Colours of London

You'll know that I'm a fan of colour, but even I was surprised by just how much colour there was in the shops when we were up in town on Saturday.  After some functional shopping - a new duvet cover and some makeup from John Lewis - it was time for something I don't do much of, or as much of as I'd like at times.  A mooch around London's streets, I had a rough route planned to get us from Oxford Street to Piccadilly, and plans for some window browsing along the way.

While I love London sometimes and in places the crowds are too much. One of the junctions I avoid wherever possible is Oxford Street and Regent Street, much preferring to nip through the side streets and Hanover Square.  In fact there are plenty of squares in this part of town and many are worth exploring, but not on this trip, this trip was as it turned out, all about colour.

I mean, when a window display is as colourful and pattern-clashingly-fantastic as this one at Tory Burch, you start to get what I mean. 

All of the prints, patterns and colours were great and my eyes didn't know quite where to look first. I'm not sure I would have put them all together in one piece, and I'm not sure many people could pull it off, but it was a feast for the senses.  In some ways it's no different to a patchwork quilt, just a bold and dramatic one. 

What do you think?

But colour in the shop windows of Regent Street wasn't just limited to clothes, further along these garlands of marigolds were just as impactful.

And the shoes too. There's nothing - other than tradition - that says men's shoes need to be dull is there?  I suspect though, that like the outfit above, only the most flamboyant and/or fashion conscious would feel truly comfortable wearing the pair in the centre, although on the plus side they would go with everything wouldn't they?

To highlight that colour was the order of the day, I turned around at one point and spotted this multi-coloured bike against a post. Perhaps the rider had it to match the shoes above?

Arriving at one of our planned route stops, it no longer surprised me to see one of the windows full of colour. This time in the shape of a tea pot, and with a party in every cup there was plenty for dad's reflection to admire!

It also looks as if I've loaned my legs to the teapot, which gave me a smile when I looked back over the photos.  Inside Fortnum & Mason, the colour continued and these simple but colourful chocolate bars were very tempting.

We found ourselves in the stationery department - and I escaped from there without a purchase, although there were many tempting items. In truth, it's a department we'll be going back to and I've a feeling that it's unlikely to wield the same result.  On this visit though I found myself snapping the colour, from this little bird garland to confetti and a first for me, confetti crackers which do sound an awful lot of fun, as long as they're pulled somewhere out of the confines of my house!

IMAGINE THE FUN - AND MESS - THESE WOULD BRING!

There was the more traditional confetti in boxes but also contraptions to "release the sparkle" which again would be designated not in my space.  The glittered letter garland also looked promising but also fell into the the if-you-pick-it-up-you're-making-a-potential-commitment kind of purchase, and I've long since learnt that these are served best with a photo only. 

At the end of this section there was a display of colourful (what else?) paper plates and partyware of all designs, but of all of them it was these small square ballroom scene ones that took my fancy.  I very nearly left with these, of course I didn't need them and had no idea what I'd use them for, but they were like nothing, and certainly not like any paper plates, I'd seen before.

The other item that seriously tempted me, and got past the do-I-pick-it-up-test was these tiny, tiny cards.  Complete with envelopes I was trying to work out if with these I could become the best correspondent ever, sharing little and often or look like the biggest cheapskate ever?  The other thing that struck me was you could only send these to people with a short address, and the fancier, larger stamps would be out too.

But then again, if these were sent in the post that would actually involve using them. I decided they were far too pretty for that and returned them to the shelf.  I didn't leave completely empty handed though, you may have already seen my Spring decorated fairy cakes from yesterday's post, and I've a feeling that we'll be looking for seasonal cakes every time we visit now!

The Memory Garden at Compton Acres

Today I'm sharing a small part of a garden in Dorset which I visited last March. Compton Acres is in Poole and is one of the most amazing spaces I've been to in a long while.  I've shared little of it here so far, I'm not quite sure why - maybe because there are so many photos to wade through, or perhaps because it's full of plenty of stunning gardens and I want to do it justice.

But I can't do it justice without starting so I'm doing just that and starting with one of the most poignant spaces and that's this small memory garden which was dedicated to the owner's three children in the mid-1950s. 

GARDEN OF MEMORY

AND WITH THE MORN THOSE ANGEL FACES SMILE WHICH HAVE LOVED LONG SINCE & LOST AWHILE

The names of the children, Dick, Elizabeth and Anne are engraved in wooden benches in the small circular space. The son was killed in 1942 while flying in the RAF and the daughters died of polio.

It's believed that their mother arranged flowers from the garden in what I fist thought was a bird bath, but is in fact described as a font. It is, of course, made from local Portland stone and somehow the reflection of the trees in the water echoed the poignancy of its origin.

For me this space proved you can have the smallest of spaces, but it can still be moving and as beautiful as anything larger and full of plants.

Progress at Castle Drogo

They're having quite a bit of work done at Castle Drogo near Exeter. And they have been for quite a while.  We visited again to see what was going on when we were in Devon last weekend, and before that our last visit was in October 2016. For us the progress was noticeable, and as I haven't shared the photos from when we were there before I thought it'd be interesting to look at both sets of photos in parallel. 

But first a bit about the work that's underway, and now hoped to finish by the end of this year. A year later than expected as the contractor ran into difficulties and folded part-way through the project, not what anyone needs.  Talking to the room guides on this visit about the cost of the project we were surprised to learn it's only costing thirteen million.  I know that thirteen million is a lot, and not an amount many of us will ever have, let alone spend, but they're doing a lot with it.

The castle has had problems for a long time, ever since it was completed they've had "major leakage problems" - it's only about a hundred years old, but a hundred years of leaks isn't a good thing, and so a six year project to make the castle watertight is underway.  But it's not just the roof that leaks, the windows do too. 

All of the windows are being replaced, there's 913 windows containing over 13,000 individual panes of glass - and of course, not all the windows are easily accessible.  The castle also needs repointing, as at some point it has been repointed using cement mortar which becomes brittle and cracks over time, which as you've guessed allows water into the core of the wall.  So the blocks of granite are being repointed with lime mortar to allow it to breathe.  This has resulted in granite blocks being carefully dismantled, numbered and stored safely before being replaced. It's almost as if the castle is being rebuilt block by granite block.

A STORE OF CASTLE WALLS

So that's the scene setting done, what does it look like?  Well the most obvious change to us was in the Drawing room, mainly because in 2018 it's starting to look like a Drawing room again.

2018: THE DRAWING ROOM

When we visited in 2016, it was being used as a store room - albeit a rather fabulous one. 

2016: THE DRAWING ROOM AS A STORE ROOM

It was fascinating to see the items displayed in this way, and while they were still curated - see the trunks above and the picture below - it really brought home the quantities of items the National Trust has to deal with, let alone during a project like this.

One thing - or rather two - that were constant were the glorious chandeliers, which we learnt on our visit in 2018 the Drewes brought back from their honeymoon in Venice. I'm not sure we managed to bring back anything quite so grand from our honeymoon, the sentiment is there though. But can you imagine bringing these in through customs, perhaps opting to go through the "Nothing to declare other than two rather ornate chandeliers" channel!  

I'm already looking forward to seeing it when it's done and I'm hoping that it will be almost complete when we head back to Devon much later in the year.

What also struck me looking through photos from two visits is that I have captured very similar photos on each visit - in fact, there's a couple that are exactly the same, but still I don't think they're good enough to share here, so I'll have to try harder on my next visit.

The rest of the photos in this post are from the most recent visit, and all from the same room.  The wooden sinks, with sparkling taps, three this time - I also have a photo of the sink with just two taps, it seems you can never have too many taps, or pictures of taps.

I did managed to snap a new picture on this visit, and that's of this glassware. They're in a glass fronted cabinet so there are reflections, but just look at the detail, not just the etching but also on the base of the stem.

While I'd like to think I'd be living upstairs, in reality it's the downstairs area that fascinates me more. Maybe it's the "technology" or maybe it's because it bears no, or little, resemblance to our own domestic homes, and I'm not sure I'd like to be on the end of the calls from this either, but there you go.

So back to that thirteen million, yes it's a lot but there's a lot of work underway and I think it's worth saving Castle Drogo, don't you?