Wrapper's Delight

This is our third selection of recycled gift-wrap. I can’t say we’d been especially eager to make any more in the intervening years, but eventually you idly imagine, ‘that might make a nice pattern,’ enough times that another batch is ready-to-roll.

I'm so pleased we did.

You can see those old, discontinued styles from 2006 and 2008 on our scrappy archive page. If you can spookily guess what book is gift wrapped for these pictures, I'll send you a set of the new stuff. Good luck!

From top: Madras / A2B / Stars / Jungle / Forest / Fruit'n'Veg

Things I probably should have left at the charity shop/car boot sale/house clearance

#1. The Silk 'Statement' Jacket

Not long after we arrived in this place I noticed these impressive plants growing wild on the scrappy bit of land we use for parking. When they went to seed I sowed some in the garden.

Thing is, last year they grew healthy but dense and close to the ground, now they're 7 feet tall! Turns out that this Verbascum is a biannual; next year there'll be nothing.

Stored well enough, half of this year's seeds should still be good for 2014. Green fingers crossed, we'll eventually have tall AND short plants simultaneously.

Tessa Hadley is a clever girl for writing the first full novel I've read since motherhood came knocking (really hard on my front door).

After The Master Bedroom and The London Train, this is my third from her these past few years.

Don't ask me what any of them are about though, the artistry's in the telling, not the tale.