I spring cleaned the conservatory.

I spring cleaned the conservatory.


It’s an ice box between the autumn and the spring equinoxes, abandoned over the winter save by Nest, the senior cat, on her heat pad. For the rest of us it’s too cold, damp and shadowy. Facing west, it only ever gets the sun in the afternoons  - painfully bright in high summer – but once spring has arrived it’s our favourite spot for tea  or an early evening drink. But to make it habitable once again a seasonal overhaul is required.


The word conservatory suggest some form of semi-outdoor gracious living but ours is very far from that. It was constructed by our predecessor here in 1989 (he left the date inscribed in cement) on the footprint of an old stone shed that abuts one corner of the house. Someone who knew the place long ago told me it was formerly the coalhouse. You can walk right through to the apple trees and the washing line out the back. An immense, and now sadly afflicted, ash tree stands at one end waiting to drop its dying boughs   through the glass roof.


So anyway, I did my usual deep clean. I swept out the leaves, dead flies, dusty cobwebs and Nest’s charnel house of small body parts, chopped off the invasive ivy tendrils I could reach, washed the cushion covers and watered all the plants. Those plants are a saga in themselves. I swear some of them date back to my childhood, others I have inherited or acquired along the way. Few possess much aesthetic charm although I do love the red geraniums that I resuscitate each year and of the several Amaryllis bulbs one at least manages to flower every summer. A gigantic straggling spider plant started life as a tiny sprig acquired on the first visit to my elder son’s nursery class when he wasn’t yet 4. There’s the pot of soil from which I hope the Georgian madder plant will re-emerge. The turmeric roots (already sprouting); the pine tree grown from a seed that fell out of a cone (should I plant it out?), the many tiny and not-so-tiny cacti and succulents that I cannot bear to discard.


Then there are the bowls of pot sherds, pebbles, shells, sea glass, seed heads, tiny skulls, bones and feathers. A whole desiccated gannet (it doesn’t smell I promise). Pottery objets made by our kids 30 years ago. An aluminium teapot with a Bakerlite handle with ‘Milaid Isaf 1948’ scratched by my father under the lid. A Ricard carafe lifted long-ago from some Parisian zinc. That china money pig with broken ears, surely a childhood gift to me?  Baskets of garden tools, sheep shears, fishing floats, pieces of bound-to-be-handy old rope, the barbecue stuff, boules, buckets and spades, fishing nets and those pretty hand-painted candle jars from younger son’s wedding party.


The conservatory is back in use again now and for the rest of the summer we shall enjoy its decrepit charm. Although if I’m honest not everyone is as fond of the dried gannet as I am.


NB not all the items mentioned are pictured so don't bother to go looking for them!