Quality time in the garden doesn\u2019t have to be spent gardening, says Nigel Slater. You also need places for food and conversation or just to sit and savour the moment. Illustration: Paul Wearing, Portrait: Jenny Zarins <\/p>
Even the words \u2018al fresco\u2019 have a spring in their step. They sound jolly, even a little frisky. (I confused them with \u2018in flagrante\u2019 for many years.) Now, with sun hopefully beaming and the garden in full summer colour, is the time for some open-air activity, be it lunch in the garden or simply dozing in a deck chair.<\/a> You may also like:<\/strong><\/p> All that changed when I invested in a zinc-topped garden table<\/a> and a set of four heavy wooden chairs, an addition that immediately became the site of early morning pots of coffee, breakfast and lunch. Soon, meetings were held in the garden and within weeks the table was covered in wine stains, olive oil smears and coffee drips. Friends could at last sit and soak up the birdsong and the tapping of the woodpecker and ponder the varieties of butterfly<\/a> that came to visit. Crucially, I had somewhere to sit and work. For about six weeks each summer, I turn my garden table into my desk. Pelargonium<\/em> \u2018Lord Bute\u2019 and Pelargonium<\/em><\/em> \u2018Attar of Roses\u2019 are pushed to one side, their place taken by laptop, pencils and notebook. I write in the shade of a Nottingham medlar, whose canopy keeps the sun from the screen, even sending down\u2028a few late petals to fall gently on my keyboard.<\/p> Making time to sit and simply take in the delights of the garden is a must. Surely it is why I made a garden in the first place?<\/p><\/blockquote> If I am outside, I want to be within touching distance of plants. I may be grazing on a tomato<\/a> and nasturtium-leaf salad or sipping a glass of elderflower cordial<\/a>, but I need to be able to lean over and stroke a leaf, fondle a fern or stick my beak into a rose. Only two feet away from my seat are terracotta pots of yew and ilex through which to run my fingers; a climbing rose \u2013 Peter Beales\u2019 cheeky little Rosa<\/em> Pippin (= \u2018Beajaffa\u2019) \u2013 and the costume-jewellery flowers of what I still call Dicentra<\/em> \u2018Alba\u2019 (correctly, now the ridiculously difficult-to-pronounce Lamprocapnos spectabilis<\/em> \u2018Alba\u2019.) There are foxgloves<\/a> too, but they are not for touching, however tempting it is stick my fingers into their poisonous purple pixie hats.<\/p> If ever I rethink the garden path<\/a>, and I probably should, I\u2028will design it so I can go from kitchen to garden table in bare feet. Coarse, sun-baked gravel does nothing for my tender English soles. Next time it would be slabs of York stone or possibly hoggin. Certainly not the pointed beads of torture I have now.<\/p> A place in which to \u2018be\u2019 as much a place in which to grow and work. What was that about \u2018time to stop and smell the roses\u2019?<\/p><\/blockquote> Eating al fresco is all very well \u2013 I remain convinced that food really does taste better outdoors \u2013 but there are simpler pleasures to be had en plein air<\/em>. The ritual of stopping for coffee mid-morning or for a mug of tea in the afternoon. Short breaks that enrich our gardening days.<\/p> Evening, just as the light starts to drop, is for me the best time to be al fresco. It is then that the light is at its most gentle, the colours deeper (Salvia<\/a><\/em> \u2018Amistad\u2019 is positively delicious at twilight) and the air is particularly calm and still. There is less birdsong than at an outdoor breakfast, of course, but there\u2028are mysterious rustlings in the undergrowth to ignite the imagination. This is also the time to pour a glass of last year\u2019s damson gin<\/a>, a tiny glass to sip as the sun goes down.<\/p> That said, it takes something of an effort for this amateur gardener to just sit and breathe in the garden. Within five minutes of sinking into my chair, I will spot an azalea that needs deadheading<\/a> or a wayward stem that could do with tying up.<\/p> It takes a stronger will than mine to turn the pages of a book knowing the sweet peas need watering. To be honest, I am no better in the kitchen, finding myself unable to enjoy a glass of wine while there\u2019s washing up in the sink.<\/p> This summer I will do better. There will be a glass of ros\u00e9 drunk while the path is still littered with dead petals, and tea will be served (cake too), even though I really should be clearing the leaves from the gutters. Making time to sit and simply take in the delights of the garden, to breath, to smell, to hear, all the little wonders that exist in this space, is a must. Surely it is why I made a garden in the first place? A place in which to \u2018be\u2019 as much a place in which to grow and work. What was that about \u2018time to stop and smell the roses\u2019? Well, perhaps that time is now.<\/p>