Dreamy, creamy desserts

Ornamentals

Plant lilies in well-drained soil. Lilium regale and Lilium candidum are the easiest to grow being the most lime-tolerant. Other lilies will benefit from leaf mould being added to the soil to maintain the acidity they like.

Plant narcissi (daffodils and their ilk) with haste.

Trim and take cuttings of pelargoniums, geraniums, marguerite daisies and perennial wallflowers.

Dead-head perennials to give them – and the garden – a new lease of life, or at the least a little perk up for its last hoorah before winter. Feed perennials once flowering is over.

Fungal diseases such as powdery mildew thrive in times of cool nights and warm days. Watering the soil, not foliage, will help prevent it, as will not having plenty of air circulating around plants. In most gardens, this may mean not having plants crowded together. Should it affect a plant, remove it (or all the affected material) and destroy.

Lawns

Prepare lawns for sowing or repair by removing perennial weeds, dig over soil incorporating well-rotted manure or compost, then leave to settle for up to six weeks.

Before sowing, remove any new weeds, tread up and down and across to pack down the soil, then rake across and up and down.

meals, the wine, the beautiful palaces and homes he visits are nothing to him.

Perhaps it is Brodie’s restraint as a character that makes him a little dull, perhaps it’s the pedestrian way his sex scenes are described, perhaps it’s his irrational passion for Lika, but it’s tempting to want to give him a good shake-up now and then and tell him to get a life.

When Lika shows Brodie a pistol early on, it’s clearly a harbinger, and sure enough he manages to put it to good use. The ensuing pursuit of the two lovers from tsarist Russia to the south of France, to Paris, Edinburgh and