Autumn Cottage Diarist

The Dream Scheme

As well as living in Autumn Cottage, I've run a number of therapeutic writing workshops here over the last few years. For a variety of reasons, 2012 was quiet in that respect, but I am, at present, creating a schedule of workshops to run again in 2013. Though they are mainly journal-writing based in essence, I do also include some expressive arts - up to now mostly collage and free sketching, but this year I will also include simple book making, to incorporate in a series of wildlife/writing walks through the year in my local woodland.

So you can imagine how delicious I found this blog post to be, and how much it feeds my fantasies of my 'Dream' lifestyle.This young woman, Rachel Hazell, has been teaching book-making workshops in '12 interesting places' - one each month of 2012. You can imagine further, knowing my passion for Venice, that the super dream workshop is the one she describes here, teaching her art to a group of participants in that irresistible city. (Her photographs can be found here on a separate blog).

I have twice rented an apartment in Venice for personal visits (here, for those of you who have not read about it, is the story of my first adventure there…) - but the apartment in question really only sleeps two (four at a stretch - or should that be a squash?!). To be able to run one of my workshops there, I would need a bigger venue - and I am not sure I could go with one up ninety-odd steps, as Rachel seems to have done.

But on a snowy day, when I have cabin fever, a raging case of household attention deficit, and a longing for another adventure, her blogs are the perfect place to browse and dream, and maybe plan and plot a bit more practically than *just* dreaming of castles (or workshops) in the air. Is there anyone out there, reading from La Serenissima, with space to accommodate a week's journaling workshop in Venice for eight? (And in the meantime - I'll be in Lisbon soon - I wonder where we could park our pens and paper in THAT beautiful and fascinating city??)

The Bread Queue

Fairly heavy snow here - just outside Newbury - so the morning bird feeding session will be repeated on at least a couple of occasions today. I feed the birds all round the year; in the summer, they come down when they feel like it - today, they are queuing up. The cherry tree in front of the conservatory is full of those who are waiting and hoping...it looks as if the Thrush is also looking - intently - for any movement inside!

At each session, this is what will go out...a mixture of diced bread (mostly wholemeal, but whatever other scraps may be about) - grated cheese, black sunflower seeds, diced apples and a dish of seed for the pheasants and other seed eaters.

Hope everyone is doing their bit to keep our fellow creatures going through this cold snap - and don't forget the water. (Off to do that now...)

Oh my, I do Love Stanley!

My untidy kitchen would not feature in the 'Home' pages of an interiors magazine, but when there is a hard frost outside, one installation in the kitchen with which I am totally in love is the Stanley cooker.

Now Stan is not without his faults - although I call him 'the cooker' this is one thing which he has actually not done for a while (there's a problem with the internal baffles which break up when constantly flapped to and fro to set the cooker for cooking - and I fear getting them fixed at the moment, as the last time that I did, the cooker was out of action for a year!). But besides cooking, Stan runs the heating for this end of the house and oh, the benefits and bonuses he brings as a result. Here are some of the multiple ways in which I am grateful for his good services when it is Brass Monkey weather outside.

*Everything* in proximity to Stan gets warmed through; see that pile of gardening gloves? Just heaven to put a pair of those on when I have to go out to feed the birds or fetch in the coal. The basket? Full of a broken up fence, drying out to make wonderful kindling. The silver foil - just washed (yes, I DO re-use cooking foil unless it is sticky or otherwise unpleasant) - how else does one dry the stuff? A saucepan with burned remnants in the bottom? No problem for Stan - a drop of washing up liquid in the bottom of the pot, filled with *cold* water and left overnight on the simmer hotplate - next morning sees all the burned bits floating freely in the water - no scrubbing needed.

Teatowels and washcloths? All dried rapidly - much better than sitting around damp and cultivating bacteria. Metalwares? Again, a spell on Stan sees them dried off completely before being put away (carbon steel knives rust easily - but not if they've spent time with Stanley!). Delicate items such as glass and china can dry in peace. Jugs of sauce or gravy keep at just the right temperature and there's always a kettle of hot water for free. Inside the oven - more kindling drying slowly, plates warming, food kept hot, and jam-jars heating through when I make preserves. Isn't he just wonderful?

Three cheers for Stan - well, two and a half until I can cook on him again - but even so, he's on duty 24 hours a day, acts as a comforting presence and the heart of the kitchen - and, his most endearing  attribute of all? - he's the best bottie warmer in the world!!!

Turn Out Drawers, Turn Up Stories

 

Putting away the last of the Christmas decorations and cleaning up rooms where Christmas was mostly spent, I found myself doing today what usually happens at this time of the year. I ended up making more work for myself by turning out drawers and cupboards in order to both discard unwanted items but also make room for things I do now want to keep. Today I took on the drawers from a particular desk, including all the little 'hidey- hole' ones and the (not so) secret compartments into which all sorts of garbage had been stuffed over the years. How come I have not tackled this before? Well, there are certain items that look insignificant but that hold great power, and it is only now that enough time has passed after which some of them can be contemplated, decided upon, kept or discarded. I suspect you all know what I mean.

For instance, how the flood of memories surges forth from a tattered 1999 'Hawkins' mail-order catalogue, from which the boy's Christmas stockings were always filled with a marvellous miscellany of gadgetry, wizardry and silliness; and here is a drawer full of the board games over which we have shouted with enthusiasm and hooted with laughter through many Christmas nights. There, just a single page from a letter from Mother in Law, requiring - nay, demanding - that some particular attention should be paid to a particularly unwanted task (leaving her voice reverberating in my ear, even though I have not heard it in actuality for several years now and her mortal remains were laid to rest months ago. Not so the remains of her imperious voice, which will, I am sure, reverberate down the ages!)

There's the fascinatingly antiquated little calculator used by the boys in school - only a couple of decades old, already consigned to history, but conjuring up so many memories of homework tussles between us. Less welcome, and certainly less amusing, the dark power of an insignificant little penknife, powerfully eliciting unhappy but very real memories. They are all part of our stories - they are all part of us.

On first opening the drawer, all I saw was, quite frankly, a pile of junk to be discarded, but as I sifted through, the items prompted the stories and the stories are what I call the *REAL* Family Treasure - the strung-together Pearls of Memory. For each of us, these unique combinations of memories are treasures which can never be repeated, never be replaced. All the material items bring to life stories, and stories in turn give substance to people and events. Recalling our stories, Re-membering ourselves with both our own stories and with those of others who interlace them, binds us all together in the ongoing community of the living and the passed. Our stories remind us of who we are and help us decide who we want to be.

For some wonderful examples - and a fascinating read - of over 30 essays on how 'things make people' as much as people make things, I highly recommend one of the books on my Christmas list (which turned up in my Christmas stocking!) 'Evocative Objects - Things we think with', edited and with an Introduction by Sherry Turkle, ( MIT Press, 2011 (paperback)). Could 2013 be a year when some of you start to note down fragments of your own stories? Why not turn out just a small drawer to start the ball rolling? Yes - it's OK to start and stop the clean-out in order to note down your memories, and one thing I promise you - you will ALL find at least one item of treasure when you thought there was only junk. And when you come across that Evocative Object - why not come back here and tell me the story?

(Speaking of stories… We had our monthly supervision meeting last night at the local branch of the national bereavement charity for which I do voluntary bereavement support. My supervisor there has just been bereaved of his own dear father, at the grand age of 95. This is the fact - but he then recounted how his Dad was actually one of the last people to remember meeting Beatrix Potter, as he had worked for her husband, Mr. Heelis - and is mentioned by name in one scene of the film 'Miss Potter' - listen out for 'George' to be thanked for bringing the documents, as she signs the deeds for one of her farms. Now that's what I call a story - I hope J has jotted it down!)

 

Quick and Dirty in the Herb Garden

A somewhat dishevelled and rather empty veg/herb garden

Temperatures here more akin to early April than to the first week in January, when, for the last few years we have floundered under a layer of ice and snow rather than this balmy air. So a few hours in the garden were not to be resisted, and as a result - though I am a bit stiff and achey, my spirits have been lifted way out of any possible post Christmas gloom.

Those springy bins mean business! Three of them filled from weeding today.

I've been clearing and cleaning in the herb garden - where it is only just dry enough (after our second wettest year on record in the UK) to dig at all, even then only with a claw, and with resultant anointing with a good deal of black soil however many layers of gloves I wear. Its all worth it, though, to see shoots pushing through everywhere - shoots still only visible if you get right down there with fingers in the earth, but then you do get the reward of seeing - and knowing - that nothing is really sleeping, just busy below ground level with tremendous activity which is getting ready to burst forth in the next few months.

Here are a series of 'quick and dirty' images to show you what I have been doing today - not beautiful in a picture book way, but beautiful as a record of Gaia about Her business. Even in its less flamboyant phase, the natural world is always beautiful.

The dreaded couch grass rootrun tangles. It blows in from the surrounding fields and is never really completely eradicated here.

A little bit clearer after a good riddling with the garden claw

Old bits of carpet - wonderfully useful stuff in the garden, protecting the veg box from further weed seeds (and little 'offerings' from Pip!)

Next in line for a clean and tidying - the herb wheel (with fennel already sending out new fronds in the centre)

A joyous sight in midwinter - a waterfall of winter flowring Jasmine - spring is on the way!

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Brilliance in the Gathering Gloom

Happy Hour in Hungerford

...and not a drop of alcohol in sight!

I've been 'running away' to the  Antiques Arcade in Hungerford for well over twenty five years now. It's about twenty minutes drive from Autumn Cottage, and I always travel along the back roads, through beautiful countryside, via the village of Kintbury. Along with car boot sales, auction rooms and junk shops, I've visited many antiques emporia in my time, but I can honestly say that I still find the Arcade in Hungerford one of the nicest places to visit - and I'm not alone here, as it was voted 'Best Antiques Arcade of 2012' by readers of the BBC 'Homes and Antiques' magazine (see link below).

I still find, after all these years, that there is always a great deal to attract my attention. I learn a huge amount by just wandering around and looking, but there is also great diversity in the different units - really, there *is* something for everyone in the variety of items for sale. Every pocket is accommodated - I regularly find charming items for a pound or so in the Junk Shop, while other units offer more sophisticated and valuable antiques on which one could spend many thousands (if the pockets were deep enough!) - with very much available at all points in between.

A stack of interesting prints - for one pound each - dating from about 1880 (using the costumes depicted as a clue). In Martin Smith's 'Countryside Books' unit - my dear friend, bookdealer and maker of adventures!

Added to all these enticements, one of the most important features of the Arcade - in my book at least - is the welcome which I have always had there. The staff (especially Doug and Gail on the front desk) are unfailingly pleasant and polite, whether I'm spending one or many more pounds, and nothing is too much trouble for them. This makes a difference! and certainly ensures that I, along with all the others who voted for the Arcade, will continue visiting for many years to come. (Perhaps the only thing that they may consider offering which is not available at the moment is a self-storage rental facility for all the treasures that we visitors continue to find there!!)

NO affiliation to the Arcade, by the way - just gratitude for a welcoming smile and treasure around every corner. Lucky I am to have it almost on my doorstep. For those of you who are not so fortunate, here are just a few glimpses of what one of my favourite places to lift the spirits has in every nook and cranny - and below, an antique print mystery solved courtesy of a magnifying glass and Google!

The clue to the location of at least one of the prints from Martin - the timber framed building on the left of the picture above bears the name of the 'Falcon Tavern' and below it, a street name 'Scholars Lane'. I popped both of them into Google and hey, presto - this is almost certainly a street in Stratford Upon Avon! How could the print producers ever have guessed that such technology would help me to track down their image location?

Rescuing Poorly Plants in Penwood!

Continuing to carry out my Services to Poorly Plants (or those that have flowered, failed, died back or whatever) by rescuing several Kalanchoe from the local Homebase store, where they were being sold off for 10% of their original price. As you can see, they are (only slightly) past their best, but even when the flowers have gone, this plant will give long term glossy leaved pleasure in the winter conservatory.

 
I get a lot of fun by rescuing plants (which are sometimes of poor quality and overpriced in general DIY stores) and will happily purchase those that look as if they have seen far better days. It is a challenge that I enjoy to resuscitate them, and is often a case of just giving them some TLC: Fresh air (if they have been crammed together) - light, water - and sometimes a severe 'haircut'. I have been rewarded with some miraculous revivals - and a conservatory and garden full of some choice plants as a result - it's always worth giving them a chance.

The provoso is that I will also willingly pay the asking price for good plants from a nursery where I am also paying for horticultural knowledge, advice, and knowing that the plants have been properly cared for. (I realise as I am writing this that I see plants very much as I see animals - with the same needs, and the same requirement for rescue and nurturing if circumstances dictate it!).

I am blessed with a fine example of  caring and knowledgeable plantsmen (and women) at the local Penwood Nursery, very near to me, very trustworthy and taking such good care of their plants. I never look for 'Sale' tables there - they never have them. They don't need to - all their plants are of wonderful quality and value already, and always come with good advice and information on the needs of the plants. Even with all those extras, am astonished at how often their prices are considerably LOWER than the superstores. I respect them and their work, and I'll always pay full price for that!

And now - back to the tapas table. Margaret, Jamie, Fran, Brigitte - you are all very clever!  From the back row...curried potato salad, olives (kalamata & green garlic-stuffed), chipolata sausages in fig & balsamic vinegar chutney, sun-dried tomatoes, (second row) - squid in oil, smoked oysters, mackerel fillets in tomato sauce, king prawns in sweet chili sauce, smoked salmon pate & pimento on sunflower bread, (front row) - veggie stuffed mushrooms in garlic butter, grilled courgettes (zucchini) & tortellini. Many of them prepared in advance, everything easy, and all a happy reminder of days in Lisboa!

Mmm - feeling quite hungry now - I feel a stuffed mushroom or two coming on - see you on the weekend, mes amis!!

In with the New!

So here we are…at home in Autumn Cottage on the first day of a New Year, and however few of them finally come to fruition, I join the rest of the world, it seems, in affirming goals (never 'resolutions') towards which I want to move in the coming 365 days.

One of the first will be to rescue and then restore the poor old summerhouse in the garden, which has been severely soaked and battered by wind and rain throughout the summer, recently losing its roofing felt and now looking a sorry ruin. Only one way to go from here, which is upwards! Look out for progress as I get to work down there by the pond - and pray for a respite from the 9 months of rain we have had throughout 2012!

To see the Old Year out, here is the visible evidence of something which is becoming our own family New Year tradition - a tapas table, from which we can 'pick and dip' all through the evening as we either play family board games, or (if 'family' are all out partying - as they were last night!) sit and watch some particularly favoured films and enjoy some particularly favoured good wines.

I'll list all the dishes here in my next post - but for now, are there any that you can recognise?