The Love Yourself & Nature Retreat

May 23, 2024

* I was invited to the press preview for and provided with a pair of tickets to Gardeners’ World Live so I’m marking posts from the show as 'Ad’ - as usual my views and opinions are very much my own. Be sure to check out all of my posts from the show.

This garden, designed by Ben Thornton, is a joyful riot of colour and it’s no surprise that Ben himself describes it as ‘full of colour’ - it’s inspired by his love of nature and growing. It’s definitely a place where you could escape the outside world and enjoy the wonders of nature isn’t it?

The border is busting from the seams, and surrounds an edible raised bed. In this garden Ben is showcasing his journey of becoming a grower after getting paralysed and I agree when he says that gardening doesn’t have to be perfect. Nature isn’t flawless and he says neither is his garden - in fact, neither is mine too.

He also says that by ‘letting nature in it has healed his body and mind’ - which does a lot to explain the title of his very beautiful border.

a closer look at the borders - yellows, pinks purples and so much colour

I love the colour, I love how busy it is, and I love how there’s space for flowers and edibles. But most of all I love how it makes me smile.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was as fabulous as ever!

Walking East Stoke's lanes this April

May 21, 2024

Well this month we doubled our ventures out around the village’s lanes, which sounds grand but in reality it’s easy to double a single walk isn’t it? This month we headed out along our old favourite Moor Lane but also along Church Lane and down to the River Trent. I’m not even sure I can put this down to the weather entirely either, but maybe Easter at the start of the month was a contributing factor. It is sadly another month without a visit to the Red Gutter, but when we get there again I know it’ll be worth it.

So let’s head out, shall we - let’s start by heading down to the river past the fabulous brick wall of East Stoke Hall and looking across to the new lambs, who also seemed intrigued by me, and were no doubt planning some high jinx if they’re anything like the ones closer to the main road and bus stop who regularly escape their field, for fun.

Ferns starting to unfurl their new growth - but growing out of a brick wall — CHURCH LANE

Looking up to two lambs in their field through a gap in the hedgerow — CHURCH LANE

It’s great to see the lambs in the fields around the village, and to hear them bleat throughout the day and usually as we go to bed too - it’s something I’ve never experienced before, and something I hope to never tire of either.

It had been raining before we set out down Church Lane and so we weren’t sure if we’d make it along to the Red Gutter or not (not a spoiler - we didn’t) but instead we headed down to the Trent as we were both keen to see just how wet, muddy and squelchy it was down there or how well it had recovered from the flooding.

looking down church lane with the trees and hedgerows in leaf and few muddy puddles ahead — CHURCH LANE

Looking across the field next to the Red Gutter path - with a cloudy sky above — CHURCH LANE

heading towards the trent - white clouds and blue sky above and a single tree in the centre of the picture — CHURCH LANE

And along the way we enjoyed seeing the hedgerows and verges springing back to life, these pink and most likely weeds were a cheery sight.

Almost reaching the river the grass has returned and is looking very lush - the pub on the opposite side of the river is just visible in the distance — AT THE END OF CHURCH LANE

Once we reached the end of the lane it was so good to see how the river path was recovering - the vegetation looked so lush, as you’d expect with the amount of water that had been there only a couple of months before.

lush green vegetation closer to the river's edge- which had previously been under water/flooded — ALONGSIDE THE RIVER TRENT

I’m not sure we’ve spotted this little jetty before - I think since I started this series of posts at the start of the year we haven’t got anywhere close to the river’s true edge, so it was good to see things at more normal levels.

The views walking down towards the Trent are fantastic, but then once you get there and turn back, the views are even more spectacular - I’m sure that once the river path is drier and more walkable for this mud-adverse and less than hardy walker, these will be something I’ll miss, so I’ll need to remind myself to turn around and look back at where we came from.

I did also walk to the bridge on Moor Lane this month - not the bridge over the A46 in this photo, the smaller one at the end of this series of photos! Last month I was pleased to see daffodils growing in the wild, well just imagine my joy when I spotted this row of almost flowering tulips growing in the verge.

They were joined by plenty of flowering dandelions and the start of the cow parsley too.

There was also plenty of new growth on the freshly laid hedging, which was good to see. There was still plenty of evidence of mud along the lane, and the tractor’s tyre tracks were a good example of how things are continuing to dry out, slowly.

I’ll end with two of my favourite views from Moor Lane - though I was surprised to see that the trees in the photo above were not yet in leaf, surely it can’t be long before they are?

From the brick bridge in Moor Lane, looking at the stream with sky and clouds reflected in it and yellow crops in the field on the left — MOOR LANE

And the bridge - it’s a marker for our walks down this lane - but isn’t it good to see the sky and clouds reflected in the stream, and the yellow crop in the field on the left, it definitely feels more spring-like at last.

Thanks for joining me this month, I’ll be back to sharing the next instalment around the third week of the month, but in the meantime if you enjoyed this post you may also like some previous series where I revisit the same place - there’s my year in Greenwich Park and remember that time when I followed a tree?

Three Indian Block Printed Leaves

May 18, 2024

I mentioned recently that I’d attended another Adult Learning course covering Indian Block Printing & Stitching, but hadn’t shared much of that here just yet. Not wanting to tease you I thought I should share some of that now that I’ve mentioned it, though there’s much more to come on this craft as this is the one I’m finding the most addictive so far. There’s so many possibilities, especially if I combine this with my newly found pouch-making skills!

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

I’ll share more about the course and its format in a future post, here I want to focus on a completed piece - or almost completed piece…

How it started…

It started quite simply, using old bedding as my background material. This was from the box-pleated ‘frill’ of an old valance sheet which I cut off and edged using my overlocker. I ironed it too - there was a lot of it, though it was much easier to iron now that it wasn’t attached to the central section which goes under the mattress! We’d not used the valance sheet for many years as not only was it hard to iron, it was also tricky to manoeuvre under the mattress and well, life’s too short for all that.

I printed the designs onto the fabric using fabric and Indian blocks at the adult learning class - and as you can see used the same block to create the design of three leaves. I also experimented with using two colour fabric paints on the middle block, adding an almost fluorescent yellow to the shimmering green, which I used on the outer leaves.

Three leaves block printed onto a piece of old bedding - two with the point down and a third between them with the point up

I liked this as a design and the resulting print, though the leaves kept reminding me of onions for some reason, and I’ve no idea why. Having rediscovered the joys of chain stitch as part of this course I was keen to continue that, and decided to outline the leaves and then fill in the blanks, but keeping the central design different.

I wanted to keep the green and green/yellow outline, and I wanted the central design to be prominent. Looking through my threads I opted for browns through to blush pink for the outer leaves and for oranges through to yellow for the central motif - the colours just seemed right.

All three motifs outlined and filled with chain stitches in neutral colours for the two outside leaves and warm oranges and yellows for the middle motif

Stitching was surprisingly addictive, and quick. It seems I didn’t stop and take many photos of the in-between stages, but if you look at the middle leaf that’s edged with a lime green thread, rather than the darker green used on the outer two.

I also made it up as I went along, mixing and matching strands of my threads to help ease the colour progression, and I’m really pleased with how this turned out.

So then I decided to add some beads.

Just tiny little ones.

In some of the gaps.

Again allowing my creativity to lead.

It’s quite different to how it started isn’t it?

The embroidery is done, but this piece isn’t yet fully completed as I want to incorporate it into a pouch somehow - I’m just not sure how, just yet but I’m sure I’ll know in the not too distant future. For now I’m enjoying this unique piece which I’ve created without knowing where I’d end up.