Clutter

The contestant who failed to win the Great Interior Design Challenge this week was accused (justly!) of clutter. She was a warm and enthusiastic person who, at the end of every programme wiped tears of emotion and exhaustion from her eyes with her paint-spattered fingers. I have sympathy with clutter, but not the random assortment of stuff that these contestants introduced into people's rooms. I'm a great one for clutter, you need only look at My Life in One Hundred Objects blog to see that I'm swimming in the stuff. BUT, mine is personal, things that are about the life I've lived; a clay figurine brought back from Spain when I was a child or a jigsaw from a holiday in Venice. The objects cover a long timespan, from my earliest childhood up to the present day.

 

Any flat surface in the house is an opportunity for the placing of objects - luckily our windowsills are deep!

I'm all for rooms evolving gradually over time, but I don't suppose that makes for good television.

The so-called 'experts' in the programme were very dubious about using strong colour in dark rooms. I tend to think that if a room is dark then why not stick with it, exploit the fact and make it richly dark. We've done that in several of the homes that we've lived in and have always been pleased with the result. Our small dining room is a case in point, painted a strong green to recall the felted walls of a Victorian gentleman's study.

 

Much of the furniture here is Victorian, the spoon-back chairs

and my grandmother's walnut veneer table.

Flowers always display well against the dark backdrop.

And a bit more clutter is lined up along the piano top.

There's a motley collection that includes a paper knife from Kenya, a perfume flask from Singapore and a wax red apple candle from New York. (Don't tell me that I should toughen up and start chucking stuff away!)

All that lot fits into our little cottage, pictured below.
Crowded, yes, but for me it makes a home.

I wish that Steve's Urban Cottage blog was still running, it was an inspiring example of creating a home  that was totally in sympathy with the building whilst still displaying great creativity and individuality. All the work was being done with such attention to detail that it left me awestruck. None of that knock it together in three days rubbish!

Interior Design

Do you talk to your television set? I do on occasion. Then Himself gets up and takes a book or the newspaper and goes into another room, shutting the door firmly behind him, so that he can read in peace. I don't so much talk to the t.v. as have a bit of a rant, "Oh, for goodness sake!" "What a mess!' and the like. At the moment I'm watching, 'The Great Interior Design Challenge'. Himself doesn't understand, since it offends me so, why I don't just switch off. But each programme deals with a different architectural style and period and the architectural historian, Tom Dyckhoff, demonstrates what is of particular interest in the different homes. The wide variety and the beauty of the buildings on this small island is fantastic. Last night's programme was of particular interest to me because it featured a street near to where I live. It is very special and one that I absolutely love, a medieval street adapted over the years to suit the changing patterns of living. I've never been inside any of the Vicars' Close houses so this was a chance to be nosey and take a peek.

Chimneys and windows added at a later stage to the medieval houses.

Contestants are given a budget and, following consultation with the owners, come up with and execute a decorative scheme for a room. Each night a contestant is eliminated from the competition. 

So, what is there to complain about? I hear you ask. Plenty! Storyboards are presented that give scant attention to the wishes of the clients and even less attention is given to the period of the property. 

Worst of all, and this is not the fault of the contestants but of the programme makers, they have only three days, yes,  THREE DAYS in which to  complete the challenge. This means that the work is rushed  and rather bodged. I feel so sorry for them as they are genuinely trying to do their best. It makes me wince. Why can't they have a week to complete their make-over  and the opportunity to do a half-decent job?

The clients always appear to be delighted with the finished result but I wouldn't let anyone anywhere near my home. They fill the rooms with random pieces that have no connection to the lived lives of the clients. I firmly believe that the things that you have around you need to have a relevance, that a room needs to develop gradually and not spring up fully formed down to the last fluffy cushion. I wonder how many of the rooms will be quietly stripped of all the gewgaws and redecorated once the show is over.

It's the final programme tonight. I'll be watching and no doubt complaining throughout. Himself will be fine - he's got a new book to read.

Guess who dropped in!

There's a small lake across the road from our house. (Americans would describe it as a pond.) Swans fly regularly overhead on their way to and from the lake and I love to see them and hear the sound of their wings slicing through the air. Until today we have never had a swan land in our garden. A friend was sitting on the sofa and she said, "a swan has just walked past the window!" We were discussing a surreal short story at the time but her statement seemed far more bizarre than the written story. We all got up to look and, sure enough, a swan was strolling about the garden.

It spent the whole morning with us, exploring the garden boundaries, presumably looking for a way out.

 

It didn't appear to be injured.

After several hours we became concerned that it didn't have enough space, a long enough runway, to be able to fly into the air. I looked up the telephone number for the RSPCA. It was the usual palaver, press one if the animal is stuck in a chimney, press two if.. and so on. I took another look in the garden while I waited to speak to a human

and the swan had gone.

Sunny Sunday

Sunny days have been rare. After a lazy time eating a St Valentine's meal and watching an afternoon film we were in need of some exercise. But in spite of the sun it was cold out so we wrapped up well and had just a short walk by the lake.

The woods have been thinned, with quite a lot of brash and debris on the ground

and the pathways are sloppy with all the rain.

But clumps of wild snowdrops are flowering and soon the shoots of bluebell leaves will carpet and beautify the woodland floor. Although it feels like the depths of winter there are signs of spring.

Snowdrops also decorate my garden borders.

The perennial borders don't look good at this time of year, although I've been tidying up, twiggy remnants of last year's growth remain and the beds look untidy.

But at least the topiary is improving - it might even look like a pheasant by the end of this year!

Even the slightest bit of sun lifts the temperature in the greenhouse

and the 'Blue Moon' peony is flowering beautifully.

But the oranges need far more sun before becoming orange!

5pm skywatch

In spite of a great many overhead wires, the sunset, seen from the garden, looked wonderful.

Time to walk across the road and look at the colours reflected in the lake.

I disturbed five mallard ducks on the banking and they flew out across the water making loud noises of protestation.

And then everywhere was silent. 

And cold!

For Skywatch Friday.

Out to lunch

We met friends for lunch yesterday at our local hotel. We hadn't seen each other for a while so there was plenty of catching up to do while we studied the menu. And there was so much choice - what to choose? The hotel has a twenty-five mile food policy and much of their produce is gathered from their own property; pigs, chickens and a deer herd are all made good use of, in addition to the large and very productive vegetable garden. My starter was venison black pudding, what a treat! For main I choose fish.

It was a lovely way to spend a cold February day. And it wasn't raining. That's right, IT WASN'T RAINING, so after a leisurely coffee we ventured out to see where our vegetables had been grown.

Everything was wonderfully ordered. We had a peep into the polytunnels to see what was shaping up.

Just as we arrived home the heavens opened and pelted us with enormous hailstones. We didn't care, we'd had a lovely time!
(Memo to self: must sort out my veg plot.)

A little more light

The neighbours' fir trees on our southern border have grown to a prodigious height, with even more growth still to come. Their trees have shaded our greenhouse completely in wintertime and severely reduced the efficiency of our solar panels. But at the weekend a team of men came and, braving wind and rain, climbed up, thinning out and removing any dead wood from the cedars. They also cut down three solid fir trees that were threatening the foundations of the dividing wall. It's great to have more light coming into the garden.

The cedars were not topped and they still create shade, but now some sun will be able to filter through. There was quite a storm last night, the wind rattling outside the house, but because the cedars had been thinned the wind can now travel through the branches so we didn't have to worry about them coming crashing down about our ears!

I'm itching to start work in the garden, there's a great deal of 'fettling up' to do. But the ground is waterlogged and the wind fierce so it will all have to wait for an improvement in the weather. (It looks quite green and pleasant in these photos but, believe me, it is anything but!)