This new year’s post takes the form of a pictorial paen to ‘my’ beach: the beach that I am so lucky to have just a few moments’ walk from our house; the beach where I walk at least once every day, usually with dogs and young daughter and – if I’m lucky – my husband in tow; the beach that is transformed by huge tides several times a day, and which, beyond that, looks and feels at once different yet familiar every single day of the year.  When the tide is up, there are pebbles and deep water: brimming and inviting in summer, often tossing and turbulent in winter, but always beautiful, and infinitely inspiring. And at low tide, there are vast empty expanses of sand, etched into by a tracery of old and new breakwaters, and often dyed shades of glowing pink and orange by the setting sun.  It never looks more beautiful than beneath the light of a full moon, which rises magically out of the water to hang low, throwing a path of light across the water before heaving itself high into the sky and slowly over the sea wall to the other side of the house by morning.  This beach is the main element that drew us to this place: it was like falling in love.  When we were down only at weekends, it kept a constant place in my mind: cycling along the Thames during the week, I’d see the water levels low, and imagine the tide way way out; hearing a seagull call while working at my desk, I’d wonder if it was stormy at sea, to bring it so far from home.  Now we live down here all the time, I still can’t quite get used to the wonderful privilege of having this incredible landscape so close to home.  It forms the backdrop to my days: always there for a blustery walk – or swim in summer – that can blow the cobwebs of inertia or blackness of any bad mood away; and at night, the lullaby that lulls me to sleep and accompanies my dreams.  I know how lucky I am. I know that I might not always have the sea so close. So today, I am saying thank you.  And as a way of doing that, I want to share some photographs, all taken over the past two or three days of cold weather, clear skies, and a curious bank of billowing clouds that has lingered along the horizon. I hope you will like them.

It also seems a good moment to share the words of Thomas A Clark’s ‘Twenty Blessings’, which I was looking for to include in my last post, and which a kind reader supplied a few days ago (thank you so much, Arusa).  I thought about the last two lines – which never fail to thrill me – as I walked along the beach beneath the light of that wonderful full moon on New Year’s Eve (a magical  ’Blue Moon’, the second full moon in a month) and contemplated the passing of the last year and the beginning of a very welcome new one.  May you take from it what you need to bless your new year, too.

As the sun set on the last day of 2009, I felt lost for words to sum up this year, so was searching for a poem or blessing on which to end this post. What I was looking for was the wonderful Celtic Blessing by the Scottish artist and poet Thomas A Clark, which my mother read at my wedding, but I can’t find it down here at the seaside, so that will have to wait for another time.  The nearest that comes to me is this beautiful poem by another  Celt, John O’Donohue, which I found over at my friend Justine Picardie’s literary blog here.  At once sombre and uplifting, it seems to strike the right note for me now…

BLESSING

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

A very happy and peaceful 2010 to everyone.

x Elspeth

As so often happens in wonderful Blogland, a kind reader (see below) has supplied me with the words for Thomas A Clark’s Twenty Blessings, adapted from the original Celtic. I do hope you like it. The last two lines always make my heart beat faster, and seem perfect for a new year.

And a thousand thanks to ‘Arusa’

x Elspeth

TWENTY BLESSINGS
May the best hour of the day be yours.
May luck go with you from hill to sea.
May you stand against the prevailing wind.
May no forest intimidate you.
May you look out from your own eyes.
May near and far attend you.
May you bathe your face in the sun’s rays.
May you have milk, cream, substance.
May your actions be effective.
May your thoughts be affective.
May you will both the wild and the mild.
May you sing the lark from the sky.
May you place yourself in circumstance.
May you be surrounded by goldfinches.
May you pause among alders.
May your desire be infinite.
May what you touch be touched.
May the company be less for your leaving.
May you walk alone beneath the stars.
May your embers still glow in the morning.

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, more photographs, journalism and other writing on gardens, interiors, green issues and design – plus information on my current and past books, please visit my website.

I’d fully intended to do an atmospheric Solstice post, but we got waylaid by snow and black ice and ended up staying over in London – which was lovely, but means I am now in a flurry of mince-pie and stuffing making in preparation for my extended family arriving here for Christmas in just a day or two’s time.  So there is just enough time to put up a some photographs of a few more of the homespun decorations that Mary and I made a few weeks ago. The rings of rosehips turned out nicely, and I’m particularly pleased with the little rosemary wreaths, which also smell amazing.  They really couldn’t be simpler to make – just rosehips strung on florists’ wire and bound with a bow, and rosemary twisted into a wreath with fine red ribbon (again fastened with florists’ wire).

Oh – and there were also some pine cones strung up Shaker-style with twine and red and white checked ribbon… (inspired by some I saw in a shop in Lewes last month)…

And in the porch we have a pretty arrangement of lichen-clad twigs with glass night light holders and beautiful painted glass birds from Cox and Cox.

So it is feeling very Christmassy here, as I embark on my couple of days of cooking and preparing.  And in case you think it is looking too tasteful, let me assure you that Mary’s own little tree (a tiny potted one I bought her when she was two and which we have kept going with the minimum of watering and pruning outside ever since) is hardly visible beneath its annual cloak of tinsel and other gaudy decorations. (I will try to do a photo).

Looking back on last year’s post at this time of year, I can’t help but notice how much more full and lived in the place looks – which can’t be a bad thing, much though I love that wide uncluttered floor….   And I love it that the same old things come out to play a part in our Christmas, year in and year out – the little wooden candle carousel, the painted Father Christmas from Russia, the handsewn tree decorations my mother made….

Have a wonderful Christmas and all good wishes for 2010.

xx

We’re getting Christmassy around here. The tree is up, and the kitchen dresser festooned with the delicate little garlands we’ve been making using gatherings from the garden.

Inspired by my friend Francine Raymond, who runs a fantastic annual course on Christmas cookery and natural decorations from her cottage in Suffolk (and whose excellent Blog can be found at www.kitchen-garden-hens.co.uk), I have been squirrelling away interesting seedheads, spraying some silver and letting others retain their natural colours, and stringing them on to silver thread.  I have to say that  I’m really pleased with the result.

This detail shows how we used the red and yellow cherry leaves we gathered and dried a few weeks ago: to stick around recycled glass jars, with a bit of silver thread wound round to decorate and keep everything in place.  Night light holders!  When lit, the colours of the leaves glow beautifully.

Painting of a black bowl one of my favourite possessions, by my friend Michael Clark (shame it is obscured by the seedheads – perhaps I should do a new photo).

On the health and safety side, I’d say don’t allow the leaves to poke up beyond the rim of the jar (trim from the base if necessary, as I’ve done here), place on a small tile or plate when lit, and never leave unattended.  (Well, you never know….)

More details: cyclamen in black and white spotted jug; ‘Faith’ card from the brilliant Ed Ruscha exhibition which I think is still on at the Hayward Gallery in London; hyacinths planted up in old mugs (I often do this as presents, using new mugs that can be washed and used after the flowers are over); lustre vases and night light holders from Cox & Cox; homemade cards by ingenious friends.

On this one, you can see some of the individual seedheads more clearly:sea kale sprayed silver, black privet berries, Chinese lantern, old man’s beard – and a sprayed eryingium head lying on the shelf.  We also made tree decorations using rosehips threaded on garden wire, rosemary and red ribbon, teasels, bay leaves and more… Oh – and the porch is full of pretty glass birds perched on lichen-covered twigs…  But I’ll save all that for another post next week.  In the meantime, there will be more photographs of my home decorated for Christmas in The Sunday Telegraph this coming weekend.  Have a happy Christmassy week….

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into a eco-home; more photographs; some of my writing on gardening and other subjects; and information on current and past books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/11-december-2009/feed/ 16 elspeththompson DSC_0918 DSC_0925 DSC_0922 DSC_0911 DSC_0871 DSC_0917 DSC_0912 DSC_0913 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/24-november-2009/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/24-november-2009/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:13:41 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=1037 ]]>

The house is rather untidy at the moment, and the garden forlorn, with the leaves all buffetted off the trees, so there are few photographs I want to take.  This quiet corner is giving me moments of real pleasure, however, as is the woodburner, with its new log basket (an old wicker laundry bin on wheels that can be trundled to the door to be filled and back again) and lovely French coal bucket.

The basket and bucket are a huge improvement on last year’s rough and ready pile. How do the occupants of all those houses in design magazines keep their log piles looking so immaculate? Do they have someone cutting the logs all to the same length and use Velcro to stop the pile collapsing when the top log is taken off? Or is the ‘real’ pile round the corner out of view?  In front of the fire is the place to be on evenings like this (and we have had quite a few of them recently) when it’s dark by 4.30 with a gale blowing outside.  Walks on the beach are an exhilarating affair, with sand blown in miniature tornados along the beach and the waves with white horses even at low tide.

It’s time to hunker down at home and begin slowly preparing for Christmas, which we are hosting here at the railway carriage house for the first time.  Mary and I have been collecting materials for homemade decorations….

(good job we got the leaves in for pressing before the high winds began)… and planting ‘Paperwhite’ narciss on pebbles in glass bowls.

The first starry white flowers are already in bloom, filling the entire house with their scent.

Looking at last year’s post from this time of year, we were doing just the same – it is interesting for me to see how much more inhabited (or do I mean untidy?)  the house feels now. It’s taken a while, but it really feels like home.

For background on our project to turn two old Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, more photographs, my garden writing and other journalism, plus information on my past and current books, please visit my website.

The pumpkins in the last post have been carved into lanterns and lit and are now gently rotting away on the doorstep.  We’ve had another beautiful full moon on the beach, and spending a little too long down there beneath its glow may have contributed to the ‘flu that has kept me in bed for much of the week.  But it was worth it…..

We have also been to Amsterdam, where we enjoyed a very pleasant few days exploring the canals, looking at paintings, buying bulbs and eating cakes….

The Dutch, like the English are a true nation of gardeners, and I was particularly intrigued by the little strips of garden on and around the houseboats and in front of the tall narrow houses….

… and the way in which they take absolutely every opportunity to green their beautiful city….

One of the best things about the trip is that we stayed with one of ‘our’ puppies. Here is the gorgeous Fritsje, who has landed on her feet and is now living on this beautiful houseboat with her adoring owner.

To see the puppies a year ago, have a look back here – I think she is the small sweet-faced one at the front of the group and shot (not for nothing did Mary name her Little Sweet), but they all looked so similar back then…. How very very differently they have grown up – Tinker here seems to get hairier by the day!

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home; more photographs, garden writing, other journalism and information on my past and current books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/8-november-2009/feed/ 6 elspeththompson DSC_0689 _DSC0709 DSC_0712 DSC_0431 DSC_0537 DSC_0413 DSC_0513 DSC_0685 _DSC0437 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/28-october-2009/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/28-october-2009/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:56:59 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=999 ]]>

A very busy week, filled with unexpected sunshine and lovely visitors – and we are off to Amsterdam for a few days now… so I shall just wish you a very happy Hallowe’en and All Souls’ Day….

… with these pictures of pumpkins raised from seed from last year’s crop.

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more photographs, my garden writing and other journalism, and information on my books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/28-october-2009/feed/ 4 elspeththompson DSC_0338 DSC_0335 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/16-october-2009/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/16-october-2009/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 05:57:41 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=977 ]]>

No more seals since my last post, and though I ventured into the sea at the weekend, I think my swimming days may be over for this year.  The dogs and I are enjoying long morning walks in the last-gasp sunshine of this glorious Indian summer.

I’ve loved seeing the leaves begin to turn colour, and have started to collect sloes for  gin and rosehips for syrup….

Actually, most of the above came from a massive garden tidy-up I’m engaged in.  The hedge along the roadside boundary had become congested, with a lot of dead wood in amongst the roses, hawthorn, guelder rose and hazel I’d planted four or five years ago. Over the years we’d been immersed in planning and building work, the ground at the base of the hedge had become so covered with brambles, nettles and remains of cow parsley that it was difficult to get in there to prune, so a major operation has taken place which means we are temporarily a lot less private, but a lot more tidy. There’s also room for me to plant lots of daffodils along the boundary (I love the white ones like old-fashioned ‘Pheasant’s Eye’ with its small orange corona) and put in a few more bare-rooted native hedging plants to fill up the gaps.  And the more tangible fruits of my activity were several kilos of rosehips to crush, boil up with sugar and strain into bottles.

Even after that, there were still plenty left for the birds. The starlings are gathering in long long lines on the telegraph wires, and the air is filled with their chattering.  Meanwhile, in the rest of the garden, it’s time to take stock, tidy up and embark on plans for a path between the two long borders beneath the pergola – and the large pond I envisage at the end.  It’s an ambitious plan, but I’m looking forward to putting it into action.  Here’s the view at present, so you can see there’s a lot to do (in fact, the borders have already been cleared and dug over, but I didn’t have the camera with me…)

I feel a bit embarrassed sharing that messy photograph with you, but it’s important to have the starting point in mind! And here are some lovely ones of the rest of the garden, including our little ornamental veg patch in it’s unruly late-summer splendour.

It’s been a good first year, with huge crops of salad leaves, spring onions, radishes, carrots, spinach, french and runner beans and more courgettes than I knew what do do with – the larder shelves are groaning with courgette, onion and dill pickle (fab recipe in my Weekend Book). The main mistake, apart from not quite getting the successional sowing right, was to put out the purple sprouting broccoli plants without protection. Inspired by a local friend who had some gorgeous plants interspersed among his front garden borders last winter, I popped in a seedling at the centre of each of the raised beds early in the summer. All went well until I noticed the pretty white buttlerflies flitting about the garden. It has been a good summer for butterflies in general, and cabbage whites are no exception. In a week or two the plants were so covered in caterpillars that, despite our best efforts out picking every morning, Mary and I were unable to keep up with their disposal. The result is leaves so riddled with holes they look like green paper doilies.  Ugly though they look, I’m reluctant to lose the plants, as I love purple sprouting broccoli so much – it perks me up through those January and February months when there is precious little else to pick. So I’m leaving it in the hope that once the butterflies are gone it will recover. I think there’s just enough leaf left…  And next year I shall have to resort to nets.

The other notable harvests have been the pumpkins: three large ones like the above, and one small, which will soon be gracing the front steps of the house, and the grapes…

Not enough for wine-making yet, but next year, when I’ve been able to train them properly over the new pergola – who knows?  As we gathered up some fruits of the garden for Mary’s harvest festival at school (note how I am fobbing off courgettes on the needy), I reflected that it has been a good harvest this year – of all sorts of intangible things, too.

Though my mother’s death in the summer is still the source of inestimable sadness, it has been a fruitful year in other ways. The house is in order, the puppies are grown and happy with their new owners, Mary is thriving at school, and we have begun to put down roots – both physical and emotional – in our new surroundings.  So my heart is full of gratitude this autumn.

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, more photographs, garden writing, other journalism and information on my past and current books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/16-october-2009/feed/ 13 elspeththompson DSC_0195 DSC_0168 DSC_0667 DSC_0669 DSC_0252 DSC_0123 DSC_0128 DSC_0005 DSC_0134 618 DSC_0720 _DSC1559 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/4-october-2009/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/4-october-2009/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:01:13 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=968 ]]>

The camera is working again!   But before I get sorted with my own photographs, I have to share with you these few that my father has just sent me.  Last week when he came to stay we took the dogs out for a long walk as we often do, and stopped for me to have a swim, as the tide was right and the sea a gorgeous calm and unrippled blue, the like of which I thought I might not see again this year.  Swimming in it was utter bliss, with seagulls wheeling in clear sky above and the water just warm enough still to be pleasurable….  And I was not the only creature who thought so…. Look closer towards the top middle of the photograph and you will see….

…. an enormous seal!  Thank goodness Dad had his super zoom lens on him – but in truth the seal was not terribly far out, and came nearer than shown in the top picture.  As it swam along near the surface you could begin to get an idea of its length – around nine feet or so long, it seemed to me.

At first I was startled and swam back so I could stand and look and really make sure it was a seal. I’m used to seeing those squarish heads, reminiscent of a labrador’s, swimming quite far out, but this one was huge!    He (she?) swam nearer and seemed genuinely curious and benign, so after a while I swam out again till we were only about 10 feet away from one another.  Eventually the seal dived down beneath the surface and swam off.  I later learned that he has been seen in the water quite a bit this summer, hanging around the fishermen’s nets.  What an extraordinary thrill on a fine autumn morning.

For background on our project to turn two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more photographs, my garden writing and other journalism and information on my current and past books, please visit my website.

In the continuing absence of a functioning camera, I’ve had a very pleasant trawl through my library of photographs for pictures of autumns past.  This view, from 2005, has changed very little in the intervening years, although the stag’s horn sumac bushes have got a little taller.  They are just beginning to turn now, and then there is usually a week or so of glorious fiery colour before the first October gale blows all the leaves away, leaving just the curious red-velvet-covered seed heads that look like glowing torches.

The bushes used to afford a fair amount of privacy, but I’ve allowed them to grow too tall so that the leaves block out the light rather than the sight-lines of passers-by.  Time for a bit of judicious pruning once the leaves have blown away.   The light can be truly lovely at this time of year, especially in the mornings when it shines straight in these double train doors into our sitting room, back-lighting the leaves.  Here’s another view just before the leaves started turning….

…. and another in our bedroom, before it was painted, with the vintage patchwork quilts hung at the windows lighting up like stained glass.

There’s more autumnal magic – look at Mary, aged one and a bit, discovering dahlias in her bright red wellies in the patch where the porch is now….

… and these dew-spangled spiders’ webs – one of the true signs of autumn (along with rosehips,  sloes and blackberries all winking from the hedgerows – more on them in my next post).

2007 was the year we grew ten enormous pumpkins and had a great Hallowe’en party here, with each of Mary’s little friends able to carve a pumpkin lantern to take home.

And then came The Build. Compare this shot from 2007…

… with this from last September. You can see the porch just taking shape on the very far right.

I must remember to look at this picture next time I feel impatient about my lack of progress in the garden. We have come quite a way….

There’s still a long way to go until it’s the garden of my dreams, but we are getting there.  And the journey has certainly been a lot of fun so far….  I’m really looking forward to the next stage.

I hope to be back with some more recent pictures soon.

For more background and archive photographs of our project to turn a pair of Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus writing on gardening, interiors and green issues, and details of my current and past books, please see my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/14-september-2009/feed/ 21 elspeththompson 2005 3790 DSCF2049 DSCF2057 3893 3887 DSCF2060 _DSC1433 _DSC0761 _DSC0159 1831