More grey!

A very funny article was in the Guardian newspaper the other week, poking fun at the pretensions of the interior design squad and the names that paint manufacturers come up with.

I laughed out loud at some of the paint can labels on the accompanying illustration. 'Deepest ennui' was my favourite. But I'm a fan of grey paint, we use clay paint on the old, uneven walls of our cottage, it's odour free, thick and creamy and covers well. I had a look at the colour card to see what our choice of grey is called - 'Eyebright'.  We've painted our study walls with it and from the state of the room I think it should be called, 'Dog's Dinner.' My friend Janet (a Liverpool Art School gal) is a real colour queen and gives her own names to various colours. One example is, 'knicker pink'!

Here's 'Eyebright' looking very restful in one of our bedrooms.

It's grey outside. The 'St Patrick's Day' daffodils beneath the fruit trees have yet to flower although St Patrick's Day has been and gone.

The frost has cracked some of the terracotta pots.

I've had to repot the auricles AGAIN because vine weevils have been munching away at the roots. All the pots were scrubbed clean and a fresh mix of soil used. I'm left with about a hundred plants but quite a few of my collection were beyond saving.

But in spite of the weather the garden is slowly coming to life.

There will soon be a picking of rhubarb

And my favourite camellia is flowering, a little scorched by the east wind, but still beautiful.

I picked a few blooms for the house.

And bought some roses from the shop for company.

Grey skies

I'm sorry Skywatchers, but sometimes here in Blighty there's nothing to see but a big grey sky, flat, dull and cold.

I searched for a flight of birds, any sort of action to provide a bit of lift. 

Nada.

Mist and morning frost.

No gardening for me today.

There's nothing much left to eat from the veg garden, just a couple of rows of parsnip and leeks. I've been turning over the ground and the frost will break the soil nicely but it will have to warm up considerably before I can plant. 

For now it's just a waiting game. 

Seed swapping!

Yesterday I went to the local seed swap armed with those little containers for toiletries that you are given in hotels. I'd filled them with seeds gathered from the garden last year and I swapped them for the seed packets above, (apart from the 'Blue Ballet' squash and 'Cobra' climbing bean, which I bought.)

The swap has been running for several years now and is a popular event. I also potted up a few aquilegia plants to swap, seen in the left hand corner of the photo. They self-seed very freely about my garden, slugs and snails never eat them so they are on my 'good-doers' list.

Apparently it's the International Year of Pulses - who knew!

This selling stall was very well stocked with organic seeds and the owner gave me good advice. "NEVER,' she said, 'grow more than one variety of squash at any one time.' Is this where I've been going wrong? She recommended  the variety, 'Blue Ballet', a small-sized squash, as being a good cropper in our unreliable climate. 'Don't waste your time growing butternut,' she advised, 'they need far more heat than we can give them and they are cheap enough to buy in the shops.' I've had good results from her seeds before so I'm doing as I'm told. (Doesn't always happen, says Himself.)

 

I was also on the lookout for a different potato variety. There was a good choice to be had.

All clearly labeled.

This was my choice. Very small tubers, we'll see how they do.

It's great to get advice from experts and mix with fellow enthusiasts, not to mention the opportunity to  find heritage seed and also to save some money!

The Great Outdoors - Andelli Art

It's March, spring is officially here. 

REALLY?

for Skywatch Friday.

"Oh the weather is something frightful' as the song goes, but this show of the great outdoors was delightful. We battled the elements this evening and drove across the Mendips to attend the preview.

Himself was well wrapped up in his old winter coat (and I mean OLD - it used to belong to his father) and his Dr Who scarf,

the nibbles were delicious

the conversation lively.

Really, so big?

And there was some very covetable art on the walls.

This was my favourite exhibit, very poorly reproduced here, my photograph not doing the work proper justice.

You can see why I love this watercolour by Simon Palmer, it reminds me so much of the countryside of  my childhood. Here's a photo of a similar barn in the dale where my parents lived.

Then we drove home through a blizzard.
Ah, the great outdoors!

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.