peace and freedom

Today I took the whole day off work as a holiday and cleaned the house from top to bottom. It is so soothing to the soul to have everything gleaming and fresh. It has done me no end of good and I feel like I can breathe again.

As you can see from the photo, nobody escaped my attentions... I think they quite enjoyed it actually... they had a nice long soak and then lots of fun swinging from their ears outside in the sunshine.

Earlier in the week I went to Liverpool to see two exhibitions. Picasso: Peace and Freedom at the Tate, and The Rise of Women Artists at the Walker Art Gallery.

I'm always a little bit surprised to discover that whenever I go to an art exhibition, whether it's big or small, whether the subject matter draws me initially or not, I almost always find some wonderful thing that opens up a string of possibilities in my head and has me fumbling for my little notebook. I just love this. It is so exciting and I suddenly become full of energy and wonder that life is so incredibly interesting. I think this is partly because any exhibition of an artist's work inevitably contains a kind of stored-up energy, a bit like a seed or bulb: these are works that have been conceived and gestated and brought to birth over a long period of time, the results of hours and hours of drawing and thinking and inspiration and experimenting, and then suddenly you see them, all together, and this energy kind of bursts out and grabs you.

It's good to recognise what you need and to be able to do it, whether it's a clean and tidy space or a shot of creative energy.

hiding

We came across this lovely shed while garden visiting in Cheshire the other weekend. It seems an appropriate image for today's post, as recently I have been doing nothing more taxing than pottering around, tending to domestic duties and keeping a very low profile. The sort of thing men are supposed to need a shed for, but I can do it perfectly well by mooching around, drinking tea in the garden and hiding underneath a pile of crochet.

There is no doubt that a certain sort of mildly creative activity is useful during these times, a bit like the basket-woven tray edging they used to make in the old people's home I once helped in. A little gentle occupation is wonderful for freeing the mind and processing thoughts, and sometimes it's just what's needed. Crochet definitely works for me, and I have also been getting a lot of pleasure from experimenting with things to make for craft fairs this autumn/winter.

One of the things I've been thinking about is how difficult it seems to be these days to concentrate on what I call worthwhile things. By this I mean: drawing, that is, proper observational drawing... reading a book all the way through rather than just snippets from a magazine or the internet... critical, intellectual thinking that really examines and challenges... planning and executing outings and visits that will stimulate and energise me. All these things used to be part of my daily life. All of them have faded and fizzled out to a point where I look in horror at myself and wonder what on earth has happened...

Does this happen to you? What do you do about it? Do you think that the internet has shrunk our ability to concentrate for long periods? Can you mentally escape the dreariness that domestic chores can bring? I sense that some kind of discipline is needed, but I'm not sure how.

norfolk

With Norfolk in the news today I realised it was about time I got round to posting some of my photos from our trip there last month.

Wouldn't you just love a woodpile like this?

Norfolk is a big, big county and nearly all of it is absolutely lovely, but the north west coast - sometimes called the Saltmarsh Coast - is the loveliest part of all. One of the reasons for this is that it's miles and miles from anywhere, and it always takes us a good half-day to get there - very bad news for the impatient holidaymaker.

Blakeney village is full of quirky things like this funny old door knocker

Once you're there, though, you might never want to leave, and this is always what happens to me. I spend a good part of the holiday feverishly plotting how we could move there and live forever in such a peaceful, beautiful place... until I work out that a) there's no work, b) living somewhere is never the same as being on holiday and c) all my family would be hundreds of miles away. This very same thought process occurs every single time we go. Doh! You would think I'd learn.

Ancient painted wood screens in the beautiful, lonely church at Salle which sits all by itself in the middle of fields and is almost big enough to be a cathedral

Anyway, it's always lovely and we always have a wonderful, reviving time. There are six main things to do in Norfolk: 1) Walk slowly looking at things 2) Cycle slowly looking at things 3) Watch birds 4) Eat delicious local food 5) Mooch about 6) Absolutely nothing. As we like to pack in as many activities as possible, we generally make the effort to fit in almost all of these every day and thus get the maximum benefit from our visit. We are no slouches.

One of the places we enjoyed eating and drinking was Wiveton Farm Cafe which is in an utterly beautiful setting on the edge of the marshes and surrounded by gently rolling woodland. You can watch marsh harriers hunting and eat freshly picked strawberries from Emma Bridgewater pottery. It was only about ten minutes walk from where we stayed.

On our last day, we pushed the boat out and went to visit the very lovely and delightful Voewood House, a gorgeous Arts and Crafts house near Holt which is owned by the bookseller Simon Finch and has been decorated by his friend Annabel Grey.

It's made entirely from local stone, brick and concrete - one of the first houses to be built from concrete in this country.

Annabel Grey did these lovely mosaics in one of the bathrooms.

As well as being beautifully restored architecturally, it is a brilliantly quirky interior packed full of original artwork, unusual artefacts and little displays of books and ornaments.

The garden is beautiful as well.

foraging

I think I have mentioned before that the neighbourhood where we live is rather good for a spot of hunter gathering. Many of the large Victorian houses are either empty, being done up, semi-derelict or rented to students who aren't bothered who is scavenging in their gardens. This makes it sound a bit of a dive, but it isn't, and in fact I really rather like both the romantic, slightly forgotten vibe and the freedom to roam about helping myself to firewood, blackberries, catkin twigs, Christmas greenery, and, today, a whole wheelbarrow full of fircones. I spotted these beauties on my way home today and after tea we set off to collect as many as we could carry home... we'll dry them out and store them to use for kindling this autumn... the pine oil makes them great for starting fires quickly and aromatically, not to mention how pretty they'll look by the hearth.

sea and shore blanket

This blanket definitely wants to live in north west Norfolk. This is my sea, sky and shore blanket, rows and rows of colours to conjure up dreams of blue salty seas with white horses riding the waves, wide open saltmarshes, wild scudding clouds, wet shingle beaches, bitter chocolate seaweed and pale opal shells.

I began it in February to 'use up' some of the yarn from recent projects... one thing somehow led to another and I must admit to buying quite a bit more wool along the way... but I'm delighted with the end result. Crocheting in rows rather than blocks means that the finished blanket has a much drapier feel than granny squares, and the openness of treble crochet stitches mean it's not too heavy while still being comforting and warm. I love it.

Now then, no crochet addict worth her salt would finish one project without having the next one busy in her head, so here's a work-in-progress pic of what I'm doing next:

This time, it truly is an odds-and-ends project... I have set myself the challenge of buying NO NEW BALLS OF WOOL... so it's a lovely mishmash of blues, greens and browny colours left over from everything else. The small size of these squares (about 2 1/2") means that only about 5g of yarn is needed for each one, so even the tiniest scraps can be used. They're also really speedy to make... each one can be finished, attached to its neighbour and the ends woven in, in less than ten minutes. This is absolutely ideal for me, the most easily bored crocheter in town.

Each square is made up of groups of treble clusters, joined using Lucy's cunning technique, which results in a lovely thick and cosy textile... ideal for chilly car journeys (we have a forty-year-old car) or sitting outside with a cup of tea on a winter's day.

The back looks a bit Sophie Digard, don't you think?

for elizabeth

A little while ago, Elizabeth wrote a sensitive, questioning post about the nature of blogging. She asks the things that we have all probably wondered at one time or another: are our ramblings relevant? Read by anyone? Of interest unless we specialise on one subject or another?

Her post generated some interesting and thoughtful comments, most of which conveyed quite strongly that the answer to all these questions is a definite yes, and that personality, individual spirit and sense of place are the things that draw us into a blog and keep us following.

As I was considering all this, I found myself at work one day, cataloguing a book written and illustrated by a Chinese artist in the 1930s. In the introduction, he questions the value of his perspective and writes these words:

"But life is too short and precious for us to pass through it without leaving a few footprints behind us. A man's experience in a certain place at a certain time must be unique, in some way different from the experience of others. Why should I not leave a few words to mark one period in my brief life? Even a bird's clawprints remain for a little time in the snow."

From The Silent Traveller in Oxford by Chiang Yee

His thoughts certainly seemed to sum up how I feel about this blog. Maybe they will encourage some of you to continue with your own.


There will be more posts to come in the next few days as I process my photographs from Norfolk and share some crochet projects with you. I have been having lots of thoughts, but the weather has been just too lovely to sit inside sharing them with the computer...

cakes and ale

Towards the seedier end of Manchester there used to be a wonderfully named pub called the Land O'Cakes, a concept, I'm sure you'll agree, which merits quite a lot of extremely pleasurable thought. Just recently I have begun to feel like I might have been transported, if not to this actual place, then at least to a neighbouring territory, as I embark on this week's task of producing enough cake for 250 people (for my friend Anne's garden open day: see last year's entry for more details). Last week was all about my youngest son's 18th birthday party, for which more cake had to be produced, along with a LOT of beer... much as I love both cakes and beer, I am beginning to feel that I may have had enough of both for a little while.

The photo above has nothing to do with cakes or ale, but is a very pretty tombstone from Plemstall village chuch near Chester. The photo below, however, is very much about cake... it's a detail from The Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont and illustrated by Raymond Briggs. You can just see the elephant's trunk as he steals 'a bun for himself and a bun for the bad baby'. I loved reading this book to my children when they were little, and now I'm enjoying reading it to my little granddaughter too.

We're off to lovely Norfolk next week for a break from cakes and children... I will return, relaxed, with photos to show you.