Post Comment Love 21-23 February

Hello there and welcome to this week’s PoCoLo, a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love.

Still no photos from Lyon, but there is one much closer to home. No photos from Lyon as I’ve still not edited them as work has taken up my time. Then when I’m home I’m catching up, photo editing has been way down the list. I’ve been working later than I really should but had a hair appointment yesterday evening and was determined to make it.

And make it I did. What shocked me though was how light it was. The photo below was taken around 5.45pm as I walked into Blackheath, on my way from Greenwich, and the light was only just dimming. Somehow I’d missed the lighter evenings, though it does feel early to be celebrating this.

Blackheath in early evening in February

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The ruins at Nymans and a peek inside the house

I’ve already shared some photos of the foggy garden on our visit to Nymans last month, but there was more to our visit than this. And even though we weren’t there too long - it was pretty chilly - I did get a chance to admire the ruins and pop into the house for a warm up, which is where I spotted my new room crush. The fog does give the ruins a slightly ethereal quality.

A grand facade at Nymans

The green bushes and the terracotta pots though.

palms and ruins

I was smitten before I even saw the topiary.

the gable in the fog with benches and topiary

It’s quite a view isn’t it, and it’s all the detail. The symmetry, the details on the benches. And the dovecote, in the walled garden.

A dovecote in the garden wall
A tree in the fog with topiary

This is definitely a garden I want to visit when the weather’s better. But the advantage of visiting on a chillier day was that the fire was lit in the house, not the ruins, and it was lovely and toasty. It was, like many of the National Trust properties, beautifully presented and in such a way that you could easily imagine it being yours, even just for a moment.

inside the house a piano
letters on the table in the hall

The upstairs though was quite different. It served as an exhibition space, but what caught my eye was this lighting above the stairwell. It has a modern feel, but wasn’t out of place in the house.

a more modern light at the top of the stairs
A hinge in the shape of a K?

And then, with a turn of the corner we were back to the more historic. Who wouldn’t love hinges like that?

Seven years young

This year to celebrate my blog turning seven I’m turning to another list - there’s an annual theme developing here. Last year the list was blog related, this year not so much. At the start of the year I saw posts for the hashtag ‘makenine’ and was intrigued, and slightly tempted.

I kept thinking what my makenine might be, but it was easier to think what my “finish nine” might be as I seem to have enough projects on the go. So then I thought more laterally, what would my house and garden nine projects, which I’ll admit is distinctly less catchy. And again it felt like a bit of a commitment.

Then it struck me, my nine should be seven. Though that didn’t make it any easier to decide, so I’m taking a completely different approach. To celebrate my blog birthday I’m choosing a ‘visit seven’ - and that’s seven gardens I’m hoping to visit this year. I’d brainstormed a list - if you can brainstorm on your own - in January, and quite quickly had a list of fifteen. So here goes…

My visit seven for 2020

  1. RHS Wisley, Surrey

  2. RHS Hyde Hall, Essex

  3. Houghton Hall, Norfolk

  4. Nymans, West Sussex

  5. Sizergh, Cumbria

  6. Holker Hall and Gardens, Cumbria

  7. Scampston Hall, North Yorkshire

So my visit seven will see me zipping up and down the country. I’ve included gardens in Cumbria and Yorkshire as I know we’ve got trips there in June, somehow though there’s no Devon gardens on the list and we’re heading there in a couple of months. There’s some old favourites - Wisley, Hyde Hall and Houghton - and some, like Nymans, which we’ve already made it along to. I could have included Emmetts Gardens too, but that would have felt a little like cheating.

Happy seventh blog birthday to me, and still I hope there’s many more.