Carla looks forward to exciting new chapter

CARNIVAL times have come around already for Carla Blake. Carnival Cottage, her home in Conna, east Cork, and its acre of great gardens have been swiftly snapped up by a new owner who will be able to move in for spring bud and flowering time.

The South African-born writer, cook and gardener celebrates an early 80s birthday this week in fine fettle, in good cheer, and with migration on her mind.

Having put her home and acre of award-winning gardens up for sale in the depths of winter — mid-November — they have already found an appreciative buyer.

Carla and her late husband Val created the verdant acre with care and composting: those gardens were opened annually to the public between 1985 and 2002, raising almost €50,000 for charities. The buyer was a previous admiring visitor to those gardens, who could see beyond its winter hibernating state to coming blooms.

Sale contracts were signed this week, and now Carla will have a clear run at her next life chapter: she’s moving to France, to live near her daughter and grand-children who’ve also just relocated, from a period Kerry home to the Champagne region of France.

Carla’s uprooting from her Conna base of 32 years for the big adventure is one she doesn’t seem to bat an eyelid at; she’s learning French and aims to keep in contact with her old home via the internet and RTE’s Morning Ireland.

A few select plant cuttings from Carnival Cottage may even wing their way across the Channel to her new home with her.

Back in the very week in which her house move plans were revealed in these pages, the ever-upbeat Carla won ‘Best Rural Garden’ in the annual Corrin Hill Biodiversity Awards, coming out tops in 21 categories. The judges praised her care of wildlife, from birds and berries to frogs and flowers, and were charmed by colourful scented beds of old roses, sweet pea, phlox, gladioli, fuchsias, lilies, dahlias and, appropriately, French lavender.