West Dean gardens

Last week the Engineer and I were lucky enough to have a day off work together.  We have lived in this area of Hampshire for over 20 years and had never been to West Dean Gardens. 

What a beautiful day: the weather was hot but we had on our hats and sun cream so we were ok.  But, oh dear, I forgot the camera so all the photos were taken on my phone, hence the poor quality.  Anyway here they are:  We went into the walled garden which was beautifully set out; I love walled gardens so I loved it.  I especially liked the hedgehog hole in the door.

This is an apple tree grown around a frame to make a square shape.

 

 

The colour was much more intense than the photo shows.

There was a lovely pergola covered in flowers.

We had a really nice lunch in the West Dean tea rooms; I had a quinoa and roasted beetroot salad (there should have been hallomi too but I am trying to be vegan so I asked for no cheese).

There was a beautiful kitchen garden and I am a sucker for them (and allotments) - even the Engineer liked this one as all the rows were dead straight with even the labels neatly lined up.  Sorry there are no photos of that.

All in all it was a really nice day and as it was a weekday it was quieter than it could have been at the weekend.

From my own little garden I have finally harvested a whole tomato!  I had to be very careful to not show the dog, Jack, what I was doing as he would only go off and chew the rest of them. 

Me! chew anything, never!

I am going to a botanical art workshop next weekend: its titled Fragrant Roses and it will be an intense three days of drawing in a lovely setting.    I will try and document my progress for you.  I haven't done any drawing in a while as life gets very busy at times. 

Work in progress

I said in my last post that I was going to share some of my work in progress with you. 
The newly formed Association of British Botanical Artists are putting together an exhibition of artworks of native British plants.  All the details are here.

I am attempting to do an Aquilegia Vulgaris in coloured pencil.  Below are some photos of my work so far.

sketches in graphite

I was able to access a microscope so I could take some brilliant close-ups of the plant.  I took a flower apart to see how it all fitted together.

 I sketched some petals etc. but I wanted to show the seed head too; it is a very interesting and lovely flower:

I did a line drawing of the seed head and then traced it and transferred the image so I could do a sketch in graphite giving me a good idea of form.

Transfer from the tracing

Graphite sketch

I then started to put my colours together. I choose each single colour and then start mixing, taking a note of what the mixtures are, just like in watercolour I suppose.

Page from my sketch book

I then started to do a colour sketch of the seed head.

Beginning to add form

Not a good photo I'm afraid

Another tiny seed head

On the plant was a lovely tiny seed head with two petals still attached. 

I am going to try and show the full life cycle of the plant so I will need to show seed heads as they are formed. 

I am continuing to sketch and put things together.  I am trying to do things properly and get my colours sorted before I begin the actual drawing composition. I find this preparation and planning quite difficult as I always want to jump straight in and start the bit I love doing the most. 

Hello

Hello,  I know I haven't posted in a long time: life has been busy in the Su+2 household - we are now a +3 as a new member of the family has arrived.


Jack (he plays with the rope and is not tied up with it)

This is Jack a Cockapoo, who is full of fun and mischief.  We decided to add him to our family mainly to help the Teen who has been struggling with anxiety and depression for a while.  They are in the process of being assessed for Autism and the more we look into it as a family the more it makes sense to explain the Teen's problems.  Jack has helped the Teen by not only making sure that they go outside but he is very good at cuddles when they are anxious and he makes them laugh. 
And yes, he has chewed everything, though his taste in books it quite discerning - he seemed to really enjoy Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. 

This weekend we went to Mottisfont to see the roses.  Oh my!  Not only seeing them but smelling them.  However, we didn't wander for too long as it was very hot.  Here are some photos - unfortunately I cannot send you the lovely scent. 

And finally a beautiful poppy from my garden.  The bees love them; I tried to get a photo of a fat bumble bee enjoying the nectar but he was to quick for me.

I have been doing some art work too but I will save that for my next blog post as I need to take some photographs. 

Enjoy this amazing weather. 

Fungi and me time

We have had some fantastic fungi in the garden over the last couple of days; tiny little ones in the lawn (Panaeolus papilionaceus I think ):

and some biggies on the stump of an old palm tree (the pole coming up out of the stump is my washing line).  I wasn't able to identify these so if anyone knows what they are I would be interested to hear as a comment:

Some of the autumn colour has been truly stunning recently; when the sun hits the reds they glow.  Its the sort of thing you just cannot catch with a camera, although I did try at work the other morning.

I have also been attempting to capture these colours in some drawings.  Below are some crab apples along with their leaves, its a work in progress.  Getting the reds right is always a challenge as nature is able to get such a "zing" in the reds which is very difficult to replicate. 

I have also been sketching a Virginia creeper leaf and experimenting with some calligraphy at the same time.  It seems to have worked out ok.

I am planning quite a bit of drawing this week along with some Christmas prep as I have the week off work.  Its a week for me to relax and wind down a bit.  Its been a difficult time here in the Su+2 household as the Teen has been battling with anxiety and depression for the last couple of years.  These kinds of mental health problems take their toll on everyone in the family, not just the sufferer, and I needed some time off. 

In brief, the Teen was unable to attend school for their final year.  They simply could not get there, not because they didn't want to go but because they were unable to move (physically) due to anxiety.  The school tried to help; the pastoral side which gives student support were brilliant but the business/management side couldn't wait to get ride of the Teen.  That side of the school's aim was simply to get a good set of GCSE marks for the league tables and if one pupil looked likely to pull the average down, that pupil had to go (or so it felt to us in our dealings with them).
Now, the Teen wasn't expelled but we were told, erroneously, that the only way they could not do their GCSE's that year (so as to not get awarded a string of fails as the Teen had already missed most of the course work and controlled assessments) was for us to take them out of school and for us to home school.  We agreed thinking this would give the Teen time to recover.  However, the Local Authority, who were also helpful, told us the school had given us the wrong information and that the Teen could have stayed in school and not taken their GCSE's.  By that time it was too late; the Teen (and us to be honest) had lost all trust in the school's ability to actually educate or help them. 
The Teen has been under CAMHS for about a year (Child And Adult Mental Health Services).  This service tried to help too but as the Teen's difficulties don't fit in a neat little box, CAMHS seemed to give up, or at least run out of ideas.

We are now wrestling with a local college.  How hard is it for a 16 year old to take three core GCSE's?  As it happens, very hard indeed.  The college has been trying very hard to accommodate the needs of a bright but suffering Teen and its looking like things might be finally sorted there now but its taken the first 3 months of term, time which the Teen cannot really afford to have lost.

So as you can see some time off work for me to concentrate on some "me" time is long overdue. I am booked in for an aromatherapy massage which I have never had before so I will report back. 

You have may have noticed in the paragraphs above that I refer to the Teen as they or their or them.  The Teen is non-binary (does not relate to being male or female) and therefore they prefer their personal pronouns to be their, them and they.   So its not bad English, its just good manners.

Gardens, harvest and hair colour

Last month my in-laws, C & D, paid a visit.  It was lovely to see them and spend time catching up.  One day we went to Chichester and walked around the Bishop's Palace gardens.  The last time we had been there it was in April a couple of years ago and the garden was full of Tulips. 

This year it was August so the garden looked very different as you can see from the photos below.

A beautiful garden

It was very beautiful, but at one point the Engineer did catch me trying to pull the bindweed off a slightly smothered plant.  Maybe I am starting to turn into a gardener. 

Before work today I went out and harvested some beans and courgettes from our garden. 

The Teen started college this week and as she walked out of the door she asked me if I wanted to take a photo of her first day like I had for her first day at both schools.  I said no not this time, not that's its not a momentous occasion (for many reasons) but she isn't keen of having her photo taken anymore. 

Over the past few months however her hair has gone from this...

prom hair

to this...

usual scruffy bun and bright red

I have to say I am ever so slightly envious; I would have loved to have done that to my hair when I was her age but my mum wouldn't let me. 

Maybe I should try something...

from Google

If I wasn't working in a professional environment I would certainly give it a go.

Spur of the moment

One evening last week, whilst watching the Olympics, I suddenly suggested to the Engineer that we visit Mottisfont the following day.  I had remembered there was a Beatrix Potter exhibition there at the moment and I really wanted to see her paintings.  These were her children's books illustrations, not her botanical art work. 
So the following day off we went; it was glorious weather and when we arrived at Mottisfont we were greeted by their new visitors' centre rather than the small shed that had been there on our previous visits.

Photo from Burdhaward.com

The building is not concreted into the ground so that when it is finally decommissioned the site can be put back to how it was.  It uses solar panels and a biomas generator for power and a wood buring stove in the reception area.
The National Trust who look after Mottisfont have devised a Beatrix Potter themed trail for the children to follow and there were some very excited children running around following it. (all photos were taken on my phone so the quality isn't that good)

We strolled up towards the house and joined the queue waiting to go in and see the art work.  Luckily we were there before 11am when the exhibition opens so the queue was short but got longer through the day.  I don't have any photos of the lovely paintings but they were meticulous and charming, each one full of life.  I really enjoyed seeing them.  We carried on around the rest of the house which was much better exhibited than it had been previously; it felt like people had really lived in the house, not like it was a valuable antique under glass. 

We then went and had some lunch in the new stables café where every piece of crockery and cutlery is compostable.  My soup bowl was made of plant based materials as was the Engineer's plate.  Once we had finished (the courgette and stilton soup was fabulous) we put all of our remains into marked bins and the plastic bottle containg the Engineer's Pepsi went into the plastic recycling waste.  Brilliant.  The chairs were basic wooden ones so there was a pile of cushions in the corner that you could help yourself to to pad the seats a bit. 

Then we had a walk along the river, which was just wonderful.  As there is water and its quite shallow in places, children will want to play in it.  However the river flow is pretty fast so its far too dangerous for playing in.  But there is an area of pumps and sluce gates that are all child sized and ideal and safe for children to access.  There were quite a few children enjoying getting wet.

There was also a "bog garden" (no photo) which the former owners of the house's children used to play in and build dens etc, so that's how its been re-setup.  I get the feeling that when it rains it really is boggy and any children playing there will get very muddy indeed. 

We walked around the walled garden jumping from shade to shade, it was so hot and sheltered from the breezes and although we were both wearing hats it was a bit too much for us.

A lot of the roses are now past their best (June is the time for the roses) but that didn't matter, the garden is still beautiful.  We stopped for an icecream in the shade of some trees and cooled down admiring the raised beds that were around us. 

All in all it was a brilliant day and I would recommend it.  The Beatrix Potter exhibition is on until the 18th of September.