The weather finally improved over the weekend, so I decided it was time for the big spring changeover

I normally do this on the first of April, or the weekend closest to it, but this year’s been so cold and dark, and spring so late, that I left it for the first proper spring day instead. For some reason this year (global warming?), we seemed to switch directly from winter to summer without really going through spring at all, and at the weekend, temperatures rose dramatically.

Changing over your house between winter and summer is a very wabi-sabi thing to do because it acknowledges the turn of the season and reflects the fact that you use your home in different ways in winter than in summer. Making dual use of your space in this way also makes it feel twice the size - like you have your very own holiday home.

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If you want a cleaner, less cluttered, more relaxed environment, wabi-sabi is the way to go

Wabi-sabi arose from Zen Buddhism but it enables you to live a simpler and less-cluttered life whatever your situation or beliefs. Earlier I wrote about the tokonoma, a special alcove or area that you can have in a room as a focal point, but here I’ll deal with surfaces.

In wabi-sabi, it’s very basic: you keep your surfaces clear, and if you can’t, you limit the number of things on them to three. Just follow this ‘rule’ and you’ll find it all comes together easily.

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A few days ago I wrote about wabi-sabi in your home, and since there was such a strong response, I thought I’d elaborate on it a little.

Wabi-sabi, of course, arose in Japan, so to apply it in your home, it helps to know a little about what a traditional Japanese house looks like, though very few Japanese still live in them.

A traditional Japanese house is modular and most of the wall space is taken up either by floor-to-ceiling built-in furniture that stores the family’s clothes, bedding, etc, or by sliding doors. The doors, called fusuma, can be opened up to create one big space, or closed to create smaller spaces.

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I ordered my roses the other day, and it suddenly feels like spring is on its way

They won’t actually arrive for ages, of course. They’re bare-root jobs from David Austin in the UK, and they won’t come until March or April. But in a bitter February, with frost on the ground every morning, a girl can still dream.

When we moved to France, I had no idea what an obsession the garden would become. I would never have thought I’d become a bulb catalogue sort of person, the kind of woman who ordered gardening books on Amazon. I associated that with old ladies in straw hats, but one of the enjoyable things about being in my 40s is that I no longer feel the need to apologise for loving my garden.

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