Autumn Cottage Diarist

Root and Branch, Rock and Pot

It's been quite a week for parts of the Western World, hasn't it? and not one I have relished. Polarised opinions, anger and anxiety and that feeling - as I look into the future - of wondering what exactly will happen next?

When the pressures of the world weigh heavily on my shoulders, I turn to the natural world, and so it was today; I turned my back on the whole gamut of social media and the world of so many words which seem to ricochet around and sting right now, and took off - with my camera - to one of the places which truly does restore my soul.

The ancient ceremonial pathways and stone circle of Avebury henge have received humans for thousands of years - all seeking their own spiritual restoration and affirmation in one way or another. Today I walked those paths of the ancestors and they received me - on a dark, drizzling day with few other people around.

The stones were massive, lowering and grey - quite different to walking with them on a sunny summer's day - but they were good company. They just stood and listened - and I was restored, ready to face forward again, towards February 1st and Imbolc, the first festival of the Celtic year, a celebration of the first hopeful signs of spring.

Bring on the milk and fire of Brigid - the stones have got my back!

Exquisite decoration on a clay beaker - which may have been made like this....

In life...the tools used by Neolithic housekeepers

In death - fragmented bone cremains in a decorated urn

3000 years between them - two foci of spiritual sustenance - the Stone Circle and the Church

Facing forward towards Springtime - the lovely volunteers of the National Trust, grubbing out blighted Box Balls in preparation for the Mid-February re-opening of Avebury Manor. Doesn't that lovely smile cheer up the dreariest day?

 

Related articles

Again the Wheel Turns

It All Started with the Angels ...

Walking in (stone) circles: my modern-day pilgrimage to Stonehenge

Bitterly Cold, Beautifully Bright

The most intense coloured Dogwoods in the Winter Garden - Cornus sanguinea 'Anny's Winter Orange'

It's a hard-frost winter here at Autumn Cottage; no snow, but two weeks of bitter cold and sparkling white hoary nights. The watery sun - when it does come out -thaws where it touches, but parts of the garden here and in the countryside that don't see the sun have stayed frozen for days. Not a time to be digging in the garden here, doing the over-winter work that needs to be done before the rampaging spring shoots forth.

But it is still a good time to visit other gardens to gather ideas for 'Winter interest' - and also so clear the cobwebs from the soul, escaping that 'cabin fever' which drugs my mind at this point in January. So it was that we 'togged up' in thick winter coats, thin winter gloves (all the better to press the camera button, my dears!) and abundant winter scarves and set off, a couple of days ago, for yet another visit to our Happy Place - the Sir Harold Hillier Arboretum and Gardens. Their award winning Winter Garden is worth a visit in itself - particularly at this time of year, but actually at any time as the planting has been so skilful that there is always something of interest to see and be inspired by.

But the rest of the gardens are also exceptionally beautiful in their pared back winter state, the only time when the skeletons of the trees are visible, with their filigrees of branches each species with its own distinctive silhouette, and when the gnarled, peeling or brightly coloured barks of different trees come into their own. Oh, yes, the bark - an essay in itself.

Take a short walk around the gardens with me and join me in the appreciation of the variety of species and forms that we often do not notice when nature is clothed all in green-o!

Hellebores - always one of the first flowers to emerge

The birds were busily out and about...here a blackbird...

...there a Magpie

all sorts of beautiful barks - in all hues and textures... the contrasting rough and shiny surface of Prunus...

The white bark of Betula jacquemontii as a background to Cornus serica

(Not strictly bark!) - The vivid yellow shoots of the bamboo Phyllostachys vivax 'Aureocaulis'

Stupendous Metasequoia with minute yellow Aconites just pushing through at its base

Important winter protection - here Delphiniums are protected (from slugs) when they emerge, by four inches of grit...

 ...while tender Cannas are cosy under a foot of bark

The frost in shaded corners can still create beauty - here, a memorial seat to a murdered girl -

surrounded by ethereal, rustling grasses and looking down to...

...the Pond - which, down in the valley  has clearly seen little sun for days...

but looking  out and looking  up - there is always some blue sky to to be found

on this bitterly cold but beautifully bright winter's day

 

Treasure in the Town!

Gloom in the January cottage garden

'Blue Monday' is not a single day on the New Year's calendar for me - steely blue has been the actual colour of the skies here for several days after the Midwinter Solstice/Yule/Christmas festivities were over this year. They have been the battleship grey days of Northern European Januaries which I have always felt to have to be endured rather than enjoyed. It's unsurprising to me that the mid-winter festivals are festivals of lights and fires, for it is these reds, yellows and golds that chase away the blues, and it is to seeking light and fire that I often turn to lift my own spirits at this time.

The blue-grey fug descended particularly heavily at the end of last week - nothing had lifted it by midday in Autumn Cottage.  The fire was not yet lit, the rain was pouring down, the ground was sodden.  Sacks of discarded clothes cluttered the corridor (part of the other favourite January 'tradition' of de-cluttering the cupboards!)

In the end we gave in and fled the gloom, driving the 10 minutes into town where we spent a happy hour, window shopping in expensive shops (fainting at the price of £65.00 for a Ralph Lauren plain navy wool scarf !!)  and shopping in actuality in some of the numerous charity shops with which most towns now seem to be adorned (a measure of our relative prosperity, though, that we have so much to throw and give away)

I am already an afficionado of most of those shops in Newbury, but the occasional surprise occurs, as they open and close unexpectedly, on short leases. And so it was that on Saturday I found  a new arrival; inside I found some lovely treasures - in the town but also of the town - these six pieces of Royal Commemorative ware, of which I already have a small collection.

They are all in very good condition (just a couple of hairline cracks in one piece) and two, in addition to the enamelled decoration on the fronts depicting various Coronations and  Jubilees, also bear the colourful arms of the town of Newbury on the back. They were all purchased for under a couple of pounds each.

Commemoration of the ending of World War 1

Jubilee! 60 Glorious Years of Queen Victoria's reign.

The second charity shop treasures came in the form of a children's art book and game; under one UK pound each and both very usable resources for writing class exercises. (Charity shops are a huge fund of ideas and items for anyone who practices any of the expressive arts therapies).

The afternoon was rounded off in my favourite coffee shop...

...favourite because it is next to the old town bridge over the Kennet and Avon Canal where the watching of passing pleasures include canal boats in the summer and Swan and wildfowl all year round. A cappuccino coffee (one shot with soya milk, not dairy) and the Naughtiest Choc-chip Muffin on the Planet did wonders to finally restore my morale, from which enthusiasm to return home and light-the-lights returned. January didn't seem anything like as bleak as it had just a few hours before!

A new garland of green and gold - the colours of Autumn Cottage, brightening the dresser at any time of the year.