My kitchen shelves ...Eclectic mix plus cobwebs!

A great storm came in the night and tried to mash down the flowers...the red hawthorn tree is so bursting with blooms this year I just had to go out in the wet and bring some inside.

My Indian and African masks look down amongst the cobwebs..who has time for dusting anyway!

My shelves are full of love and light of all kinds. The Hindu goddess in red is Lakshmi...a gift from our dear friend Renu. If you rub her palm it is said she will bring you good fortune and wealth. It's never worked for me exactly but I'm not complaining at the abundance that we enjoy in our western world. So many people have such miserable and perilous existences.

My artist son made this probably ten years ago, when he was a student but I've always loved it.

A little Mexican painting on tin from Irene

Lovely fat garlic

More from my artist children

Beautiful bronze Buddha with little white porcelain hare sitting at his feet

This Christ figure was a gift from Southern Italy 

My mobile phone/camera bag from Panama

This is what my son thought horses looked like when he was about seven years old.Scary scary teeth!!

So as you can see my kitchen is rather bonkers but I enjoy it's eclectic mix that reminds me of so many friends and dear ones.

And to put it into a little context here are a few images of friends enjoying a meal..actually it's more a case of here are some images of a typical meal..I love feeding people!

 Me and Marge..before my hair went quite so bright white! I'm on the right!

And just for fun..Here's a poem I wrote called 

The Meal

Welcome all , relax, sit down.

So glad you all could come.

Have an olive, a glass of wine.

Pass the plates along.

All day I’ve picked, diced and chopped

as the puppy played round my feet.

The onions, grown with love and care

sizzle, watch the heat.

Green beans sliced and gently steamed

salt flaked potatoes

roast with thyme.

Black poppy seeds crack and dance

on tender leeks divine

Self seeding fennel, grows like weeds

their fragrance fills the air.

Bake them sliced with milk and butter,

oh but my, they’re fare.

Cucumber cool in yoghurt

Beetroot slid hot from their skins

revealed as scarlet slashes

gleaming as though full of sin.

Take some fried radiccio

artichokes crisped in tempura.

Have some, help yourselves,

I always cook too much.

Pass the salad down this end

The rockets grown too long

but those tomatoes they’re just fine

they smell of summers gone.

Hunt among the green leaves

you’ll find avocado there,

all specked with toasted pine nuts

and wet with oils desire.

It’s great to see you all

Top up your glass and

Pass the bottle round.

More water anyone?

Here’s A bowl of strawberries

with flowers of feverfew.

Pile them on with clotted cream

and roasted hazel nuts.

Coffee next or herbal tea.

Relax, don’t rush, unwind.

We’ll light the fire and all draw near

Let’s talk the night away

And if you are all too tired to drive

There’s empty beds upstairs

the kids have flown the nest long since.

For breakfast I’ll poach pears

serve them with a slice of cake,

sweet cheese from yellow quince

or toast from bread I’ll bake

the cupboards never bare

I’m so glad you all could come

Life was made to share.

A May Garden on the South Downs

The foxgloves and chives are best of friends and the keen to multiply fennel seem happy sharing their bed. The strawberries are constantly trying to join them..but enough is enough!

The strawberries do have their own patch...and have invited a large mullein to nestle with them. I have stopped using a net as the little song birds get trapped and that is distressing for them and me! I'd rather share the berries with them.

This little banks slopes down to the patio if you could call it that! The place where the garden table sits..and summer lunches can be enjoyed.

The architectural rhubarb just grows and grows!!

Chives are so pretty with their pom pom purple hats.

So that's it for May!! Everything is growing except for the cabbage seedlings which seem to have been eaten by some mini villain...

Gardening on the South Downs..March/April 2015

Spring is stirring. The branches of the trees are still pretty much naked. The white rowan in the fore ground was planted for Isabelle who as a young girl danced ballet..it looked as though with its little white berries gleaming, it was holding up its arms in a delicate arabesque.

Fennel self seeds everywhere and will I know soon dwarf the rosemary. I'm thrilled to see the foxglove seeds I planted have turned into lovely plump babies this year. Foxgloves or Digitalis are definitely one of my very favourite plants...such a delight to find growing in woodland often with sensuously curling ferns nearby.

My funny birthday gift lady gnome is standing clutching her basket in amongst the onions and feverfew.

Rhubarb got itself off to a good start. Poor thing I don't actually do much for it..except give it a drink if it asks. The crumble it gave me a few weeks ago was sensational...and last years rhubarb and ginger jam still tastes wonderful.

I laid out an array of wedge shaped beds a few years ago to wrap around the lime trees in the middle of the garden...sadly the last few seasons I have had no time at all but this year decided to make a real effort early enough in the year for it to make a difference...and hooray my sister-in-law Margarita came to stay and amazingly gave me a hand. The kindly kept working while I dragged myself to the computer to work 'work'.

The grasses and wild flowers so short and contained in this image are now so tall it's getting hard to walk through them...The whispering aspen tree sends out suckers I suppose they are... that happily grow where they can.In the distance is a ginkgo.

Weeding between the beds has helped enormously...early days so the weeds have hardly started to grow.

Adding seeds beds in the form of containers...

The thistles and nettles and of course docks grow thick and greedy..I refuse to put down weed killer so these are on the list to pull up by hand.

Big bruisers..their bark is worse than their bite as they come up out of the ground really very easily.

As seeds are now in the ground the cross chooks are confined to their run..but it is hardly small or too boring for them. Lots of shade and areas to scratch and ferret in.

Cuttings from last years pruning of the beech tree hedge..dragged out to enable gradual burning in the log burner.

Potatoes are in and tucked up warm..with some of Michael's lovage to keep watch over them.

Chooks meanwhile keep an eye on me and petition every day to be let out...petitions denied!! Until after harvest.

Meantime the front garden starts to come to life...the path to the postbox.

Books for Chooks Educating Hens!!

Helen enjoys reading Grayson Perry...Close to earth she says...all that clay! Requests have been received to see the tapestries. I rather think she has her mind on a visit to his new Artists House in Essex...We'll see.

Sylvia on the other hand is a devotee of Jorge Luis Borges. The extraordinary Argentine writer born in 1899 and who died in 1986 She seems to enjoy the challenge of his poetry as well as the short stories where the genre magical realism was conceived. She doesn't understand how came to be omitted from the Nobel Prize in Literature. He surely should have been awarded the honour. Scrabble who is sitting listening to her views on this subject isn't so sure. 

Sylvia has been considering her own literary career. She has adjusted her diet recently so that instead of spending time sitting on eggs she can contemplate under the ash trees as she unravels plot lines.

lino cutting at Omega Print Makers

Sketch up of an idea for a really simple lino cut. The two or three I have made before have all been mono-colour so I thought I'd experiment with introducing colours this time.

Once the design was complete I traced it onto tracing paper to reverse it and then used a piece of good old fashioned blue ===== paper to transfer the design onto a rectangle of lino.

Once this was done I used the smallest lino-cutting blade to channel out an outline. To my surprise the lino was actually quite crumbly unlike the synthetic lino 'lookalike' that I had used for the other prints that I have done.

Mary Stephens suggested using the straight blade to make the initial cut and although this does slow down the process it makes things far more accurate and crisp. I found I had to surrender to the slowness of the process and just not try to hurry it...it became quite meditative and enjoyable.

 A wide blade was then used to lift off the lino that didn't need to be included in the colouring. I'd decided to make the whole of the background colour yellow.

To finish off the design I made a monogram to the side.

I made a register for the plate and marked it with a T for 'top' and put a simple cross in one corner.

Very exciting I was to use the big old Albion Press.

I mixed up the oily inks white and yellow using the brayer to get an even consistency. In oder to create a yellow colour across the whole of the print I inked up a clean and uncut piece of lino identical in size to the one I had cut the design onto.

The Albion Press has a horizontal bed that sits under the press mechanism when It's not in use. This is moved forward by turning the handle to the side. 

 A hinged cover is raised to reveal the bed. The template or register is laid on the bed and the lino on top of it..placed carefully so as the make the following prints line up. A clean piece of printing paper was placed on top of the inked lino.Two or in this case three layers of padding were then placed on top of the paper and the hinged cover was lowered. The large side handled was rotated in the direction of travel of the bed until the whole profile of the bed was clear and the edge could be seen out the other side. The beautifully patinated and rather stained by use handle that goes across the front of the press and forces it downwards is pulled...then released. Once more the side handle is turned and the bed reappears.

I know it's only a simple rectangle of yellow ink but it was wonderful to see it so crisp and clean.

The paper is vertical and the inked lino is lying on the bed.

The inked lino.

 There are now five sheets of perfect paper each with a yellow rectangle of ink, waiting for me on the drying rack to transform into prints of my design next week. I love this printing business!!