I’m delighted to see this review as I adore all of his books as they are so well written and they always make me laugh. If young married persons persist in their selfish pursuit of populating the planet, they should be compelled to bear the consequences. I first came across BN as a child in the 50’s whilst leafing through my Mother’s copies of “Woman’s Own”, and noticed his predilections for thatched roofs, cats and flowers. The chapter "Flowers and the Woman" Nichols tells the story of how he gets the idea to recreate a favorite painting of flowers in a Grecian urn (by Joseph Nigg) in real life, and finds that he is missing 3 of the flowers he needs to complete it. I have been under the weather this last week with a vicious chest infection which has kept me by the fire.

Indeed, by the time these words are published, I may already have been discovered floating under a clump of James Brydon nymphaeas, a variety of water-lily which is described in the catalogues as a deep old rose pink that somrtimes seems flushed with crimson. After all, sometimes it’s the first volumes in sets that are hardest to find, because so many people think they are going to read the series but then don’t follow through. What Beverley objected to was the terrible way she tortured her flowers and her total lack of any aesthetic sense. They should be shut behind high walls, clutching the terrible bundles which they have brought into the world, and when they emerge into society, if they insist on bringing these bundles with them, they should see that they are properly cloaked, muted, sealed up and, above all, dry. Most of the book tells the tale of restoring the garden with the help of the wonderful old gardener, Oldfield, who had dedicated all his life to the kitchen garden and greenhouses and grew the most wonderful vegetables.However, his writing is so lovely that it really doesn’t matter if you don’t like gardens – you’re just happy to follow his adventures! My memories of Beverly Nichols are of him appearing on television when I was a child and not understanding a word he was saying because he seem to have a plum in his mouth all the time.

Miss Emily’ keeps popping in and as she was clearly in love with ‘Stebbings’ the previous owner she is horrified at any of the improvements on the house. I have a rather ratty looking copy of A Thatched Roof that I bought for a pittance not too long ago, thinking I would get to it soon. He’ll have to battle against the elements, the locals (Miss Emily and Our Rose), Oldfield and the ghosts of the previous owners, the Stebbings.The most famous is ‘D own the Garden Path‘ followed by the other two in the trilogy: ‘A Thatched Roof‘ and ‘ A Village in a Valley‘. And I was indeed delighted and amused by Nichols from the first page to the last, though I came away with no great fondness for the man himself. My lovely old oak bedroom floors are indeed ski slopes and the beds have to be on blocks to stop people from rolling out of their beds. One of my grandfathers died of a clump of *iris stylosa*; it enticed him from a sick bed on an angry evening in January, luring him through the snow-drifts with its blue and silver flames; he died of double pneumonia a few days later. I have that 1953 edition of Merry Hall too, with the lovely endpapers though my copy looks to have had a hard life along the way.