Perambulations

When I go for walks I have two options, to drive somewhere and walk, or to go out of my front door and see where the pavement takes me. I tend to do both in equal measures; sometimes I am treated to the wild rushing sea and views from our seafront, where the pavement is level and I can get a reasonable pace going; on other days I wander around the neighbourhood, peering at gardens, wondering about who lived here in past times, what this space looked like. Every so often something catches the eye and one thinks, hmmmm, where did that come from?

In this case, it is a rather lovely line of trees, Scots pine on one side, chestnut and other natives on the other. They are big trees, as you can see, much older than the surrounding houses and obviously planted, but by whom and what for?

They soar over one, and are home to a bevy of crows

They sit in a long green open space, called Ashcombe Park, between several modern developments. Folk walk along here with their dogs, conkers litter the ground in Autumn

So I did a little digging about and found a rather wonderful thing called "Bexhill Open Street Map" which has an amazing range of overlays on a standard map of the town. From this I can see that at one stage this space was open fields, belonging to Birchington Farm

then between 1899 and this 1909 map, Effingham House appears

and within a very short space of time, it becomes Effingham House School, run by Miss Ismay, who applied to the district council for a temporary gymnasium in April 1919, and shown here on a 1955 OS map. By 1911 the school had 37 boarders, aged 11 - 16 from as far afield as India, Holland and Argentina as well as the more predictable London, Yorkshire and Somerset. There were 5 academic staff, two matrons and 9 general staff.

Here you can see the line of trees in the aerial photo from 1967, angling across the middle of the image,

You can find pictures of both the school and their uniform in this Bexhill Museum publication from an exhibition they had about Bexhill's schools

And finally, to my delight, I found this 1954 advert for "Girl Golfers" at Effingham House School. You can see those lovely trees in the background.

Isn't it amazing how much history we can find, just by looking in different places

walking

We have been encouraged to take exercise throughout this pandemic, for the good of both physical and mental health. Since buying a fitness band when I was still in work, I have made a concerted effort to increase the number of steps I do each day, when not constrained by higher levels of pain or exhaustion than normal. My first target, back in around 2017, and still deskbound, was 2000 steps a day. It has built since then to the point where I regularly reach my 5000 a day target and occasionally go well beyond. That won't sound like much to anyone with any sensible level of fitness, but for me it is an achievement, and tells me that I can probably manage more as long as I keep pushing, remain patient and accept that sometimes I won't even mange half those 5000 steps in a day.

We are fortunate where we live to have the sea within walking distance, and also very benign suburban streets where one can be aware of birdsong, the wind shushing through a hedge, low raking sunlight illuminating the leaves, and all sorts of interesting gardens to peer at. 

sunny skies or windy, the sea is always good to watch

there are fairies and gnomes of you look closely, I wonder what it's like when the lights come on!

There are so many interesting things to see when you are looking.

With the good of my health in mind, and with the help of the fitness app, I can now set myself distance targets and have managed nearly two miles on two different days. A long walk for me, with the occasional stop for breath catching and general realignment of aching bones! 

A new rose bed

We've had a flower bed in front of our dilapidated shed for some years now. When we first moved here in 2010 there was nothing, just grass, weeds and muddle.

So, in 2012, having painted the shed, and wired it up to give the roses more support, we dug out the grass weeds and muddle and planted it up with irises, which started life in our old garden in 2008

These were beautiful for a couple of years,

but gradually we got less and less flower and more and more weeds - the lack of flower I think because the soil was poor and tended to be very waterlogged in the winter - the weeds due to my not having the energy or is that diligence, to keep on top of things.

So this year, taking our cue from the two rather beautiful roses which thrive and were here when we arrived,

my Good Soul dug up the remaining irises, still quite a collection I might add, and will take them off and nurture them until we decide where to try next. They have been very forgiving so far, so I hope they do well once we move them to their new place - probably in the front garden where they will get lots of sunshine to bake their rhizomes.

I then spent about six days, on and off, taking it mindfully, pacing myself to avoid too many aches and pains, and dug through the whole bed. I pulled out all the weeds and as much suspicious root as I could, then turned in a generous quantity of composted manure and mulch and mix to feed the soil. The process reminds me in an odd way of making pastry or mixing up a cake - not that I do much baking, but it's a similar thing, just on a much larger and more exhausting scale and the heat comes from the sun rather than an oven!

Having done all that I have planted it up with three more roses; deep plum, stripy pink and dusky peach, in the hope that, like those already there, they too will thrive. I've tucked in some annuals; blue pansies and some pinks,

and rich rusty magenta petunias,

Also a few perennials; columbine, my very favourites, to join the self seeded one that was there already,

don't you just love their little curly topped seedheads?

really, you can't have too many

Also some speedwell, a couple of sedums from another much loved Aunt's garden and a some geraniums (not pelargonioums) which will bush up and give us more blue and pink. Oh, and added some edging to the bed - a slightly obtrusive plastic one that I hope will tone down a bit as the years go by. It should prevent the grass from taking over again.

Now to sit back and look forward to seeing what the summer will bring.

Qute a change from the picture up top eh? Look how those roses have grown.

I've been mulching

Which makes me sound like a ruminant in a field. Actually, it's just spreading stuff on the ground to feed the soil and suppress the weeds. Should be done in Spring and Autumn. 

I garden in little bits, it suits my state of health to do, say half and hour, then stop and rest, then go back and do a little more. I've had this on the go for the past two weeks I think; I dig a little bit, pull out as much weed as possible, on hands and knees, working bare hand if necessary, round those delicate things you find when you are close to the ground, self seeded thises and thats, which need careful fingers about them to ensure that encroaching grass doesn't grab them too, as you pull it out.

The mulch is a mixture or garden centre bought stuff, dark rich brown and very most; then some leaf mould collected a couple of years ago, stored in a plastic bag to rot down until ready; add some ground up prunings that have been sitting in a black bin for a couple of years; stir in some birdsong and fresh air and there you are, a lovely soft brown blanket to snuggle around the plants and keep the moisture in.

In this area I haven't even finished the weeding, 

but I've cleared round Mum's tree and the azaleas and given each a good spread of the brown stuff. I'll tackle the weeds again tomorrow

Lovely

free flight

buzzard and seagull vying for space as Spring surges

a little breath of wind

a flutter in the undergrowth

light held so delicately

I have had increasing tooth problems in the past couple of weeks and months - two abscesses, two extractions, much lowness of spirit, some forbearance;

I'm on the mend

Mindful gardening

It was Bank Holiday weekend so I spent some time gardening. Of course I did, it's what we do on Bank Holidays, but with physical frailties, how to do this safely. I am always conscious that, unlike Mum, Ganna and Connie my bones aren't yet fragile, but I still need to be careful with any sort of excercise outside the usual walking to and fro!

Doing Pilates regularly, and Tai Chi occasionally help me to minimise damage from tweaks and strains. Both draw your focus in to how the body moves;  make you aware of which muscles should be working and which should be supporting; where your weight and balance are. I try to bring this awareness into gardening particularly, because it's easy to do myself a mischief, so here's how I try and make it work .....

Mindful weeding and digging .....

Push the small hand fork into the soil, just to the fork's depth, then a wiggle waggle carefully in a criss cross pattern to loosen things. Do this over a small area, making sure not to extend beyond the natural reach. Then down to hands and knees and, bit by bit, work the loosened soil with a hand fork, pulling out the weeds and their roots, apologising to worms if you accidentally bring them to the surface and tucking them back into a bit of soil you're not digging. Work each small area, changing the task frequently to use different muscle groups, so: fork in soil, push down with foot, wiggle waggle, repeat several times, down to hands and knees, sift, lift, discard, apologise to the beetles, repeat. Do for no longer than 30 minutes, preferably 20 then rest. 

This is about what I can manage in half an hour.

which is a start, but also a bit daunting in the context of what's left, the bed where the old dears live. I cleared and replanted it last year, but it has got a bit uppity while my back was turned. No wonder the old dears grumble.

I was amused a couple of weekends ago by a friend who, hearing I was digging, declared that I must be better. I never feel that "better" is an option. Managing, and sometimes not quite managing is closer to the truth. The last thing I want is to sound self pitying, but it's hard to be real about this stuff without it looking like a whinge or being mawkish! The truth is, I wake up almost every morning exhausted, usually in some pain, but still feel lucky to be where I am and with the people I belong to. Life is good and the world is beautiful, rain or shine

So, here's another recent project; the little bed next to the well just outside the sitting room, which I look out on from my chair. The flowering currant has finished, the hydrangea just coming into leaf and some rather oversized bergenia which were threatening to engulf the Japanese lady have been moved to a more appropriate spot, much to her relief.

The whole area has been weeded and replanted. My good soul did the digging and planting, once I had finished dithering about deciding where things should go. Little delicate woodland plants, much more in keeping with the size and situation of the bed.

The cherub expresssed a preference,

the chaps had had their say

and our wild canine visitor had made her suggestions.

Later on she brought the new kid on the block along to give his/her opinion as well. More interested in what tasty morsels the birds might have left I think.

Oh, and I really am thrilled with my new galoshes! They've got sparkles, and I'm still far too much of a child not to love them

A Lull

I'm in the real doldrums at the moment with my stitching and textiles in general. I've nearly finished the first of my stitch pieces for the Guild, but just can't settle to finishing it.

I've still got my ordered squares of linen I took to Birmingham to work on, but have done very little since except stitch them all down to the background. I have a Studio11 session tomorrow, and am feeling all squirbled because I have done no preparation and have no idea what I'm going to do at all, except take pleasure in the space to just be and perhaps ponder. I will at least put some threads together for the linen squares and take my Guild piece to finish!

In part I think it's probably down to some health issues. For several years I've had an intermittent nagging pain in my midriff. Having had some keyhole surgery go disastrously wrong a while ago now, I'd always put it down to aftereffects from this - you don't want to see the scars, I look quilted!! Then, in the week before we went off to the Lakes it got considerably worse for a number of days; so much so that we wondered if we'd go at all, but it settled down to bearable. Since we got back I've been for an ultrasound scan, always a fascinating process, such magical technology. It turns out, I have gallstones! A veritable constellation of them in fact, so my good doctor and I decided today that it's time to sort it out. Expect an announcement of surgery sometime in the future. Hopefully this keyhole will go right ....

Meanwhile I've been reading some treasures. A friend recommended both authors, first Kathleen Dean Moore

Then Kathleen Jamie.

 

Both write wonderfully about being in nature, in very differing ways and in very different places. I've been struck as much by the contrasts as I have by the pleasure of reading. The first, who is American, writes from a philosopher's point of view, and the landscapes she describes could only be those of her homeland. There is a particular quality in what she describes and perhaps also in the way she writes that belongs there; a sense of largeness, openness. I found myself wondering whether growing up in a huge continent with such immense scale somehow evokes a similar expansion of thought and aspiration.

Kathleen Jamie is a Scots poet, and my near contemporary. She has a poet's feeling for language and for the landscape and at times touches on her own past in such a way that I can almost feel myself in the same place and time, so familiar it is. She however, had the courage to follow her ideals; I was never so brave. I have nearly finished the second book, Sightlines; Findings came first, both borrowed from work, and will feel a sense of missing an almost friend when I take them back. Her writing is intimate, her focus often close and with a sense of the deeply personal about it, you feel you have been offered precious bits of her life to share.

I'd recommend them both