That link doesn't work for me, Tony, and I'm not sure I can explain it. Maybe the image of the pages from the book are on the screen, but the text isn't available to my screen reader. I keep coming back to Woodyoak's comments about the original three metaphors in this post's title. She wrote, "Perhaps what metaphor is useful depends on the stage of the gardens development and the particular objective under consideration as well as the mindset of the gardener at the time." Woodyoak, your garden sounds much further along than my own. Which got me thinking about time. There's been a thread here a while back about how to create the look and feel of age in a garden. In other words, artificial aging. The more recent thread about the beautiful ruins of an old stone barn is the real thing. But, some of the design questions still hinge on how you want to tell the story of those stones or what story you choose to tell. I live on an average street, in an average house, in a town that is so average it came in 2nd in the contest to be the "real" Springfield where the Simpsons live. Glaciers dominated this region for a very long time, and then prairies interspersed with thick bands of forest grew here for tens of thousands of years. For just a couple of handfuls of decades European settlers farmed the surface of this land, while a little later first and second generation immigrants mined it. Most of the homeowners within the city limits are required to purchase insurance for mine subsidence. Not always a comforting thought, as this is the region of the new Madrid fault line, famous for relative inactivity, famous for the strongest earthquake ever recorded in the lower 48 states. That's a story that my father, a geologist, liked to tell to get the hairs on the back of our necks to stand on end. He felt downright cheated when I called him a few years back to tell him I'd experienced a tiny little seismic tremor. An elderly friend told us that one of the largest mine heads was located about a three minute walk from my house. In a slightly different direction I can walk 3 or 4 minutes to where the last corn fields were sold three years ago. Now McMansions have sprouted up on their tiny lots. Amili wrote, "But then perhaps the garden is more often meant to be the setting for a good story, the lush and sensuous backdrop, a catalyst, not the author." Which got me to ask myself, "Why have I been going down this road?" Why try to make a garden tell a story? "To celebrate," writes Nandina. And that's what I would attempt to do in telling stories. Not the stories of western expansion, industrialization, or the blanding of life in suburbia. The stories I play with in my mind's eye are celebrations. They help me to dream my garden more clearly when, as now, it sleeps beneath an ice storm. Wellspring

Just today, with the rain coming down in buckets, the kids in school, and me with the day off, I sat down and watched 84 Charing Cross Road. I've read it many a time but never knew it was made into a movie. It was quite old for a movie, and starred Anthony Hopkins, Dame Judi Dench and Anne Bankcroft as Helene Hanff. I thought it was very well done. And a perfect movie for the weather and my mood. I confess, however, that after watching the movie, I am very much annoyed at my computer. Yes, the internet allows me to sit in my living room and make friends, through RP, with all of you all around the globe. But the magic of a letter! The warmth of the words, the bits of smeared ink, seeing my name on an envelope written by the hand of a friend... what computer can compare with that? Sorry... went completely off topic. But I was excited to share this movie with all of you. PAM

I will go look for it at my library. Sounds intriguing! I read Wolf Hall but I'm waiting on the 2nd book until the 3rd is published - has anyone heard when that will be? I had a little trouble with the style at first, but once I got into it I found it a good read. I do like the Tudor era - bur I am a Richard III fan. ( And Elizabeth I.) It can get hard to find decent books, especially fiction, of a time period as popular as Tudor England. There's a ready market and so some hogwash gets published as well as the good stuff. So many are made up out of whole cloth and I just want to fling them at their writers' heads! Good fiction can still have a grounding in fact. Happily for me, these days more and more folks with degrees in history are writing fiction and mysteries so they are much better and I don't get nearly as as fed up as I used to. There was so much upheaval in the world in those years. Books were more widely available (at least among the middle & upper classes ) and that played a large part, I think. Upheaval and social change are great fodder for books. Karen Harper has a good series featuring Queen Elizabeth, just started re-reading them - mysteries - the first is The Poyson Garden.

I love Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin. Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins. The Future of Us. Also anything by A. S. King. I have a teen, so I've been to teen book fairs and haunted the YA section of the library. DD's favorite was Struts and Frets by John Skovron. I also really enjoyed reading When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, a Newbery winner. That is aimed a little younger, but wonderful, especially if you liked A Wrinkle in Time, my favorite childhood book. One of the best things about having a child is being exposed to literature you wouldn't have known about. This genre is no less profound for being written for a different audience. We each bring our own experiences and understanding to the books. And yes, plllog, I agree - gotta love entire Anne of Green Gables series. DD has middle name spelled with an "e."