Belize: A Great Destination – Explorer's Guide
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Burnished rays give their last hurrah over Dangriga
Find out more about the dizzying diversity of this often overlooked country – at once Caribbean and Central American – in my new guidebook Belize: A Great Destination – part of the Explorer’s Guide series, available for pre-order on Amazon.
Get yourself a copy and get acquainted with little-known Mayan ruins,
unexplored villages, and secluded nature reserves as well as hip hotspots and hotels. Inside, you’ll find the back-story on Belizean history and contemporary culture to get under the skin of this eclectic nation. It’s replete with advice for adventure addicts and inspiration for your own explorations of reefs, cayes, waterfalls, and winding jungle trails. Watch this space for regular tasters – from photography to video clips – and information on my London launch.
The ultimate guidebook to authentic adventures
Hopelessly overgrown topiary presents a challenge for perfectionists. This week’s mission, as garden volunteers at the National Trust’s Chastleton House, was to bring back a bloated, bushy, box hedge to its former state as a strutting peacock. We would have had better luck transforming Mr Blobby into Kate Moss.
Simon turns stylist for the Chastleton peacock
In this case, the only way forward is to exercise your imagination. Think of it as horticulture’s answer to cloud watching, a whimsical art-form eloquently explained by Britain’s eccentric Cloud Appreciation Society. Allow your mind to grant these misshapen forms another life as a bald eagle, a moor hen, or a generous-hipped bumble bee. No wonder Chastleton House’s best garden is always such a talking point.
Don’t forget to stroll along the vegetable patch where foodies visualise summery recipes for succulent cabbage, marrow, brussels sprouts, yellow courgettes and all manner of loveliness springing from the soil. Plump peaches line the lichen-clad walls of the kitchen garden that is fringed by fruit trees bearing apples and plums. Combine that with delicately-scented English roses, and a little birdsong, and your senses have really sampled the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of this potent season. Peruse this selection of photographs to get your creative juices flowing:
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- Climbing roses guard the entrance to Chastleton’s eclectic topiary garden.
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- Courgette flowers, or flor de calabaza, are considered a delicacy in Mexico.
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- Peaches, plums and apples adorn Chastleton House’s mini-orchard
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- Stop by Chastleton House ticket office for your own organic Brassica
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- West Country folk harvest these blushing beauties in mid-September
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- Simon turns stylist for the Chastleton peacock
Take a wander outside these honeyed walls
Chastleton House gardens, near Moreton-in-Marsh, guard atypical topiary, manicured croquet lawns, fragrant fruit trees and a well-tended vegetable patch.
Visitors strolled around its chief botanical attractions – including a lovely show of lavender and scented roses – at the annual NGS open day last Sunday.
Take a peek at some of Chastleton House’s horticultural highlights in the heart of the Cotswolds.
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- Chastleton House works faded grandeur
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- Fowly overgrown
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- Chic chick
I expected to swap catchy prose for cabbage rows when I signed up to volunteer at Chastleton House in March. Instead, I’ve developed an entirely new addiction: sculpting century-old box hedging.
Topiary is tantalising for perfectionists, control freaks, and impatient sorts. Guilty on all counts. What other form of gardening offers instant results and the chance to bend nature to one’s whimsical design in a matter of hours? Me and Buxus sempervirens are becoming bosom buddies.
But staying true to the ethos of this 17th century property, and its sprawling grounds, is the most powerful motivator. Head gardener, Anna Derrett, ensures we grow in the right direction as aspiring National Trust horticulturists.
Cross-checking with the Trust’s photographic archive, an eight-strong group of volunteers is restoring these wildly overgrown hedges to their original form as far as possible. When shrubs have evolved beyond recognition they become new creations, inspired by what they most closely resemble today. Thus a geometric shape is now a squirrel, an erstwhile goblin (now headless) may become an octopus. And this one-time bijou cockerel is now a monstrously fat chick.
Confident croquet players
Croquet players got competitive at Chastleton House – the sport’s apparent Cotswolds birthplace – under the watchful eye of a gaggle of garden-lovers this Sunday (11 July).
National Trust volunteers enjoyed a round of this exquisitely English summer pastime during the annual National Gardens Scheme open day.
Sport historians trace croquet to mediaeval France but National Trust archives suggest the game’s codified rules were devised at this Jacobean merchant’s mansion near Moreton-in-Marsh.
I am taking this opportunity to voice a big “hear, hear” to Laurie Garrett, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, who praised Mexico’s unflinchingly meticulous response to the recent swine flu outbreak.
In an interview with the New York Times she said “the whole world should be saying, ‘Gracias, amigos,’ to the Mexicans for the tremendous sacrifice they have made…[which] may have stopped what otherwise would have been a serious pandemic”. Ms Garrett is author of “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance ” (Penguin, 1995).
Difficult times lie ahead but let’s hope Mexico will ultimately reap rewards for its handling of the crisis in the form of renewed public confidence in its government that should, in turn, encourage tourists to come back.
Guatemalan authorities and diverse representatives of civil society signed a 101-point security pact on 15 April. I commented on the significance of these far-reaching reforms in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.
Today I’m off to Puebla in central Mexico to experience its gastronomic and cultural Baroque Festival (Festival Barroquisimo). More on that later.
It’s been a busy fortnight. On Good Friday (10 April) I was interviewed by Australia’s national ABC radio about my experiences of Mexico’s Easter (Semana Santa) celebrations. I’ll be uploading the media file once I have it.
A few days later Countryman Press commissioned me to write their first Explorer’s Guide to Belize. I’m a big fan of the bijou Central American country so I can’t wait to get to know it in greater depth.
In addition, I’ve been capitalising on my political expertise to provide comment to China’s Xinhua News Agency on landmark security reforms in Guatemala. I’ll post the link as soon as it goes live.
Happy Friday!
Surveying the traffic
Watch my every move. See you there, tweeps!
Welcome to www.katejb.com. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my articles. Watch this space for my forthcoming blog.
See you back here soon,
Kate JB
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