A walk in Chicksands Woods

What was to be a weekend to ourselves to chill out and put ourselves together after a few weeks of hard graft and toil, was spoiled really because we were living with the aftermath of an arrogant, badly behaved pompous teenager who I do love, but is not mine –  and hence the difficulties. I do know that if he had been mine, he’d have been sorted out years ago, as it is, I get to reap what was never sown, and it’s hard bloody work the sort of which I am well weary…

In spite of all, and suffering under a huge desire to just retreat and sleep the stress and misery of it all away, Boysie said, “No, come on, get your camera, it’s a fantastic Autumnal day and the sun is bright, it will do us good to stomp about in the woods and breathe some fresh air…!

And for once I was biddable and did as I was told.

It’s a lovely wood, varied and lush and green, and Autumn had just come calling. He held my hand and we walked not saying much, just looking about and drinking the freshness, the green, the Englishness of it all. It was very beautiful and the tension slowly dissipated, the scent of outside taking away the particular stink of misery that percolates when things aren’t right with your family and you don’t know how to fix it. If you can’t go back to the words that were said and the feelings evoked, there is no place to go with an adult…And it seems I must not look at the words…Trouble is as I write words well like tears and there is still rawness and uncertainty and how can I work? Oh bring me a vat of wine! No, only coffee will be consumed, and I will dwell in the pictures of yesterday…

 

   

Here are jewelled branches, waxy hawthorn berries the country lore of my childhood reminding me of a hard Winter to come as the hips and the haws are abundant and bright before the end of September. Why? Because the birdies will need ‘em of course!

 

 

A third image of the same thing is not boring surely? I like this one because of the movement in it, the rush, the flicker of the green and the way the strong sunlight turns it to blue. I was reading something about pictures this week and it said that “photography” means “writing with light” And of course, light can only be seen with its old friend dark, and so the two together makes pictures. It is the light that defines the beauty for us in our eyes. Enough of that philosophical Malarkey, as a) I’m not good at it, being of a simple nature, and b) you might wander off for some evil snack until I get over it…

Oak leaves all lit up in a glade…green and gold the brown earth is showing through the season is changing…I am reminded of mortality.

 

Looking out…the view is quite tame but eloquently framed by the dark of the trees, lightness and space opening out beyond. It’s a view from the inside unreal, looking out to the normal world…

Here is a bit of wood that looks ancient and part of an old legend:- it looks like a world in itself, but it’s only a tree stump really, a nice place to sit and have a think…

 

                        

 

This one is worth clicking on. You can see the way the green, goes to gold, goes to brown and crisper with each subtle change and losing coherence the older it gets. Where once it was supple and firm and full of juice it goes dappled and quirky and finally, it dessicates and is a mockery of its younger self a cruel allusion. People, leaves, all tending to chaos and death.

Christ! Cheerful little bleeder aren’t I?!

Ah well, time methinks for some sundappled views, light spilling through the trees…

 

 

I love the way the foliage hangs in festoons like lace high from the branches of the trees, the blue in the ferns on the forest floor, the light that spills and splashes things giving them energy and life.

 

 

  I like these two because they look like bones, weird life of sorts, odd.

In a moment of absent-mindedness, I gave the boy the camera because it wasn’t behaving properly, and it just goes to show that they’re simply not to be trusted, ever, not even for one minute…He said to me, “Oh look up there at that lovely jay in the tree” and when I did, ever- trusting of course, he took a very sneaky shot and here it is…

And then he bet me £10.00 that I wouldn’t dare put it on my blog, well here it is and what’s worse, he’s emailed it to himself at work and says that he’s using it as a screen saver on his pc! Hell’s Teeth, I’ll never be able to look those lads in the eye again! Oh well, it’s done and so what…

Queer sort of blog, this one. Marge x

Journeys

The sun shone and a bluster to the air: first light whispered of Winter to come –  that Summer was dying in the arms of Autumn…I woke early, was the day to take Josh to university. I wanted to make sandwiches for when we got there, leave the worktops clean and decent, the daft comfort things of a woman going on a journey. Not many miles but a big journey..

I had packed him a little box with a few cooking things in, and a folder of recipes from the BBC Good Food website – stuff we’d cooked and enjoyed together round our table…maybe it would be a few weeks before he does any real cooking, but it will keep. And a letter. A love letter to my boy tucked in the file for when we had all gone and he would face just himself, and strangeness.

Boysie drove us heavy- hearted – to pick Josh up from Brookfield; his own puddle of anxiety was he hadn’t seen Cris since I left Brookfield three years ago. I told him it would be all right, it would be fine, but he was sombre and miserable. When we got there an atmosphere hung heavy like tired cotton and unshed tears, and everyone trying to make light of it, Jamie and Sophie, me and Cris, and Josh tall, and between places… I missed seeing Miss Chat, I thought she was going to make it. At the door, Jamie said, “After you,” but I said “No, I want to kiss your Dad…”

Josh my lovely boy was choked, came out to the car with his brother whilst we heaved his things into the back of the car, then back indoors to hug his Dad privately. They came out together, and Cris was leaning heavily on his crutch; we’re all older and Josh the last one; the knowledge there will be no more for me is  heavy…

Better on the road, the sunlight streaming in, the strangeness of some of us going and some staying, and nothing being the same again once we’ve dispersed, all into new and separate realities…I think how random life is, and disaster, and how frail the threads of love which hold people together and how it can’t fight elements or wars or accidents. Fearful thoughts…

But the road has its own comfort of sameness, normality, a nameless reality as the grey road unspools and Josh asking did we mind if he listened to some music on his I-phone…I was grateful for the tinny sound spilling into the car, for the ordinariness of it.

Josh had got the Google route and it took about two hours, not bad, not as bad as I’d thought driving through Central London either. I wouldn’t have like to drive it by myself, though that’s the navigating rather than managing the car…

The time in the car was like a little capsule, a bubble; we got there soon enough. A lovely man on the gate welcomed us and told us exactly where to go, and we parked up, and were met by a sweep of bubbly happy young kids, welcoming Josh like an old friend and getting him to fill in forms. My heart lurched when I saw “Next of Kin” and his hand shook a little. Shall I fill it in for you Josh? No I’m all right. The lad behind the table laughed and said “Well, my Mum had to fill mine in for me!” And he asked if I was all right…They all seemed so sensitive, knowing that it’s a big deal to hand over your boy to a new life and so on, and there was sympathy and caring. And lots of smiles.

We got the key to his room and two runs up the stairs brought all his bits and bobs. I curbed my instinct to make his bed and unpack and ferret about – he would be glad enough of practical tasks when we were gone.

Well here is the boy, a clean room not much bigger than a cell but light and warm, good window and a wash hand basin and good cupboards…I will like to know where he is, to have a visual idea of where to place him, see his little nest. I hope he will keep it cleaner and tidier than his room at home, that’s another matter, not to be gone into here!

We brewed coffee from my hot big flask of boiling water and steadied ourselves with some nice sandwiches, and felt fortified enough to venture forth and with the kind directions of a member of the grounds staff, found our way to a massive Asda, where I bought Josh a kettle, and some simple food for the coming week. A big supermarket is so much the same wherever it is, alcohol was purchased…a neon home from home.

On the way back to uni Josh pointed his I-Phone down through the floor of the car and I was reminded of those Magic Eye pictures as after a minute or two all the underground stations in the vicinity appeared. That little bit of kit is such a bonus, he can find where he is, what’s near, any information he needs he can find, and he can email, speak, text, from that little thing in his pocket. I remember when I was at uni with hardly any money or resources –  just naivety and hope really, and the joy of a letter from the hand of my mother…I loved the heft of the written word then, one hand to another, physicality…But I love too that now I can click off a dozen photographs and they be printed or on my screen in so short a time. Here are some I took at Roehampton…

And here’s where I left my boy, outdoors by a little lake with ducks on, in the cooling Autumn air and every step away from him a pain I have never felt before, it’s irrational, crazy, this boy has earned and saved £10,000.00 this last year, he is good and strong, he can take care of himself, he will be all right…maybe I will…

As London receded I had to fight back the urge to go back, hug him one last time, smell his lovely skin, bring him back home in the car, but that’s silly, I know it, but I wrested with irrationality. In terms of the World he’s only Up The Road…but I miss him already.

 

Last Word: this mother needs a makeover and will be reinventing herself after the weekend’s willow weaving workshop with darling Dymph in Oxford…hair colour and dieting will feature, and a Reading List compiled, all sorts of stuff – why wait for New Year when there’s a camera to provide a kick up the arse?!

Over and out love Marge xxx

The Good Earth

 

Oh but I’m feeling tired and my bones ache, I should hie me to the quack’s ‘cos that’s not right is it? Things usually pass though…

The garden is like someone who’s two week’s overdue for a good haircut – tending to chaos! The abundance is spilling and rolling and romping, like the guest butternut squash who’s shown up in the vegetable plot and is rampaging over everything without a singular piece of orange currency called rent, or any thought for his smaller neighbours who might like a bit of light themselves, thank you very much…Impolite, I call it.

 

Lots of rain means lots of green, and we have an abundance of courgettes and runner beans, and the French beans are coming along nicely, the tomatoes ripening. Many have split –  I guess too much water, too quick makes them burst…oh well if I pick them as soon as I see them split, they go well with a knob of butter in a pan, hiss hiss, time to join the egg and bacon my wee friends!
I should have been doing mail order but I got the camera charged up and took a few shots. I picked a basket of runner beans and sat in the dining room, colander on a chair in front of me and enjoyed the methodical job of preparing them…I need a small, really sharp knife and I cut the ribbon of string up one side, and down the other. One pile made for the compost heap, then the bean sliced how my mother showed me, long and fine and on the diagonal, as the thin green scent of the cut bean jets out…lovely. I love the brightness of the lush green when the beans are washed, and the pretty pink and purpley shades of the bean seeds tucked within… Beans have to be prepared just right! I don’t get tired of growing them, I love picking them and preparing them, and steamed for seven minutes, I like eating them, they are perfection. To think the Victorians grew them only for the flowers, and didn’t bother with the bean. What an odd thought.

I have  a couple of varieties, planted about a month apart so hopefully we shall be harvesting them continuously to fairly late in the year. I am determined to find a way to freeze them which will guarantee a fine big dishful to serve my family with Christmas dinner. My first and last attempt at freezing them was a miserable failure though I followed the directions to the letter in my old bible, the Readers Digest cookery year book. They were grey and soggy and nasty, so I must do some research. I’m also going to try to put a ribbon round a few big beans to remind me not to pick them, then I can dry them and get the seeds for free next year! Oh very foxy and good. I’m going to have me a sweet corn for lunch, they are looking huge and ready to snaffle. There’s a satisfaction in keeping all the peel and parings and putting it in the compost bins that Boysie built; from the earth, and back to the earth. The cycle of it all is great. The flowers and eggs are all so much part of the bounty…

  

These pictures I took on the decking, between flurries of rain…

 

I’m hoping to design some fabric using these floral images, so pretty, both line and colour…happy somehow.

Good old Josh is raising his glass to harvest, and Uni at the end of the week! He will be honing up his knife skills tonight and making us a fine Basque chicken, and another recipe added to his file. I’ll see if I can get some pictures…

Carbooty!

OH rats, I found this draft lurking about which I thought I’d posted, and now my life’s all upside down god dammit! Here it is anyway…

Carrying on the story of our weekend sortie to Oxford, I have to confess the joy of the Treasure Hunt! Oh yes, just a short walk from Dymphna’s is the lovely church hall, and the field beyond plays host to a car-boot sale every other weekend throughout the Summer. Knowing my quest for lovely old tablecloths, and other embroidered odds and ends, not to mention soft cotton shirts etc, we timed our weekend with Dymphna just right…

Not enough that it’s my job and my passion to have a fabric shop, ordinary fat quarters aren’t good enough for me, oh no, I like Old Stuff, the vintage, the recycled –  patchwork back to its roots. We’d visited the charity shops of Summertown the day before, but the average price of a second hand shirt is about £5.00. It would have to be something very special for me to pay that much. But at the car boot sale I got a whole flurry of big, pure cotton beauties – and they were only fifty pence each. Now I have to say Dymphna was impeccably behaved at the bootsale, and showed truly fine, most honourable behaviour round the stalls; me being the guest I was to have first pick, and there was no snaffling of shirts or galloping ahead, I was totally spoiled and deferred to! Lovely woman!

I love to get the cottons home, straight into the washing machine and out they come all fragrant and mine, not smelling of some other lady’s laundry! Oh they weren’t dirty at all, and they were all beautifully ironed, but somehow I just have to wash them first. Trivial though it is, an odd thing that makes me pretty happy is pegging out clean and fragrant fresh washing on the line, and watching it blow on a hot day…the sun making the colours transparent against a blue sky, the wind swelling them and making them balloon out and flick back and forth.

I was inspired by Dymphna’s quilt, which in turn was inspired by one of mine, both based round a central panel made from a vintage embroidered tablecloth. I didn’t find a tablecloth this time, but the set of shirts I bought were all gorgeous tones of raspberry pink, palest turquoise, lemon and rose pink…and they’re all tucked up in this box!I’ll open it for you!

 

 

 

I love to throw in some new fabrics among the softer older stuff, the colours bring it all to life, and here you can see the tiny embroidered corner of a linen napkin, tucked next to a piece of Liberty and some cut shirt pieces. Seasoned with some sprinklers…

 

I might make a beautiful needle case from the embroidered piece, and maybe a pincushion and lavender sachets to match using the lovely fabrics that pick up the colours so well…I need to source some really pretty vibrant coloured and preferably hand-dyed felt for this idea.

 

 

 

Additional loot that set the tone was my first purchase of the day, a lovely old china bowl, sort of duck egg with roses, and worn gold band round the rim. I loved this for the colours and the pattern, and also the uneveness of the rim; it sort of undulates a bit. I was so pleased with it and it cost £1.00. I like my china at home to be mismatched and various, as good old Gerard Manley Hopkins said, “Glory be to God for dappled things…” The long narrow sandwich tray I admit is a bit naff but yet I love it, the texture, the naivety, its fifty penceness…

 

  

I got some pretty children’s things too, just for the colours and little bits of embroidered detail; I might use them to make inspiration for boxed fabric collections for the NEC which is coming, some are for Erica’s little lovelies, twinnies Harry and Katie, who I will be seeing next week…

Today as my students pottered and chatted, I sat with a rotary cutter and board, some scissors and a seam ripper, and I took the shirts apart, making stacks; big pieces, medium sized pieces, and little bits, and I also stored up a wee dish of buttons, what’s the point of throwing them away? None at all, they don’t take up much room. I ironed as I went along, so the fabric looks really beguiling and says, “Sew, me, aw sew me do,” but I am a strong woman and I got on with my Bonnie Blue quilt.…I will finished piecing it, and added two narrow borders…but…these pastels I think I must lay away until after the show. Ruth said so. But they look adorable with some of the new Liberty quarters laid alongside them, so complimentary. What about a triangle quilt in these fresh Summery colours? We will see.

The End:-

Fortified by an excellent bacon butty, we made the rounds and made our way home as the soft Summer rain began to fall, my plastic bag cutting into my palm through the sheer weight of the goodies. But the thrill of the hunt is the thing, the search, the triumph of cotton over polycotton. Great fun. And My fine friend gave me a pink and white soft cotton sheet, a cheery checked pattern, a little bit of encouragement with the recycled fabrics as it would make a perfect backing for a quilt made from my Booty

The Festival of Quilts…

 

Mmmm… small title –  lot of work!

So the countdown is beginning, I have got just less than one week to finalise the preparation for the biggest quilting event in the UK,, and to say I’m a tad ragged is no exaggeration! I am absolutely grateful to Ruth, Sarah and Jane and lil’ Miss Chat of course, for helping me with good willing hands, telepathy and great humour. Without them I simply couldn’t have done it or had any quality of life! And when it’s over, and Securicor has banked all my bounty (!) we will have a fine Scrap Day. No, we don’t get together for fisticuffs and bickering –  Marge will put on a good spread and pull out the Big Scrap Box, and they will be let loose with their sewing machines for the whole day. I will be the tea/coffee Meister, and they will be waited on and deferred to and made much of as they deserve, and I shall photograph them in their merriment…

It’s strange to think that a week yesterday, about now, the show will be opening and thousand of fabric-starved women with thoughts like “Sod the housekeeping” will be plundering my stand. D15 by the way, please come and say hello. And plunder!

Yesterday Anne and Jane cut the kits for this quilt which you have seen part made already; I’ve called it “Americana” because of its folksy colours, and here she is laid out in the garden, on my favourite old wooden chair that I had even before my children.. The day was dull yesterday when I took the photographs, and threatening to

rain, so I had to dart in quick in between clouds and fierce gusts of wind..I think quilts are difficult to photograph well because they are big and flat, you want to show the pattern, the colour and the texture, but flat shots are boring; since I’ve vowed never to blog in the bedroom, it’s hard to get a decent flat shot anyway. Outside it’s hard to control the  elements. How lovely it would be to work in a studio with proper lights, equipment, and the right Know-how.

 

Here are a couple more shots of the same…

 

 

 

 

 

Red is often a hard colour to photograph, and to colour balance. This is a really cosy quilt, which Janie quilted for me and she used a beautiful, lofty, warm wool wadding; perfect for my Josh to take off to university with him.come the Autumn. After a very well-used gap year, he is going to Roehampton to study English and film. I think a quilt is a loving and tactile reminder of home and Mum, and I want to make a nice label for the back. In the meantime, much of yesterday was taken with the cutting, folding and designing of packs and labels to kit the quilt for the show. So it’s mine to borrow for only a short time…

 

Well I thought you might like to see my beautiful boy; apart from love and maternal pride which are more than I could ever know, what really blows me away is that the little tyke has worked like mad for most of his gap year, and has saved £10 00.00! I think that’s astonishing in anyone, never mind a nineteen year old. He has worked a day job with a company that helps people manage their debts, saved all his wages from that, and worked pub shifts most weekends to get what he calls his “Wallet Money”, ie what he allows himself to spend. And he’s had some fun out of the year too, he went to Glastonbury, going to the Reading festival, and had a fortnight in Spain with a crowd of good friends. When they grow up and step off into the world of work, study, separation, there’s a feeling of achievement when they can do it with a big grin, and still want to come and eat and be part of home as well. Don’t mean this to be boastful, just telling you why I’m happy…

 

Now there are two more quilts for this blog, my Provencal Rooster, which is about a square metre, and the other a tiny little wall-hanging made from essentially the leftover bits and bobs from the first one. I seem to be having a bit of a red and blue situation going on this Summer don’t I?

  The applique is done with Bondaweb, the piecing is all done by machine, and the heavy echo quilting is all done by hand. Today’s main job after my class this morning is to cut the kits for these two quilts, finalise the patterns, which Ruth writes in Corel Draw, and I’ll be feeding the troops poached eggs on toast for lunch…And on a mundane level, I have to go to Tesco to pick some of their free sturdy vegetable boxes – well it’s good to recycle! I find them perfect for transporting stock in the van. They are stable because they interlock, and strong, and big enough to carry a manageable amount of weight – fabric packs and kits are very heave.

Hell’s teeth, I went to start a new blog and bless me if this one wasn’t still in the pipe! Well I’ll upload even though it’s history, it’s all history in a little while…

The Festival of Quilts

Jeez, but The Festival of Quilts is nearly upon us, and I am not nearly ready! But I have been working on a few samples over the weekend and very pleased I am with them too! Smug bug, that’s me…

I’ve finished a re-working of my little Cupcakes quilt, a tiny wall hanging displayed on a hand painted wooden spoon…

 

I’ve sold a lot of kits for this wee hanging, but I wanted to do a bit of a redraw, because I thought that some of the shapes could be improved. Then of course I had to make it up again, in colours/fabrics that were similar to the original version, but which I could kit. The real fun bit is the painting of the wooden spoons – not to mention the buying of the wooden spoons – the checkout girls in Tesco’s just don’t get it… Each spoon is given one coat, and then left to dry. Then I sand it, dust it off and give it a second coat. It’s tricky because it’s hard to hold a spoon and paint it at the same time, so I paint half, let it dry, paint the other half, blah blah, did I say fun? Well I lied then. I don’t like getting paint on my paws! But the result is worth it, when the kit is all packed, with the spoon poking out of the top, and a pink gingham ribbon bow and a pretty label, it looks very chirpy. I put a couple of buttons in each kit: I think what I love is choosing all the different elements and putting them all together.

 

 Two New Ideas this week:-

Monsieur Rooster

Here he is, isn’t he rather splendid? I made a smaller version of this rooster, years ago, and recently thought it was time he announced the light of day again with new feathers… So I’ve dressed him up in lovely rich Provencal colours, and set him into a brand new quilt…I cut the whole thing with fat eighths – everything I make, I tend to think of in terms of how can I kit it easily/make it count for Sunflower fabrics somehow… I don’t think it hampers my creativity too much, except sometimes I want to work with vintage fabrics, which are not so easy to produce commercially.

Not to worry. I’m happy enough for the most part…When I’d pieced the whole quilt, I had enough leftovers to make this second little darling – well I like it anyway – just got to put the binding on, that’s tomorrow morning’s job, or one of ‘em…

It’s the evening as I write this. The quilting is finished and the little quilt is trimmed; tomorrow I bind him. But today was a lovely day because Miss Chat came – that’s my girlie Sarah, and Jane, funny old chum, and Roobie, and bless them, they all cut and folded and uploaded and did all that worky stuff so I could sit and quilt my samples for the NEC. I am a lucky bunny, and tired now. Funny I feel more physically achy and done in from a day’s hard sewing than ever a day at the allotment…and it’s somehow not as relaxing either. Maybe it’s because it’s exacting, precision, whereas the earth stuff is more forgiving. Though  a howl goes up if I inadvertently step on one of Chris’s onions, no forgiving that to be sure! The background is Prairie cloth, from Moda, it’s got a lovely folksy rustic feel. Funny how one coloured piece of Prairie cloth can be so different to handle from another. I finished hand quilting the little piece shown here, and started quilting the Rooster piece today; the rust colour background was physically much harder to work than the sort if khaki green/ piece…

So in a bit I’ll put the binding on the small piece, and lots of echo quilting on Monsieur Rooster…

 

 

  Picked up the draft of this blog the next day; it’s a dull metallic looking sky today and I feel quite disgruntled because I can’t seem to take a decent photograph of this work, and I’m so pleased with it I want to. Oh well, never mind, I’m taking a few snaps not running the country! I should, as Miss Chat would say, strap a pair on!

And she don’t mean sunglasses! Well, I’m going to quit now for some breakfast, girlies here soon for Friday class, and off to London after lunch to the Bolshoi with Boysie to watch Don Quixote, dinner at the cafe des amis…what joy!

Grey’s Court

The best decision I’ve made today, is to join the National Trust – after the NEC though – when I will be far more solvent than I am at the minute! After our fine gallop round the car-boot sale, we sallied forth to Grey’s Court, about forty minutes from Dymphna’s, in separate cars, as it was on our way home to Bedford. The Tudor country house is nestled in an intimate series of gardens at the Southern edge of the Chilterns, in a little village called Rotherfield Greys, near Henley-on Thames…

The name comes from an old connection to the Grey family, and the estate/manor it belongs to, is specifically mentioned in the Domesday book.

I didn’t take nearly enough pictures, but if you click on the link below, it will take you to a website full of beautiful, larger scale pictures of the buildings and grounds; my shots are more intimate and of the garden, and little things that caught my eye…I want to go back another day and see inside the house, we didn’t really have the time on this Sunday…

Pictures of Grey’s Court

 

 

 

I loved the silver greyed wood of this hand carved old fella, the gentle smile and the bird on his shoulder, he was fine from every angle and I wondered how long he had stood there looking over the intricate gardens from his sheltered, arched niche. There is a large picture if you click on the link above, I only aimed for his face!

 

 

  

I need to get a wide angled lens, as I can’t seem to get as much of the subject in as I’d sometimes like…The cottage garden was my favourite place; I loved the way the vegetables grow alongside marigolds, sunflowers, cornflowers, and herbs as well. Everything sort of jostles for position but with no arguments, it’s a riot of joyful colour and profusion.

The sunflowers are supported by hand-woven willow structures; these are light, durable and age beautifully, and they let light and air through to all the planting as well as providing a bit of shelter and support. We are going to a basket weaving course on September 25th, to learn some techniques for working with willow, and we’d like to have a go at making some of these hurdle structures ourselves. Dymphna has already woven the Dutch dykes she made for her garden, they are surprisingly strong.

 

                              

 

 

  

I made a mistake with the camera, I didn’t realise it would only hold a finite number of shots, so clicked away extravagantly; and I couldn’t then take shots I wanted once I’d come out of the cottage garden; there were lovely images of brick, wood and stone I’d have liked. Never mind, it’s a place I’d love to go back to, and so I will.

Once more, a lovely day, hot sun, visual treats and good company…As always, no matter how lovely a time you’ve had away, the road home is the best road, and fast to all that’s dear and familiar and most loved. Boysie and Maggie – how long is forever…

 

Oxford

To  Oxford then, via the fabric warehouse, up early, there for 9.30 to choose fabric for the Festival of Quilts, at the NEC in August…soon…! Aaaarghh!! Dozing in the car, then coffee with Otto £1200.00 spent in the space of fifteen minutes, I don’t mess about…

On the way, passing steep chalk escarpment along the motorway; trees have rooted on an incline so steep you couldn’t walk it or even scramble, it would mean boots and gear to get up there…But somehow a tree seed can lodge, make a home and grow big…it’s amazing. What soil or water did it find? I plant a tree in my sheltered garden and nourish it and water it like a mother, and the contrary bastard dies. Up there –  no problem. The earth is a wayward and contrary thing.

Then to Dymphna’s; yes, always a homecoming to go there…Boysie hauled the fabric out of the boot – not much criminal activity in Wytham, but can’t risk leaving it in the boot all weekend. He does that and I go to the garden and whoaaa !!!

My patchwork beauty! She done it again! The river sighs past and the willows weep, kiss the water and the garden has changed, moved on but then it’s Dymph’s so what else would  it do…I took so many pictures because my eyes were hungry and the food good…Poppies for starters? I go back in memory to when I studied A-level art and I have a pen and ink study of poppy seed cases from that time, black and white that’s how they are really, stout and strong and architectural; they know next year will come and they’ll be in it so they poke their tight fists  to the sky…

 

 

There is a lot of green here, but I love the uprush of the stems, the stout sturdiness of the seedcases, the dappled light, in short I am running out of editorship. When you take pictures with a digital camera, there is no need for economy; you’re not paying to print film. Maybe to a new photographer, self- taught like me, that’s not a good thing. But on the other hand, these pictures are here because I was there and I liked what I saw and so I’ve kept them. I’m not in a competition am I? But then I want the images to be good…Hell  whenever you’re sentient there’s conflict, sometime soon I’ll be able to switch that internal doubt-voice thing off…Come September I will see if I can get on a class, then you won’t be subject to my silly internal crappola!

 

 

 

Couldn’t choose between these two shots, very similar, the bigger versions always look better if you’ve got time to click on them…Dymphna’s garden has a river running along the bottom, lazy and deep enough to swim in, and cows on the other side. There are fish, some Winters it floods and threatens the cottage, not usually though. Dymphna’s been learning to weave willow, and being Dutch, has woven herself a unique form of Dutch dyke across the bottom and up the side. Inventively she’s put in all the spare turves, and planted it up with courgettes, cabbages and all lit up with marigolds and nasturtium, it all tumbles and roams, a profusion of colour…

 

 

 

And then, cunningly, she has installed a pump system from the river to irrigate the plot! How cool is that, and all checked out and legal!

Being in  very rural village, Dymphna has access to plenty of  horse manure, the consequence of which is fennel taller that she is:-

The picture proves it! Herbs will be hung up and dried, fennel seed for pork and all sorts of lovely savoury things, she puts handfuls of  fresh herbs and makes a feast of an omelette, the bright nasturtiums go in salads, courgette flowers are stuffed with delicate cheese and anchovy and deep fried in a thin tempura batter…And of course, her home is a patchwork home…
We had cool Macon Village at a little table by the river, on the last bit of ground allowed to have only grass on it – too plain and boring! And the tablecloth, old friend of mine from a Retreat way back – graced the table, pieced in limes and browns and pinks, mellowed by a couple of season’s outside use the witness to good company and many good times…

 

The colour flows from the grass to the table to the dyke and the river beyond, all harmony and spikes of colour. It’s as if the tablecloth had premonitions of how the garden was going to develop and somehow set the palette…

 

 

 

Kale: lush curly frothy green joyful fresh bursting with juice and life…

And indoors, the garden brought in against Winter days, pattern, rhythm, colour, abundance…

 

 

We had our supper in the shelter of a Duck egg Summerhouse, tea lights as the light faded from a lovely day, the coals of the barbecue white and hot long after the sausages were eaten…

I hear the sigh of the wind and the see the sky change, we didn’t want to let go of the evening and talked long about our kids, our relationships, ourselves; if we all had just one such friend each, we would all know wealth.

 

Now the next instalment will be about our visit to Grey’s Court, where passed a couple of lovely hours in the cottage garden, and the one after that will be our amazing adventures at Wytham Carboot Sale, and boy did I get some booty! Booty is what you get from boot sales, as well as bacon butties….

Thinking about hexagons…

With regard to the hexagons, Isolde is making a hexagon quilt, and she’s way ahead of me! And the main reason for that is I have been greedy with the colours! I have made a huge quantity of all the brilliant vivid colours, my scissors and tacking needles whisking through The Gorgeous at lightning speed, but I couldn’t start sewing the hexies together because up until yesterday, I was too naughty to have made any white ones. Oh yes, let me romp through the colour – which is good in that now I have a rich palette to draw upon, but as I’ve been unwilling on the white front, progress has been severely hampered…

Well, now I have done a circle of white and put the first “flower” together, and if I say it meself, it’s luscious, but a tragedy has happened! A slight error has crept in! I have used a different template for some of the white ones, thinking it better as it was made of metal, and unfortunately it was the tiniest tad bigger than my original – , so now the flower has a fetching, frilly edge that no amount of bullying with a hot steam iron will coax into lying flat. Damn, hot damn, and blast my phillybusters!

I took it outside to photograph against the neutrality of the gravel, I love the saturation of the colours, but that frilly edge – I know, I’ll back it with a bit of plastic, run a length of elastic round the edge, and there you have it, a shower cap!

 

 

Thank heavens it’s Friday – and I work from home…

And now I should head up to the house to think of dinner, bearing my bountiful basket of harvest from the plot!
It’s a taxing problem how to feed us something tasty from three courgettes and a handful of broad beans! I could dig up
some potatoes I guess…Oh yes, there’s a nice plump chicken in the fridge, I could set to and roast that, wonder if a few sprigs of rosemary could feature.?Then again, I got plenty of strawberry jam…It’s not quite all coming together in my ahead at the moment, I’ll let you know…

Allotment…

 

 

Wednesday is my midweek weekend if I spend the day at my brother’s allotment. There is no kind of tired quite like the tired of a day spent out in the open tasting the weather, exposed to the elements – and tilling the good earth! The soil there is hard work; quite heavy and clayish and it dries to a smooth crust, quite impenetrable. One of my jobs was to take all the straw from the strawberry bed and use it to make a fire, and to layer the shooting strawberry runners to make new baby plants. So I filled pots with soil, and then pushed the little runner plantlets into a hole in the pot made by my thumb, then packed it out firmly to keep it anchored. In a week or so, the runner feeding it from the mother plant can be cut, and the new plant can be planted in the desired new position. Division and multiplication to which I can see a point! I love the sight of the leaves turning, they try to trick you into thinking there are still strawberries lurking; odd that although there are no fruit left, the scent of the berries is in the straw and the earth, and is potent…I love the way the leaves flush and go into holes, the frilly edge, the scarlet spill of colour. Richness gone ragged, and looking to go to sleep. The plants will over-winter and do their stuff next Spring, they don’t need much attention they know exactly what to do..

We always have a picnic; I make the food and Chris brings a choice plummy bottle of red; it’s a tradition unspoilt by any filthy notion of diet or unreasonable ideas such as Not Drinking At Lunchtime; we find it braces us for the afternoon ahead. Like kids on a train, we’ve no sooner done ten minutes on the plot as it were, when we’re after breaking open the picnic! Course it’s mainly him, I could wait…

Next job for me was to dive into the raspberries, which were a tatty lot this year, and cut off the growth of this season. Gloves essential, still I came out bitten and stung, but a huge pile of spent canes accrued, lit by leftover lanterns of fruit, and I took just one photo from that dry jungle, of a redcurrant just sitting on the edge…The berries look like jewels, bright scarlet beads against the leaves and stems, the sun shining through them and making them glow with a special light. Only one bush seems to have survived, not really enough fruit to do much with; but in clearing the inherited raspberries and thinning it all out, we may do better next year…

I weeded cabbages, harvested broad beans then cut down the finished stems. They are left in the soil as they are full of good nitrogen, nourishing stuff…Then we dug some spuds, and Chris cut us a cabbage each. I had mine for dinner that night, honestly, nothing finer than slicing into the crisp green with a good knife, and catching the smoky scent as it’s released, watching the shaded ribbons of leaf topple, then into the steamer. You’ve eaten it before it even realises it’s dead. There is nothing quite like “Off the plot and into the pot!” Things taste how they should, and like we’ve most of us forgotten.

After lunch we virtuously go for a stroll (to stave off the desire for a kip!) And this is one of my favourite bits. I take my extra eye, the camera, and learn to see the world fresh through it. It’s heavy round my neck, but worth it. I got loads of amazing images…

 

 

 

This looks like an aerial photograph of a beautiful lagoon somewhere faraway…you know, it is actually a shot of a bit of the neighbour’s rusted old corrugated fence. I love the way the disintegration and corrosion brings its own lace and vibrancy. Beauty brewed over time, and nothing like it was when it started. Much like myself!

And in similar colours with more metallic gleam gloss unseen in the metal…

Now this sheave of fool’s gold here could very well be my plot in the near future, I loved its blonde sway, how the separateness moves as a whole in the wind, and a gleam of wildflower in acidic yellow makes the grass buttery and full of light. It is think slightly out of focus; sometimes life’s better that way…

When I see a tree move to the tune of the wind or a field of corn or grass, I think of an orchestra; you can hear the music as a whole but still focus on little bits in a slightly different time or key, independent but together. More gold to come…

 

 

 

 

I remember when Josh was a little fellow about two and we would approach a big sunflower in someone’s garden on the way to Tesco, and he would get this anxious pucker round his mouth and his brows would furrow; “Cross the road, Mum, don’t like it sunflower, it’s looking down at me”, so over the road we went, he in his buggy and hiding his face…looking fearfully over his shoulder. It was he that came flying into the dining room one Summer day, face stricken –  “I don’t like the sky!” Why not Josh? “I don’t like it, it’s too big, it’s everywhere!” Oh lord, I’ll just sweep it away then…Now he’s going to Roehampton in October to do Film and English. I know it’s a cliché, but for good reason, it’s the old git sorry howl –  where did all that time go? I shan’t be sad though, it went well, for the most part…And you know, it still does. Go well.

Now this section I would call “Otherworld” because nature has taken on an aura of somehow unreal;

 

  I think the spherical thingies are garlic or onion or some-such, gone crazy. I think of fireworks, pompoms, the other is a rhubarb leaf part decayed. I look at it and see metal and the skin of an elephant, I smell vinegar verdigris sorrow and it is not happy but I still want it.

The next few I got trigger happy around some Lavatera, and why not?

   

 

I am happy with another day more of colour and air, good work, and leave you with a poem.

Fallow

I would lie fallow a year;
One season to dwell in dew,
Sunlight –
In the speckled goldleaf of a whirlwind fall,
And the glitter of a hard frost.

Then I could swell buds;
New leaf would weave blossom afresh
And a throat-ful of song,
Bring being to a babbling brook or a sweet -limbed child…

But I must move.
Haul the coal of a daily life and grow
Dusty under the load.
New shoots struggle sickly
Like an early calf;
Unsteady and seeking warmth….

Burst seed falter on moving soil
Get lost in the cracks
And broken on stone.
More seed will come yet….