpet occasions and for the camera’s glass eye, none, for me, had the practical ease of the original designs. Slightly personally, I noticed that, as well as her richly embroidered jackets and shoe-shaped hats, Elsa went in for rather a lot of black in her designs too, as well as that Dali lobster, of course. Not so unfashionable?

Afterwards, out in the central courtyard, visitors sought ice cream and shadows and young children paddled and splashed in the long sunlit pool. What a delight! How empty and unfriendly that area had been when I first visited the V&A, decades before. What a good thing it is that museums and galleries are more welcoming now!

Another day of gadding took me to Tate Britain and the James McNeill Whistler exhibition. I knew little about JMW, other than his painted ‘Mother’, so how and why had that particular artist (1834-1903) become a ‘name’?

Whistler, an American, had an impact beyond his individual works and paintings: using ‘soupy’ paint and a freer style of brushwork, Whistler created an early impressionistic style of painting. Later, his atmospheric nocturnes of the foggy Thames had a role in bringing French artists to his riverside studio and the Chelsea area. Whistler’s argumentative nature led to rows with once-friends and donors - a sound recording and a video are part of the exhibition - and a controversial libel case against the art critic Ruskin, led to Whistler’s eventual bankruptcy. The kind of personality that creates headlines in the art world.

Art did not seem to make him kind. Whistler insisted an eleven-year-old model pose seventy times for a particular portrait. Now, when I see that painting, I wonder how much that poor girl earned - and must find out. As ever, with exhibitions, you go in and learn more, yet come away knowing too little. But I definitely did not want to carry the exhibition catalogue around with me all weekend. I’ll find out more, somehow, once I’m home.


By contrast, Hurvin Anderson’s huge canvases at Tate Britain brought bright sunlight, dark shadow and vibrant Jamaican foliage into the dark gallery space, some views veiled by bead curtains, painted grids or leaf patterns, all contrasting with the muted tones of his domestic and London shop interiors.

A day or two later, I called into Tate Modern to see Tracey Emin’s retrospective ‘A Second Life’ in real, before-me life. Some of her early items, seen before only as reproductions, were revealed as fabric-based. Her huge posters were large blankets, the bold statements spelt out in blocks of stitched-on felt lettering, and the smaller, mostly hand-written notes and statements sewn individually on to the giant collage. Elsewhere, and close-up, I discovered that the loosely-running lines of some large nude studies were created not by pen or paint, but by runs of black thread stitches. I had not linked Emin to ‘embroidery’ before, but there was stitchery there, among all the pain and rage, part of the impact of her work and personality on the 20C art world.

By way of contrast, my last gadding was a long-promised trip into the Kent countryside, to revisit that most beautiful of places, Sissinghurst Castle Garden. With this year’s weather, the roses were no more than crumpled heads of dry petals but the famous White Garden, full of plants and flowers, was at its ‘very best for years’, or so I overheard. We climbed the narrow stairs, up past Vita Sackville-West’s writing room, to the very top of the Tower and looked out. There was the wide and seemingly still tree-covered Kentish Weald, fading, as if in a story, away into the misty blue distance.

Then, of course, I came back north, and home, filled with a good many memories, and a buzz of questions to follow up. All the gadding about was an apt reminder of the need, in ordinary as well as at special times, to make time and space for the work of ‘filling the well.’
Now, if you have got this far, thank you for reading, and here is the explanation of today’s post’s title. 

The JMW show displayed several of sketch books and quantities of small etchings and prints, making it clear that the artist was in the habit of drawing, of making art constantly, wherever he was. Among his writing, is a phrase that the gallery had on display, high across one wall, almost as an introduction to his philosophy:

‘ NO DAY WITHOUT A LINE ’

The quote is an old one, first recorded by Pliny the Elder about a Greek artist, but the words have since been adopted and adapted by other artists, musicians, writers and more.  To me, the quote could easily be ‘no day without a line of words?’ 

Words - but does that mean writing? Or reading, possibly? Or both?

Whichever, whatever, have fun during July. With a bit of gadding about, too?


Penny Dolan

ps. Writing this post, I suddenly remembered A,S. Byatt’s ‘The Children’s Book’, a huge novel loosely inspired by the troubled family lives of Edith Nesbit and others within the Fabian Society, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the early years of the V&A museum. Must search my shelves! (Pub 2009)

Star by Star Keeps Shining -- Sheena Wilkinson

It hasn't been the jolliest of years, publishing-wise. In 2025 I had two books out within three months -- True Friends at Fernside, and Miss McVey Takes Charge, so it's probably natural that this year should be a time of building things up again. I've always wanted to be a writer contracted to publish a book a year -- that would fit my natural book-producing rhythm very nicely, but so far that's eluded me, and my publishing career looks more like this: 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015 (2); 2017 (2); 2020; 2023; 2024; 2025 (2). (I THINK that adds up to 12!) I suppose, written down, it looks regular enough, but every single one of those books represents a one-book deal, so I have always lived with uncertainty. 

From 10 to 57 ... 

This year has been devoted to editing a book I finished more than a year ago -- when I say finished, I don't mean rough first draft; I mean I THOUGHT it was great! My agent disagreed, I realised she was right, and for months I have been making it a very different and much better book. I love the story and the characters and, on a good day, I know it's as strong as anything I've written, and hopefully better. 

it's taking its time to get right ... 

But not all days are good days. And not all good books are published. And not all good published books sell enough to keep publishers happy. Sometimes we need a wee boost. 

Star by Star, 2017 

My boost came last month thanks to my very first publisher. Little Island have published seven of my books, which means over half my output, and this year they have reissued Star by Star (2017) in a gorgeous new cover, with a brand new foreword from me. I was delighted, of course, and imagined the book would just slip out quietly. After all, though it was always far and away my most successful book, it was first published nine years ago. And sometimes even brand new books come out with very little fanfare at all. 

Star by Star, 2026 

But Star by Star's new edition has had a blog tour and been featured in promotions and a radio interview: the attention has given me that little shot of adrenalin that writers -- or this writer at any rate -- need to keep our spirits up. And it reminded me that readers don't really care how old a book is; they want a good story. 

                                                      

I hope, readers and writers, that something happens this month to give YOU that wee boost -- whatever that might look like for you. May your star keep shining brightly too. 

The Polar Bear and the Butterfly

 APOLOGY

I missed my day for the blog yesterday. Completely forgot about, as I'm currently deep in revisions of a new story. So by way of apology, here's a short chapter from that story. I hope to resume normal service next month.

(Syl is escorting five wolves through a strange English landscape and has just struggled across a river with them.)

The Polar Bear and the Butterfly

For a few seconds, nobody moved.

The wolves stared at the polar bear. The polar bear stared back at the wolves. Syl, hardly daring to breathe, watched them both. She cast a quick glance behind her, wondering whether she’d be able to fling herself into the water if the bear attacked.

But the bear didn’t attack.

Instead, it took a cautious step forward and lowered its head to sniff the scent of the wolves. The wolves sniffed back. Dot was the first to move. Ears pricked, she crept towards the bear until their noses were almost touching. The rest of the pack then gathered around her and all four took turns almost touching noses. That done, they sank down on their stomachs and turned their attention to a new arrival.

It was a butterfly, and it fluttered out from the bushes to circle lazily in the air above the polar bear’s head. The bear watched it for a moment or two before, just as lazily, rearing up on its hind legs and raising its two enormous front paws on either side of the insect.

With its right paw, the bear gave the softest of taps… and pushed the insect sideways. Then it gave another gentle tap with its left paw and moved it back the way it had come.

Syl was mesmerised. The bear was playing with the butterfly. Not the way a cat plays with a mouse before eating it, but playing for fun. For pleasure. And the butterfly seemed to be playing too. There couldn’t be any other explanation.

She watched as the two creatures – one giant and heavy, the other as light and insubstantial as a scrap of fine cloth – continued their game. She was so entranced by it all that she never noticed more movement in the bushes behind the bear. And when it spoke, the voice took her completely by surprise.

‘Who are you?’ it demanded. ‘And what are you doing with my wolves?’

Secret Rooms - Sue Purkiss

 The other day I saw a mention somewhere of the Grandmother's secret room, as featured in The Princess and the Goblin, a 19th century children's book by George MacDonald.

It's a strange book in some ways, but I remember being enchanted by it when I read it as a child. It's about a princess, Irene, who lives with her nurse, Lootie, in an isolated castle in the countryside. Nearby under the mountain there are mines, which are worked by local people (including a brave  and enterprising lad called Curdie) and by a race of goblins, who hate humans. Irene does not know about the goblins - and actually, now, it seems rather odd that her father, the King, should have chosen a castle so near them as a home for his daughter. But still, there we are - I suppose kings aren't always sensible. 

Irene climbs the stairs...

One day, Irene decides to explore the castle. At the top of several staircases, she finds a room in which a beautful old lady, also called Irene, sits spinning. The lady tells the princess that she is her several-times-great grandmother. She's a magical lady, who clearly intends to protect Irene from the dangers that surround her. She can only be found if she wants to be. As well as the workroom, she has a bedroom...

What was Irene's surprise to see the loveliest room she had ever seen in her life! It was large and lofty, and dome-shaped. From the centre hung a lamp as round as a ball, shining as if with the brightest moonlight, which made everything visible in the room, though not so clearly that the princess could tell what many of the things were. A large oval bed stood in the middle, with a coverlid of rose colour, and velvet curtains of a lovely pale blue. The walls were also blue - spangled all over with what looked like stars of silver.

The Grandmother. (Both illustrations are Arthur Hughes' original ones.) The Grandmother's appearance changes every time Irene sees her: sometimes she looks old, other times quite young. 

I forgot the details of the rest of the story, but that image of a secret room, which could only be found when its owner wished it, intrigued me and has stayed with me. I dug out the book - falling apart, but with Arthur Hughes' beautiful original illustrations - and as I revisited the Grandmother's secret room, it made me think of another 'secret' and certainly unexpected room, which I saw last year in real life.

I live in Somerset now, but I'm from Derbyshire. Last year I was holidaying with family in the Peak District, and on the way back, my son decided he wanted to show his family the place where my parents had lived - Stanley, between Ilkeston and Derby. 

The house is an end terrace, down a little unadopted road. My guess is that the houses were originally built for miners at the nearby pit, but it is only a guess. Dad bought it in 1968. It was a big thing for him: we had lived in council houses up till then, and I don't think anyone, on either side of the family, had actually owned their own house before. So he was immensely proud of it. It looked out onto fields at the back, Mum made a beautiful little garden, and they were very happy there.

Our old house.

So, there we were, outside the house, me taking a photograph, when the current owner popped his head out of an upstairs window, and, understandable curious, asked if he could help us. I explained, and he invited me in for a look round.

Like Dad over fifty years before, Andy was very proud of what he and his wife had done with the house. Apparently, the people who'd bought it after Dad died in 2004 had let the house and garden go, and it had been in a terrible state when they moved in. So they had completely renovated it - it was amazing to see what they had done: it was lovely. But the very best bit was this.

At the top of the stairs was a door which led, in our day, to a cupboard where Mum and Dad stored suitcases and suchlike. Andy paused. "I think you're going to like this," he said. He opened the door.

And there, instead of a cupboard, was a staircase. And at the top was a light and spacious room. To say I was astonished would be a huge understatement. In our day, there had been an attic, yes, but the only entrance to it was through a small trapdoor. I had never seen inside it, and I'd had no idea that there was all this space up there.

There was something very special about this. Knowing how much the house had meant to Dad, I was delighted to see that it was being loved and cared for and brought back to life by a new generation. And that unexpected room - well, it wasn't the kind of magic of Irene's grandmother's room, but there was nevertheless something quite magical about it: an utterly surprising new space.

Occasionally, I have dreams where the house I'm living in suddenly turns out to have extra rooms or outbuildings that I hadn't noticed before. I suppose it's something to do with finding out new possibilities, unexpected avenues. Secret rooms in literature can be pretty nasty places, where unfortunate victims are imprisoned or whatever. But they don't have to be. Sometimes, they can open up a whole new vista.

 

How to divine your future at Midsummer - by Lu Hersey

In folklore, midsummer is a liminal time, when the veil between worlds thins. Which means it's often when stories of fairy encounters take place, and also traditionally a time when you can divine your future with the help of certain plants. 

Researching midsummer folklore out of interest, I've come across some extraordinary beliefs and superstitions, some of which I'll share with you here in case you feel like trying them out, or (more likely) writing them into something. 

Myrtle

In Household Tales with other Traditional Remains (1895), the writer Sidney Oldall Addy suggests you can use myrtle to determine whether or not to marry someone. Pick a sprig of myrtle on Midsummer's Eve and put it into your prayer book (yes, I know - I don't have one either so borrow one if you have to) on the page with the words of the marriage vows. Close the book and sleep with it under your pillow. If the myrtle has fallen out by morning, you'll marry that person, and if it's still there, you won't. Which all seems a bit risky to me - you'd probably have serious doubts about that person in the first place to try it.

Orpine

Orpine cut on Midsummer's Eve was believed to protect your household from lightning and disease. According to Tournefort's Complete Herbal (1719-1730), your animals won't be troubled by distemper either, as long as the plant remains green. 

For marriage divination, you need two stems cut on Midsummer's Eve. Place the cuttings in clay on a shell, or fix them in a doorway. If overnight they both bend to the right, you will marry in the following year (if to the left, forget it). If they turn to face each other, the marriage will be successful and if away from each other, there will be discord. If either piece withers, that person will soon die. Doesn't bode well, does it? Probably best not to bother. You can always get a divorce if things don't work out.

Roses

For this method of divination, you need some patience. Cut a rosebud on Midsummer's Eve and wrap it carefully in cloth, and put it in a drawer until Christmas. If the rosebud still looks fresh at Christmas, your marriage will go ahead, but if it's gone brown and perished, it won't. 

Can't help wondering how 'fresh' a rose could possibly look after six months in a drawer, but there must be some leeway here. or no one would ever get married...

Rosemary

Again, it's about marriage. I guess it's the time of year. Anyway, if you set a plate of flour under a rosemary bush on Midsummer's Eve, an initial will form of the man or woman you are to marry. Apparently. 

Sage

Pick twelve sage leaves on Midsummer's Eve at midnight, and you will see your future spouse coming up behind you, either in bodily form or a vision. (Don't blame me if this one goes horribly wrong...)

Saint John's Wort

Last but not least, we come to the most potent of all - Saint John's Wort. For this you need to gather the plant ceremoniously before the first dew evaporates on Midsummer's Eve. As this date was taken into the Christian calendar as the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the gatherer should also be fasting. If so, such is the power of the plant, marriage is certain within the year.

Incidentally, if a woman wants to conceive, she needs to go out naked at this time to pick a flower of St John's wort - she should conceive within the year.  

If you've got as far as this and you'd like to know how to become invisible, find treasure or become invincible, I wrote more about midsummer plant magic on my substack - here's a link if you're interested

Meanwhile, happy solstice,

Lu Hersey

https://www.lu-hersey.com/