garden matters

The good news is the Snakehead Fritillaries have done really well this year. We bought a seedling when we went to visit a farm that had a field covered in them, so wonderful. each year they open the farm to visitors, but that year it was very wet and all the cars got stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out by the tractor.

The plant has been staggering on in a big clay pot on the East bank facing the frosty morning sun, it seems they need pretty hard conditions to flourish, so I reckoned that would be perfect.

They are strong this year - I am tempted to plant them actually in the bank and see if they will spread.

Sadly the nights are still cold and windy so most of the magnolia petals have fallen but they look so scrumptious on the grass it makes a good excuse not to mow right up to the tree yet.

There is a bit of a demarcation dispute at the bottom of the garden. We get on well with them, it is good to hear their two little kids cavorting around. They have a huge wooden climbing frame and an even larger circular bouncy thing, with a net round it that they jump, kick many balls both rugby and footie, and generally seem to live in.

However there is now a bit of friction. Their house is even further down the bank, so "we look down on them". Recently they did a bit more terracing and started edging onto the bottom path. This is a right of way from the lane, across the bottom of our garden to the neighbours next to us on the hill [not much town planning when these cottages were built] so it has to be defended or how will R and Ben and Milly, [two large dogs] navigate to home with the morning papers?

Now they have tied this rope and the RP is not convinced it is accurate to the nearest centimetre, which is why he had to start adding height.

Two Shows

Saw this vegetable quilt at a friend's show, it was very appealing. It would be nice to make a quilt based on the garden........one for each season. hopefully there will be time.

I once had the desire to make a full size double bed quilt, with a cricket pitch and all the daft names they use with a serious face. Silly mid on etc. haven't sorted that yet either.

This week I have made 2 [out of 3 Fat Ladies] as I hope to make " Soft Sculpture"as they call it of my Pink Blowsey Women, cavorting among the pink roses, a competition piece.

Sadly I didn't win, but they have asked us to develop our designs so I am taking it to the next level and damn it if they can't take a joke. We were stewarding an exhibition on Sunday and L. taught me how to make a fabric rose so I am trying to make my figure into a human rose..........RP is not impressed which is not a good sign.

This is a Fat Dancing Chicken from the show too.

This is one of L's stitching based on some of the bits of the machinery in the Steam Engine museum, the exhibition was quite a success because lots of people came to see it, who wouldn't usually cross the threshold to see textile art. Some husbands followed their wives into the room looking very trepidatious, but were soon intrigued. Either they went round identifying each piece with great pride at their expertise, or bought a piece of work to hang on their [garage?]wall.

It was good to have a whole day to sit with friends and stitch while welcoming enthusiastic visitors, no washing up or hoovering to deflect, not even the doggy to walk. Totally exhausting being sociable for so long however.

Rather than topping myself in angst/tantrum I did some dyeing instead.

The rather marvellous RP took delivery half way thru the mucky process of a presi for me, I don't think it was a bribe to cheer/shut me up, but it did the job.

I now have a little video camera thingy, so I can make moving pictures of the daughter and g'son when they appear next month. In the mean time, I can record lesser events like creating strange coloured fabrics and hands.

I am not good with instructions so I splashed some acid dye, urea and soda water about and added manutex to thicken and had a splosh, - in various directions. Also screen printed some colour on, but didn't cut any stencils as I find that when I make definite pics on the fabric I just gaze at them, bemused, and can't think how to stitch. Hopefully the sploshes will not be so intimidating.

For the Cambridge exhibition we are apparently going to fill the entrance with twigs and branches hung with fantastic textile leaves, so maybe these will be good for that. I did do a bit of printing by spreading the dyes on bubble wrap and pressing that onto the fabric to get some organic type shapes. Circles are always good, I feel.

This video is very short and took several centuries to down load so I will save the doggy walk to the river till another time.

The RP had a second delivery today, 2 rather skimpy flat packed garden obelisks, up which he will encourage some courgettes to climb. He was twice blessed [happy partner, happy self] but lo - in the post he found a cheque to say he had won a small, but very welcome, amount on ERNIE;

Retired persons have to spread their parting stash around to try and ensure that something will survive these uncertain crunchy times. He bought some premium bonds last month, and now is a winner! I think I remember people saying [in pre Lottery times when ERNIE was popular] that new buyers often seem to win.

ERNIE obviously has a bad back and can't dig very deep past the new numbers, so I doubt it will happen again as the numbers age, and sink without trace. However three gifts in one day!Apologies to the Goddess [and slandered colleagues] for my mean temper, I will be a little ray of sunshine from now on.

dressed to kill

I am still the Queen of Grumps even tho it is a lovely day, sunny, breezy, freedom of the parish................Booo.
At the Mansion they had an " Out of the Box" day where the curator [famous daughter of famous friend] took some of the nineteenth century clothes they have in storage and waved them in the sunshine for a while.
As usual the museum doesn't have the resources, or the will, to keep a textile collection accessible, so this was a rare opportunity to get up close and personal to a heavily embroidered and beaded afternoon dress made about 150 years ago. Should cheer a girl up, - not really.

This is the boned [whale] and corded top. Dresses were made as separates then, brushed never washed.
But the linen or cotton underclothes were fresh each day [if you could afford the staff].
Linen is preferable it seems it soaks up the sweat best.
This is the corset worn over the linen and under the jacket. It is structured with a phalanx of whale bones and stitched cords and tied with non-authentic purple ribbons. Apparently most women would not pull them so tight they fainted, for every day wear anyway. Good - historic women were not hysteric, as a rule.

This a dress to go walking in. it is black and white striped, exquisite pleating and construction, a heavy black underskirt, many layered at the bottom, like the top skirt so it would swirl and whirl above your boots. But plain, all the detail and attention in this part of the century would be on the bosom, in earlier years it was on bustled and complicated skirts.

Curator woman was asked why more textiles weren't on show, and gave the usual excuses; but she said she had tried putting on a display of 70s clothes [of which they had few] recently and the local burghers had complained that they weren't appropriate to the august surroundings.
In the entrance hall they had some replica clothes from various eras and visitors were invited to try them on and have a prance.

Very sweet.

More people turned up than the curator expected [she comes from New Zealand but they must have Easter holidays there too, children that need outings, parents that need diversions for children..............] there were not enough chairs.

The kids were surprisingly patient standing in clumps round the wall as she talked about the clothes [ the old people like me had nabbed the available chairs early]. Surprising, the media will have us believe kids have a thirty second concentration span and that's only if they are plugged into virtual reality. maybe it was a select group as their elders had already successfully manoeuvred them into a museum.

My two compatriots were presumably in a better mood than me, not a comfortable position for any of us, but maybe they didn't notice.

Who can tell, they both communicate from behind a mask of reserve. K is so polite she would say thank you to her murderer and clean up any spillage.

A keeps herself under very tight control and peers disapprovingly over her high fence topped with a measured array of broken glass.

And moi. I am just a bad tempered, sulky old cow who doesn't deserve friends.

Easter

No egg rolling here, or even Chocolate eggs. RP went to church on Sunday as usual, I read books [Missing Joseph an old Elizabeth George - over egged IMO; started the new Donna Leon which I can pass on to ma for her birthday if I am careful not to spill tea on it] and swished fabrics and threads around without much result.

No kids around , but daughter and g'son are due next month so that will promote gaiety.

Don't usually go far on Bank Holidays, loads of peeps turn up at the pub by the river and resolutely sit outside on the benches tho the weather hasn't shone too much yet. Took a short trip to the other side of the river and walked Hattie the dog.

If you can see the face it is me!

Somehow the theme of pics seemed to focus on the gargoyley dead trees rather than the new green leaves.

I guess the new medication is subduing the migraine but the moody old headache is still breaking through.

steam ahead

The Arches and the Cavorters are coming along, but decisions have to be made............ which is always painful. I hope that like the magnolia tree they will blossom, eventually. At the moment they are more like weeds - out of control.

I am mightily encouraged that my last 2 pieces sold this week. The Patchwork ladies at the steam engine museum [that does sound odd] and the Garrett girls in the lace collars.

The exhibition sold well as a whole as the museum had a "steam up day"........... they got the old Steam Engines working and took kids for rides round the village.

The visitors were surprised to find the bonus of the exhibition and most of them had not seen anything like it. It was great to show to a new audience, instead of other textile artists taking notes. I did mean to take photos of the other pieces, there were some really lovely designs, mostly abstract, beautiful colours and stitching. I have to steward on the last day, so I will take pics then.

blossoming

It's been sunny today, at last, so that made everything seem so much better. The garden is becoming colourful, - next door dragged us into their garden so we could appreciate the full glory of our flowering bushes from their side. Nothing too special really, just pink flowering black current, forsythias and that white one - wedding veil maybe?

The primroses down the bank are really showing off among the wild blue ?narcissus bulbs and the daffodils have lasted long enough to wave at the tulips.
The Madonna lilies Auntie Cinders always asks after [she gave them to us] have finally admitted they are still alive by poking leaves above the surface, I was convinced Retired Person had squashed the life out of them with his big boots.
The magnolia is best yet, should have taken a pic while the sun was out. We planted it about 8/9 years ago, and used to count the flowers each year which in 2000 was easy, [found the pic] I reckon this is the first year they are too many to enumerate, which is very fine.

We are hopeless gardeners really, most things just grow, or don't, but we are learning slowly - so get very excited if the garden ever looks attractive, in spite of our administrations, or more likely lack of.

In the conservatory two amaryllis have burst into 3 great scarlet trumpets, each with a second bud promising more riches. They haven't flowered for a couple of years, which all goes to show what a bit of watering and tomato food can achieve, apparently they don't hold a grudge. No pic as the battery in the camera has died.

stitched up

In spite of all the fights and fits of the vapours on Saturday we got it together had one of our Grown Up Stitching Ladies networking conferences, started with and AGM and everything. Managed to exit one Chairperson and finagle in the new one without any blood on the floor, just a few slightly edgy comments.

It was a long day, bits of it were good, bits were very good and the rest was a pain. An afternoon nap would have been a very good idea.

The piece of work above is done in Blackwork, a traditional stitch the Elizabethans prized for the Queen's decorated sleeves and other less exalted rich ladies and gents. [double click to see stitching, I hope]

Random Rebecca was the leader for one of four workshops, this was a sample of her work when she was a student. Now she is out in the big wide world, - unfortunately her workshop was not not so carefully planned - relying on leafing thru her sketch books and chatting.

I guess I would have sulked less if the stories had been more interesting, the sketch books of better quality or if the whole thing didn't mean I had to sit there for an hour and a half with no sewing to keep me acquiescent.

She was charming, but she is going to have learn that we need more than charm and even talent these days. That makes me sound such a sour puss, but there you have it, women do have to try harder.

This work shop was the opposite, run by a leader who was so intense and focused she could hardly spare time to breathe, guess there was no pleasing me.

We had a competition where the members were each sent a print of a sample of original fabric stored at the Archive, the challenge was to develop the piece into something else. I enjoyed this one called Bad Hair Day.

I didn't win anything, which was justice as there were some very good examples among the 37 entered. My sample was of blousey pink roses, so being my flippant self I redesigned it with some of my blousey pink ladies cavorting among the petals. Except for me and Bad Hair Day - everyone else took it seriously.

The best part was a talk from one of the members about the research she is doing in a nineteenth century Foundlings Hospital.

It was set up to take in and care for abandoned babies. Mothers who hoped for a better life for their babes left them with a token. So that if times improved they could identify the token and claim the children back again. The Charity is no more, but the records are all stored at the museum in the original big iron box.

Janette has been unwrapping the written records for each babe revealing the scraps of cloth, often stitched, even knitted, secreted within. Some are just bits of ribbon, a scrap of cotton, part of a sleeve, a little bonnet, half a playing card. It was heart breaking, but at the same time I think we felt part of the continuity of women, stitching life together best we can.

good day, bad day

The good news is - this family of bunnies made by me and my mother, thanks to Heide.
I don't do a lot of things together with my ma, [we don't really like each other] actually we made these separately but at least we got it together in the end and put the tails on the rabbits.
Ma is now busily knitting the squares for me to manipulate into herbivores; one of the nice things she [and other ornery old ladies] does [everyone has their good points] is make up shoes boxes of toys and knitted hats, scarves and gloves which get sent to children in need in war zones and the like, so they can now include woolly pets.

The bad news is - I crumped the car-outside the dentists. Not content with Mr Pliers taking more than twenty minutes to pull a tooth out of my poor innocent gum, I got an infection and had to go back and get antibiotics. I was worrying about what was in front of me, not what I was reversing into.

cold and grey

I am a spoilt petulant pensioner this morning, not a pretty sight. When I was away last week it was up and out, not wandering around with a vague headache not wanting to do anything, but knowing that the thing i do worst is Nothing.
The weather is atrocious, cold, wet grey.
We have had a double radiator fitted while we were away in the NE Wing, as that room is never warm. Now if we keep the door closed and lean on it the blood does continue to circulate in our tired old veins, rather than coagulate in cold hard lumps round our wizened hearts.
The Committee Ladies of the recently formed Stitching Forum have disintegrated into Apprentice type squabbling and resigning while I was away, so embarrassing.
When I was young, [tra la] we women were all consciousness raising and working together to change the world. Now so many women are wearing pink, pole dancing and tearing at each others jugular.
Obviously I have stayed away from their meetings as I am well aware that these days
I am much too paranoid to wish to be in any committee, as I know the in-fighting will lead to tears before bed time. I edit the eNewsletter instead and encourage creativity and sharing, much easier
If I was on The Apprentice I would probably throttle myself within minutes trying to stop myself saying something that would start a war. The Women's team lost this week. Even in the Charity version recently the female team, who won, were apparently daggers drawn within hours.
Men just seem to form a battalion and charge, often in the wrong direction but they save their in fighting until they have worked out who the real competition is. I guess it is all those team games.
I played hockey at school. No i didn't, I was put in goal and snarled at the hard balls hit at me till they let me go and sulk elsewhere. I don't want to compete, winning or losing is embarrassing and I definitely don't want to be anonymously in the middle.
Also I have no forward planning, having refused all board games [except Risk] since I could toddle. RP bought an version of the Roman game 9 mens morris or whatever at the Villa visit and instantly beat me hollow, he was cheating by planning ahead.
Daughter is very competitive and fits in much better in the States where it is viewed as admirable. On the other side of the cent American women are often so supportive and encouraging, purring praises that in our self depreciating culture would be suspected to be sarcasm.

woof

We met up with some old friends for lunch.
S and I have known each other for so long, it was lovely to see her again, always puts me in mind of Vonnegut's novel where extra terrestrials saw each other as sort of long holograms of their whole lives, the past and the present were all present.
S and D have been married nearly as long as I have known them, the 4years at the start when we were all single seem less and less present, a shared.......myth almost.
When I was in turmoil they gave me sanctuary while I lurched forward to these greener pastures.
I was at the wedding and funeral of their sorely missed youngest.
We are linked.
Our chat over lunch tended to focus hilariously on our individual decrepitudes, but the fact that we managed to stagger off for an hour and a half walk with Hattie the dog was encouraging, and D plans to cross to the Continent and take part in a cycling race across the Alps in the summer, so there is hope..................
We arrived at the meeting place via the SatNav, occasionally the nice purring voiced lady would instruct us to take a sharp left or whatever in a somewhat surprising way, which we worked out was because the roads had changed since she was given her script. It is sensible to always have the map book open too, so you don't end up in Timbuktu.
However as we sat in the pub car park, suffused with the glow of success, we noticed the SatNav was pronouncing Bow Wow on it's screen.
Maybe the machine was having some form of breakdown - however on taking Hattie up the Lane for her constitutional, we discovered it was the name of the lane.

roaming with the romans

Went to a Roman Villa today, mostly fourth century remains, tho they lived there for 3 centuries before going home. The mosaic floors were very lively with figures cavorting around and geometric designs for the more formal rooms. this spring is reminiscent of the wells near here, tho this one has a longer history.
It still had a wall round it which made it seem cosy and accessible, the info showed us [in the usual mediocre sketch they provide] how it would have looked as a shrine to a water deity. There were the usual hypocausts , and these posher under floor heating pillars which suggested the family were pretty rich, and comfortable at one time.

An elderly visitor asked the guide if the invading Vandals had destroyed the areas of mosaic that were missing by lighting fires as they squatted in the abandoned buildings. No they eroded over the centuries you ignoramus

My hackles rose, usual vision of the world being destroyed by uncivilised yobs [teddy boys, hoodies whatever].

No you nervous nelly, the Saxons [not the Vandals] didn't live in the valleys at all, because by the time the Romans finally left their law and order had broken down [the vandals were sacking Rome not cold wet here]and the Saxons [including those Romans who had married in, and stayed behind] had to build defendable homesteads on high ground.

Is it inevitable that as one gets older one gets more fearful of the young. I've a strong core of paranoia but I hope it never settles on fear of change.

Perhaps feeling "got at" is inevitable staying here in Middle England, "Private" notices everywhere and even their gates look as if they would like to gnaw my bones, but this spring was fun.

windy

Took a long walk today down this path , a windy green tunnel through the fields, past the horses and the hairy long horned cattle.

Got rained on a couple of times and lashed by angry brambles, still vengeful having been flailed so viciously in the winter.

We found the neat label on a post which explained exactly what we were about.

Didn't go the whole way, surprisingly, just to the next village and a very cosy pub for lunch.

Some of the trees looked like they were hugging themselves - which was perhaps sensible, as on the gusty return journey, a young dead ?elm crashed to the ground beside us, and another was shattered further up the path .

We definitely heard the first one crash down.

I was reminded of gnomish musing in philosophy lectures to the tune of - if a tree falls in the forest, will there be a noise if there is no-one to hear it.

"I'm younger than that now"

metaphorically speaking

We have escaped the village and travelled through time and space to ........another village. This cottage was once two workers cottages, now knocked into one for us non workers and a dog.

It is very warm and comfortable now, central heating plus wood burning stove - jammed with unburnt anthracite [what is that doing there?] and old fag packets among sooty logs. Most people have lost the ability to fire raise I suspect. I light ours nightly at home in the winter, but I rely on prepared "fire lighters" to initially get the kindling and coal blazing.

The stairs here are very steep, with hardly room for a foot to step, did they have smaller feet then? Were people really smaller 200 years ago, the number of times I have bashed my bonce on the bedroom door lintel certainly seems to bear out the theory. Surely tho they had lots of fresh veg and lamb, organic even.

The garden round the cottage is very small, cottages and houses built higgeldy piggeldy from the soft buttery Cotswold stone, I guess there wasn't too much time for gardening then, or keeping the odd Black Spot.

What did the workers do? Farm land all around, woollen mills in the area. No mill workers now anyway, most lucrative industry seems to be herding tourists and housing retired persons. Dry stone walls snake around into smaller and smaller mazes of tiny new houses and even tinier gardens. old walls demolished and old skills resurrected in rebuilding them.

The indigenous villagers are not to be pitied in the main, as it is they who are selling off their gardens to make room for yet another house.

We all need a home.

Maybe the indigenous are no longer here anyway, moved away to the cities when the mills fell silent, and the middle classes moved out of the cities and put central heating into the refurbished cottages .............and sold off the gardens so they could move to bigger houses.

This is one of the wells from which the villagers used to get their water until the 1930s. Now it is a Grade II listed "building" preserved in perpetuity for the delight of the tourists.

It will do as a metaphor.

layers

Went for a walk down by the river, buds are budding and the fungus is fungussing.


This tree stump is almost dressed throughout.


Close up the growths are so beautiful a detailed subtle design repeated and repeated in layers upon layers, a bit like sea shells, they are so amazing.

When we were learning to stitch "creatively" we are taught to layer up, pile up, embellish........lots of the well known stitching divas still do.
But I have this urge to simplify.

I guess I use the stitches instead of paint or pencil to make marks. I am more interested in the mark making than the stitch building, the textures and colours of threads are a feast but I seem to just want to snack.

















After the walk we all had lunch in the pub, views of cold brown mud as the tide was out. The pub is brown inside and out. They let dogs into the bar as long as they don't bring the mud in with them. They keep biscuits behind the bar for Hattie the dog, and she gets her "specials" -bits or beef from the sandwiches.


C. who works behind the bar went off to Australia but here he is back again.
Sometimes I think I will go mad if I stay in the village another day, it can seem to close in, day after day, it can be really testing dredging up the confidence to face myself and keep questioning whether what I do/am has any value.
When I was at work I sort of knew what I was about, I knew I was helping kids move forward with their lives; now I have to gird up my loins and move myself along. Not as far as Australia tho, actual travel can be refreshing but we are still there , wherever we go.