Goodbye to our lovely garden

The last straw was when some kind person decided to walk on our car roof, parked outside our house in Bray. We had put up with random midnight doorbell ringing, punctured tyres and scratched paintwork but this final act of vandalism galvanised us into thinking that a move to the country might be a good idea. Although Charles had grown up in Bray and was fond of it, I had spent most of my childhood in the peaceful environment of rural Cambridgeshire.

So we went online and found a show house in Moone, Co Kildare. We did a virtual tour and were captivated, hurrying out to view it the following day. The reality was even more stunning. Solid oak floors and doors gave it a sort of honeyed glow in the sunshine, pouring in from the large windows and through the Velux over the stairs and landing. The proportions were generous, and we loved the high ceilings, substantial cornices and skirting boards. The Charles Rennie Macintosh-inspired design was apparent in a lot of the fine details and gave the house a very different feel from our previous Victorian home in Bray.

We turned to each other, grinning with pleasure. This was just the sort of place we knew we wanted as our new home. The estate agent looked slightly surprised when we announced that we wanted one, please.

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Nicola Lindsay in the porch of her home at Moone, Co Kildare

It was exciting, seeing our own new home being built and we visited as often as we could, ploughing through the mud and trying to imagine what we could do with the half acre of garden that looked as though the rampaging Vikings had just left. Six months later, we moved in.

One of the many things that delight us about this home of ours is the way our traditional furniture fits into a very modern house. The hunting table in the dining room looks perfect, as does my mother's dressing table in the alcove in our bedroom. The dining room came into its own when, after winning a prize on the then Marian Finucane morning programme on RTÉ radio, for writing a short piece about a "nightmare meal" I'd experienced, Nevin Maguire and staff came to cook and serve an amazing meal for eight of us.

Attired in our finery – black tie and long evening dresses – we experienced what really good food tastes like and not the simple fare that I usually serve.

Although I adore this bright, spacious home of ours, my heart lies in the garden. It was a bit of a struggle to start with, as the builder had left behind such a mess, but, with huge input from Charles, I think we have created a beautiful refuge from the world. I have tried to make “garden rooms” with lots of gently curving beds so that you get a feeling of privacy in the different areas of the garden. In the French fashion, I grow herbs, strawberries and courgettes and rhubarb among roses, trees and flowering shrubs. Three years ago, after emerging from chemotherapy, my husband gave me the gift of a Victorian greenhouse. It has everything I need to encourage me to grow beautiful and slightly tender plants. A friend and I regularly avail of its elegant space and drink coffee there, soaking up the Mediterranean heat and breathing in the scented lilies.

Making friends Thinking of friendships, that's one of the nice things about moving to a new place – the making of new friendships – and we have made several over the 15 years we have lived in Moone. I just hope that, when we move, we will be able to find new people who aren't alarmed by the fact that we are both somewhat mad and tend to have a different take on life from the average member of the human race.

Although I enjoyed the peace and quiet here after the sirens and alarms of Bray, we both feel we'd like to be a little closer to our expanding family. I have a study and home studio for my writing and voice-over work but my work does sometimes mean that I have to travel into Dublin and, at my stage of life, being closer to town would be a bonus these days. This is especially true when filming starts at such an ungodly hour. After several years modelling – not haute couture, as I was never tall or elegant enough for that sort of thing – I have had great fun acting in various films, a brief spell on Fair City and also being involved in a lot of TV ads.

One of my daughters is an assistant director and I love hearing about the various calamities involved in filming and the gossip about which actor is okay and which is a royal pain in the neck.

A few years after we arrived, Charles decided that a fish pond would enhance things. So he excavated a very large crater, lined it carefully and then cut dozens of pieces of limestone as a surround. We read up on oxygenating plants, planted water lilies and bought half a dozen fish. The fish multiplied at an alarming rate, growing larger and more splendid as the years passed.

And then the heron arrived. So we bought a decoy heron. The visiting heron took one look and landed right beside the imposter. Every morning the surface of the pond glinted with fragments of fish scales. Then, for some reason, the heron stopped coming and the fish continued to multiply. Now, the pond is teeming and I’m rather wishing the blighter would return for the odd feast.

Charles retired a couple of months ago after 30-odd years in the medical devices industry. He has patented several products of his own, some of which are in production in the Far East, and he loves to disappear down to his hidden workshop at the bottom of the garden to work on further ideas. So any new home will have to include a place for his inventing activities.

Secret garden

Over the years we have been here, we have constantly tried to improve the garden and one of the most successful things we have done was to put a full-length mirror in an archway on one the perimeter fences. It is at an angle and reflects part of the real garden so that you see another secret garden beyond. People are always taken in by this and comment on what a vast area we have to look after, only to find themselves walking towards their image as they investigate.

Now, with grandchildren, we have decided to move on to pastures new. We will miss our house and garden but we know wherever we end up, we will enjoy the chance of making a new garden.

At my age, I rather fancy the somewhat obvious idea of a pretty cottage with a rose-covered porch and with a contented Charles ensconced in the garden shed. Sometime in the near future we will move on. We will have a stack of happy memories of our home and garden here in Kildare but it is always exciting to face a new challenge.

See nicolalindsay.ie; kildarehome.ie