She brought her family and friends so much happiness during her short life and she loved to share some of the things that brought her happiness through her writing. She was loving, warm, wonderful and generous and she will be missed by many.

I will try to write more about her when I have had the chance to begin to come to terms with our tragic loss. She used to get so much pleasure from all the comments readers made on her blog and I’d like to thank you for your support.

May she rest in peace and remain in our hearts.

Frank

ADDED,  29/3/10:

Elspeth’s obituary in the Telegraph can be found here.

After the longest, coldest winter that I can remember (and I was away for two weeks of it), spring is finally springing –  with tubs of bulbs all bursting into bloom.  I’ve been rushing about in the garden, trying to catch up with long-neglected pruning and getting some bare-rooted hedge plants in.  Indoors, things are shockingly untidy as a result, but in among all the mess, we’re enjoying watching pots of spring bulbs open in the increasing light.

We’ve been enjoying waking to lighter mornings, with pink-tinged skies glimpsed through the raised guard’s van windows in our sitting room….

… and the early sun making the decorations on my daughter’s bedroom windows glow like stained glass …

As I embark on the next stage of work on the seaside garden, with the creation of proper paths, a large pond and the planting up of beds beneath the pergola, I have been thinking about all of the gardens I have made – none of them in particularly promising places.  And I’ve decided to start a new blog, which will concentrate much more on gardening – chronicling my efforts here, and also championing others who feel compelled to garden in unprepossessing sites or circumstances. It’s called GARDENING AGAINST THE ODDS and you can find its embryonic incarnation here.  It’s still in its early stages, but do pop over and see what you think. Meanwhile, things will continue here with regular posts on home life, photographs of my beloved beach in all weathers, favourite poems and so on…. I hope you’ll enjoy it all.

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

We’re back from our travels, and my heart is brimful of memories, not least of  the wonderful sunsets. Why is it we take the time to watch them when on holiday, but so seldom do it at home?

I resolved to make more time for sunsets in my life – so on the first afternoon that we were back, we were down on our own beach – a little less exotic but no less beautiful, enjoying the amazing light show at the close of day as the dogs leaped with joy at our return.

Having animals to come back to always makes the end of a holiday easier. It may be wet, it may be cold, and it may be extremely muddy, but it’s still good to be back home.   I’d like to bring you more photographs – of the white crocuses in pots on the front door step just opening, and daffodil buds pushing through the soil – but I have managed to drop the camera yet again (can you believe it?) and so those will have to wait a few days. But I hope to be back before long.

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

From one beach, to another, far far away……

I love winter holidays, as I wouldn’t be anywhere else except the UK from March till November…. So we are off for a couple of weeks in the sun…. The lovely bag was made for me by Sally Walton of Carry-a-Bag from vintage ticking with hand blocked printing.  Sally’s ethos when founding the company several years ago was that if you have a bag you love enough, you will have no trouble remembering to take it with you when you go to the shops – and I have to say that since she gave me this bag I have done a lot better in this respect.

And may I be the first to note the irony of writing about the notion of saving plastic bags when one is flying half way around the world…. Ahem.

Tucked away in the bag is my reading matter: Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky,  Leviathan by Philip Hoare and AS Byatt’s The Children’s Book for some suitable seaside reading. Oh, and a much-thumbed copy of Peace is Every Step by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, which I re-read on every holiday (an advantage of getting older, it seems to me, is that books can be enjoyed again and again!)  And talking of books, thank you for the nice comments about the Wonderful Weekend Book, which has just been re-published in paperback, price £8.99 from a bookshop near you, or very possibly cheaper on line.

I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

For background on our journey converting two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more writing on gardens, interiors, green issues and other subjects, plus lots of photographs and information on past and current books, please visit my website.

I’m enjoying these little signs of spring clustered around the house in tiny vases.  This collection on the kitchen table – each vase is only an inch high – contains flowering rosemary, choisya, purple-leafed sage, white cyclamen and a few sprigs of the winter-flowering honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, that I planted by the gate.

And over in the sitting room there are fragrant ‘Paperwhite’ narcissi on pebbles, white hyacinths in forcing jars, and more tiny vases – this time filled with a posy of violets that were miraculously in flower.  (This corner was arranged for an aticle in The Sunday Telegraph; its components are now dispersed throughout the house).  I like a lot of white flowers in the house – they are a peaceful presence to welcome in the new year after all the visual cacophony of Christmas.

The hyacinths have been lovely. I love them most just as the buds are splitting into separate flowers and opening – before they have become top heavy and threaten to topple over in their glass.  I keep them in the porch where it is cold enough to prolong their flowering period and where their scent – too strong for some all the time – can hit one coming in and going out. They remind me of the ones in last year’s January post here.

And the last of the lovely ‘Paperwhites’ are just coming into bloom. I shall miss them until next November – they are a bit of a winter ritual with me; a talisman to take me through the cold months and out the other side into spring. This year we will be cheating a little and heading off on holiday somewhere hot. (Well why not? We haven’t been far afield for ages and everyone has been stuck with colds…)

So I’ll leave you with a poem again.  A few years ago I had one of my favourite jobs ever: writing a book about flowers to go with beautiful photographs of flowers arranged by the interior designer Tricia Guild (the book I am writing now is another of the ones I have worked on with her).  Anyway, as well as thinking up things to say about lovely flower pictures (it’s a hard job but someone has to do it), I had to compile a list of quotations about flowers that we could drop in alongside.  One of my favourites was this, by the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (and one of the reasons I love my tiny glass vases so).

“Still, in a way

nobody sees a flower

really

it is so small

we haven’t the time

and to see takes time

like to have a friend

takes time.”

For background on our journey converting two Victorian railway carriages into an eco-home, plus more writing on gardens, interiors, green issues and other subjects, plus lots of photographs and information on past and current books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/27-january-2010/feed/ 14 elspeththompson DSC_0894 _DSC0886 DSC_0896 DSC_0840 _DSC1050 DSC_1238 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/19-january-2010/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/19-january-2010/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:25:23 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=1149 ]]>

The magic of the snow is past, but we are still getting some beautiful frosty mornings down here by the sea. This was sunrise the other day, photographed from the verandah in my pyjamas.  Brrr.

Back in the warm, the light was quite extraordinary. It’s worth putting up with condensation on the windows for effects like this…

Almost the last of the ‘Paperwhite’ narcissi, filling the whole house with their scent.

A short post this week, as I am working on a book, and have both husband and daughter ill in bed requiring nursing.  So I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Along with this favourite poem by Kathleen Raine

I BELIEVE NOTHING

I believe nothing – what need

Surrounded as I am with marvels of what is,

This familiar room, books, shabby carpet on the floor,

Autumn yellow jasmine, chrysanthemums, my mother’s flower,

Earth-scent of memories, daily miracles,

Yet media-people ask, “Is there a God?”

What does the word mean

To the fish in his ocean, birds

In his skies, and stars?

I only know that when I turn in sleep

Into the invisible, it seems

I am upheld by love, and what seems is

Inexplicable here and now of joy and sorrow,

This inexhaustible, untidy world -

I would not have it otherwise.

For the story of the conversion of our Victorian railway carriages into an eco-house, more photographs, garden writing and other journalism, plus details on my current and past books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/19-january-2010/feed/ 16 elspeththompson DSC_0344 DSC_0347 _DSC0336 DSC_0334 DSC_0330 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/11-january-2010-snow-on-the-beach/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/11-january-2010-snow-on-the-beach/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:41:59 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=1125 ]]>

There has been snow on the beach: a rare and rather magical event.

But given that this is a depiction of the weather patterns over the UK in the past few days, perhaps hardly surprising. (Picture by NASA).

I have so enjoyed this snow: the way it has transformed even the most mundane landscapes into places of silent beauty; the twinkle of it in sunlight; the tangible crunch of it underfoot.  I have loved the ethereal light it brought into the house and the all-forgiving blanket it cast over the  garden.

I have loved setting off with my knapsack in a heavy flurry on foot to stock up on provisions; tramping across snowy fields with the dogs and toboganning down the sea wall on empty dog food sacks. And I have loved coming back to a warm house with the woodburner crackling.  I particularly loved witnessing the delight my daughter and our dogs took in it all – each snowfall an excitement to be enjoyed anew. Here is the snowman Mary made with her dad – OK I’m biased, but I do think he has the sweetest face of any snowman ever….

Today, however, the magic is breaking.  The schools are back, the snowman is melting, and there’s a drip-drip-dripping sound in the air – together with the occasional unnerving crash as another sheet of ice slides off the glass roof of the kitchen and smashes on the deck below.   The light is still incredibly bright, though – bouncing off what remains of the snow and making colours glow with increased intensity.  I’m loving its effect on the little cyclamen and other plants in my porch as I come in and out.

The immediacy of its effect reminds me of  Louis MacNeice’s “Snow” – a poem I have loved since my schooldays, though I’m still not altogether sure what all of it means….

“The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

From Poems (1935)

For the story of the conversion of our Victorian railway carriages into an eco-house, more photographs, garden writing and other journalism, plus details on my current and past books, please visit my website.

]]> http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/11-january-2010-snow-on-the-beach/feed/ 14 elspeththompson DSC_0382 DSC_0380 DSC_0405 england_nasa_617 DSC_0412 DSC_0413 DSC_0424 photo DSC_0323 DSC_0322 DSC_0371 http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/5-january-2010/ http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/5-january-2010/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:43:23 +0000 elspeth thompson http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/?p=1108 ]]>

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