A number of years ago I used to paint murals on a regular basis but fashions changed and I moved onto other things. However, the odd project does come up on occasion and I was asked recently to paint a client's dining room and kitchenette. It was rather an unusual shape of house (clearly designed by and for an architect) in a rural setting and my brief was to cover the walls with lots of flowers as though the garden was indoors, and colour was to reign heavily. So while they

As part of a recent visit to Italy, I dropped in to the Villa Gamberaia specifically to see the gardens. The Villa sits near Settignano on a hill with views towards Florence. Originally built in the 1600s, the current villa and gardens were remodelled between 1896-1935. The gardens were mainly designed by Romanian Princess Catherine Jeanne Ghyka and her companion and were quickly seen as being the "classic" Tuscan garden using geometry, pools of water and separating areas to