Tears and steam trains, gardens and inspiration.........

Been a busy few days here again, but now getting ready for a quiet week to myself. Friday ws the usual morning stuff, then food shopping, visit to the tip which yielded a big fat ZERO of interesting-to-me stuff lol Saturday, though, huge excitement! Up very early to get down to the south east of the county to catch a coach for an organised trip to the wonderful Charleston Farmhouse - country home of the Bloomsbury group. I've been a huge fan for many years now, following progress on the refurbishment of the house and gardens, and was lucky enough to get this chance to visit. No photography allowed inside the house (there are a lot of photos and info online with easy searching if you'd like to take a look), but there was too much to see and too much atmosphere to soak up to waste time in taking pictures. The guided tour was done by a lovely and knowledgeable lady called Penny.  I think some of the group would have got a lot more out of the visit if they had known more about the players of the group before the tour; there are so many complicated relationships and lots of names and dates to take in. I was lucky in that I knew a lot of those details, and was able to concentrate on the house itself - painted walls and doors, ceramic lampshades by Quentin Bell, decorated furniture and ofcourse, the wonderful textiles - all stitched by Ethel Grant, the mother of David Grant. The tour of the house took about an hour, and when Penny opened the door from the sitting room into the studio, the moment was magical, and took my breath away..................... The rejuvenated garden takes the whole house and its environs to another dimension, and I fell in love with it. Done singlehandedly by one man, the atmosphere and general feel of the garden in beautiful; simple flowers, billowing climbers, towering sunflowers, ebullient veg beds, seed heads, ponds, statues.............  but all in a very understated and unostentatious way. Just adore it  I sat by the pond and knitted a bit whilst waiting for the coach to leave to take us to nearby Berwick Church with its painted murals by Vanessa and Clive Bell. I took far too many photos to put up  here, but will leave you with a few. If you are interested, do some searching online, but be prepared to be ensnared and enchanted............. Yesterday we said goodbye to both Bean and Shaun; Bean is off to start her third year at university (where did that time go?!), and her fiancée Shaun left by train to join the navy. There were tears, yes, and a lovely old steam train puffing and tooting while we waited for the parting. Mostly seen in a positive light, the next stages of their young lives. As I said, a busy few days, and am glad of the peace of the kitchen and the ticking clock, the sound of autumn rain on the windows and the gathering gloom of the dying year, lightened by the memories of a summer well spent.