Creating a Sculpture Garden

This is where I have long been thinking about making a sculpture garden..Rather pathetically I have never found the time or energy to give it any proper attention..I have dragged various bits that I've had my eye on to various [laces and they have quietly let the wild flowers and grasses obscure them..

Somewhere behind the wild flowers is a path...crying out to be redefined and celebrated with art

Lovely old steel globe left by a friendly assistant many years ago..a slate patio area for the table and chairs given to me for a birthday by my father now sadly passed away..weeds pushing up through the crevices and cracks..an old bench that I had tried to move a couple of weeks ago and only succeeded in snapping the wrought iron support..lies dying...BUT Margarita arrived with her whirlwind energy and picked up the scythe..her technique is actually more hack than scythe..the blade might never recover..but she hit the long grasses and down they fell!!!

Margarita might be small but she's a force to be reckoned with!

So together we have dug and scraped, cut and pulled..lugged and heaved until the wilderness patch began to take shape....To have someone to work with has been revolutionising how I can think..reclaiming this meadow into garden has been back breaking on my own and to have her laughing and joking as we plant and pick has been such a joy!
I can feel the gardening process doing us both good..healing and delighting!

Luckily my children are all sculptors/artists and over the years we have amassed lots of their cast offs. The black bust is of my eldest daughter made by her brother and the steel sculpture is another piece by him.

Eli, Margarita and I spent a morning digging out these chalk chips from an exposed bank..and then we wheel barrowed them into place..I love the bright reflective surface they have created around he dark pieces...

My two Super Heroines Margarita and Eli!!

We used to have a glass making company and this is one of the remnants encircled by the old steel orb. We anchored it by digging a bowl shape out and then stamping the chalky soil back in around it.

We scalped the long grasses using the sharp side of a spade after the hacking/scything.....and Margarita was keen to liberate my hydrangeas from their pots so she kindly dug them in with lots of compost around their roots.

 Margarita and a freshly made bed!

Have a look at the friendly Blog Hop

 http://www.mittenstatesheepandwool.com/2015/07/our-simple-homestead-8.html

http://oursimplelife-sc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/blog-hop-button.jpg

A Spring walk along the Downs May 2014

Cowslips just by our gate

Dead Nettle soft and gentle unlike their stinging cousins

Wild Garlic or Ramsons that Ross McNicol makes delicious meals from.and this recipe pinched from River Cottage isn't half bad too;

• 100g freshly picked wild garlic leaves
• 50g shallot, spring onions or leeks
• 50g shelled walnuts
• 200 ml olive oil, sunflower oil or rapeseed oil
• 50-60g mature hard cheese (Quick’s goats cheese , Parmesan or similar hard, mature cheese), finely grated
• ½ - 1 teaspoon sea salt
• ½ teaspoon sugar

•  Directions
  Start by picking the leaves over and discarding any coarse stalks, damaged leaves or any stray pieces of grass (you don’t need to wash unless you’ve picked from road side verges). Place in food processor along with walnuts, shallot and 150 ml oil. Blitz for about a minute until the everything is finely chopped up. Fold in the grated cheese, salt and sugar Fill into clean sterilised jars to within 5-7 cm of the top of jar. Make sure you press down firmly with the back of a spoon to remove any pockets of air (trapped air can cause contamination) allowing sufficient room to swirl the remaining oil over the top of the pesto to seal the surface. When you come to use the pesto, stir it well before spooning out. Make sure the surface of any pesto remaining in the jar is completely covered with oil before you return to the fridge. (this is very important if it is to keep well).

The oval shaped and strongly flavoured leaves of wild garlic (Alium ursinum) are one of the first wild foods of the year we can get out there to harvest. Usually found in moist, wooded shaded areas the leaves are easily identified by their typical and overpowering aroma (smells of garlic) and are sometimes referred to as Ramsons. This spring pesto is full of gutsy flavour and can be used with pasta, spread on crostini, served with crudités used in omelettes, swirled into soups and stews. Keep it in the fridge for up to 3 weeks – this recipe makes 5 x 200g jars, so any extra can easily be frozen in small containers so you can go wild with garlic throughout the year.

Thanks PamJam

Dandy Lions make tangy salad leaves too..when I was little we'd chase each other squealing.."Wet the bed wet the bed" It was only later I found they are diuretic!

The stinging nettles nestled amongst them also make great veggies and lovely soup.

 Red Campion always look so pretty

A lady bird on early cow parsnip. My horse loved to munch on this if he could grab mouthfuls as we strolled along.

I think that's Speedwell hiding shyly

A wonderful, stinky swirl of wild garlic in the woods with bluebells nodding amongst the pungent white flowers

Bluebells dingaling

Forgetmenots and campion

And home to apple blossom so sweet even though it is rather boring Golden Delicious..there are other more scrummy kinds in the garden but these are good too.

Relaxing with Singing Bowls

Had a wonderful relaxing evening last night with my lovely friend Margaret...as she is a member of the swishest spa in Midhurst, she quite often invites me along to enjoy the facilities...I'm usually too busy and rushed off my feet to take her up on the kind offers but last night I could not refuse.... 

Me and Marge before I went completely grey...

The lovely old Hotel and Spa The Spread Eagle, Midhurst

(Photo from the Booking.com website)                 

http://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/spread-eagle-and-spa.en.html?aid=311076;label=spread-eagle-and-spa-o3ExxsNgJojlr3KZeDZ_*AS10600803900:pl:ta:p1:p2:ac:ap1t1:neg;ws=&gclid=CPvF86iQxLoCFRDItAodMCEAXw

We swam in heated waters, sighed with delight as the weight of  the day evaporated in the sauna ..hot bottoms sitting on cool slats of fragrant white spruce. Then when we couldn't take the heat we slipped into the wet steam of the adjacent steam room where the timber was replaced with smooth marble...all rounded of with a most bubblicious soak in a very lively jacuzzi. Big fluffy turquoise towels cuddled us dry after using the luxury products in the shower and then off to a meditation and concert with singing Tibetan bowls. 

The man asking them to sing was long time student of the art and buddhist scholar Andrew Lyddon. With grace and gentleness he stroked and rang the bowls, never letting the notes die on the air before starting another singing. The big gong that stood behind him as he worked produced the most extraordinary sounds I think I have ever heard with huge depths and complex yet subtle layers of sound that rumbled and danced filling Cowdray Hall with  harmonic intricacies that held and focused ones attention..incredible.

We were told that each singing bowl has its own unique sound that connects to an individual chakra and resonates with that chakra bringing healing and balance. They are used throughout the world to produce music, meditation, healing and well-being. Andrew explained before he started that the silence between the pause in his working the bowls was as important and as rich as the tones they produced..little did he know that the concert was to be held on the same evening as the local church would have its bell ringing session. It was quietly
amusing to hear his incredibly sophisticated and refined music mingling with the deeply familiar domestic tones of the clanging peals that echoed forth from the church bell tower. A rather lovely contrast of sounds but all part of the same patina of life in Midhurst that Halloween evening.

I have left these images small as they are so dreadfully out of focus..not sure what happened there!!

The bowls are played by striking the rim of the bowl with a padded mallet. They can also be played by the friction of rubbing a wood, plastic, or leather wrapped mallet around the rim of the bowl to emphasize the harmonic overtones and a continuous 'singing' sound. Rather similar to the principle of raising a single note from a wine glass but infinitely richer. Lying on the red mat is the smaller of the two gongs used by Andrew. 

We were told how any proceeds from the meeting would go towards completing the new Tibetan Temple being created in Barnet 

The Tibetan Yung Drung Bon Study Centre, UK

http://www.yungdrungbon.com/Guide%20to%20Lama%20Khemsar%20Rinpoches%20Centre%20v1.pdf

I just found this link on youtube so you might like to have a look at Andrew Lydden running a work shop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq7288J5Ozg