Sissinghurst in Autumn

There is only one thing worse than going on holiday and running out of books to read: visiting a scene of beauty, in an out of the way place, and finding your camera has run out of battery.

On Tuesday I visited Sissinghurst, the famous garden created by Vita Sackville-West. It was a glorious day, the sun shone, there was no wind, not a cloud to mar the cerulean sky. Amazingly there were lots of perennials in bloom – delicate Japanese anemones, asters, jolly orange and pink coneflowers - and so many grasses and leaves in rich autumn hues that it was as colourful as a summer bed.

I photographed what strikes the visitor first: the architecture. What an entrance! A wide arched opening between twin gabled buildings, all mellow rusty brick and buttery stone. From it stretched a vista through a tall, stately and impressive gate tower. Between the two a walled courtyard, green turf, clipped yew and, along the walls, stone sinks set on brick pillars under leaded light windows. Absolutely gorgeous

I was in my element: this was going to be a lovely visit. I would have such fun and afterwards thrill (bore) everyone with my photos of the plantings. I composed the perfect picture of the colourful border. I tried it from all the angles and when I had it just right I took a snap. Nothing happened. Was it turned off? No. Was it in the wrong mode? No. The b***** thing had run out of battery.



How could I have been so stupid not to have brought the spare battery. Why had I taken the old camera I keep in the car for emergencies out of the glove compartment. What an idiot. What a wasted opportunity. It was going to spoil the whole trip. And then in the middle of beating myself up about it, I took a deep breath. Hold it, hold it, I told myself. It’s not as if this is my one and only trip to Timbuktu. Get a grip, girl. Enjoy.

And that’s just what I did. I sauntered, I gazed, loitered and lingered. Unhampered by composing shots I actually savoured each garden room, absorbed the atmosphere and admired the plantings. As so many of the beds in the individual garden rooms are contained by low clipped box hedges it still looked surprisingly tidy.

Garden maintenance was underway. The tall yew hedges were being clipped and that in itself was interesting to watch. At the same time they are scarifying the grass and broadcasting grass seed in an attempt to fill in the worn patches before the weather gets too cold. A little reminder that every season has its task. And beautiful gardens don't just happen.

I wandered into the library – a lovely long room with deep, rich, old oak furnishings. But such a musty smell that it can’t be used much. Then I climbed up into the tower in search of Vita’s writing room. Half way up, there was the room, the walls lined with books and paintings, the surfaces covered in colourful glass and favourite objects.

The desk was large but the fireplace was small. No matter how romantic the setting, endurance and fortitude would have been required (and lots of winter woollies). It must have been absolutely freezing to sit and write there. But then that generation hadn’t been mollycoddled and gardeners are, on the whole, a hardy bunch. True ones don’t get upset by little things like camera’s not working.

Lucy
lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Andrew Motion, poetry, harvest festival and pastoral heaven

I’m in a very bucolic frame of mind. Yesterday was so beautiful weather wise that it was a joy to be in the great outdoors.

This northern part of Kent is known as The Garden of England and for a very good reason. The land doesn’t lend itself to large fields of cereals and nor does the soil. But it is suited to orchards and nut plats.

The nuts have all been harvested – those that escaped the wily squirrels – but the branches of the apple trees hang heavy with red rosy fruit. These orchards are tucked away amongst rolling hills, small fields and narrow lanes, bordered by native hedgerows. Trees frame every view.

The colours of these are beginning to turn, from darkest green to soft butter yellow, ruby red, lime green. From a distance the landscape looks as if it’s still the ancient forest that existed when the Jutes invaded – long before the Romans – obscuring small hamlets and cottages.

Lunching with friends in their garden yesterday the scene was about as perfect as it can get. We walked up through their fields, between the trees, through the gate and there spread before us was an incomparable view.

Ah me! Why do I moan about British weather; what a traitor I am to rush off to sunnier climes and foreign lands when we have such temperate weather and gorgeous countryside.

The sun has lost its stridency and yesterday it bathed the landscape in such a soft golden light that it seemed to glow. Across the valley was a scene from a picture book: roads and towns were obscured, traffic was absent and all around us was such a bounty of produce that it felt like a paradise.

I think Friday night put me in the right frame of mind to really appreciate the simple things of life. Firstly, I went to a poetry reading my Andrew Motion – the ex-poet laureate. The tone was right: his poetry is not in your face, he’s a man who reads softly and speaks hesitantly.

A poem about his mother’s horse being shod during his childhood conjured up memories of my own. His description of the place, the dog, the blacksmith and lane were evocative. I was back in Hardy country - in Mayor of Casterbridge mode - unspoilt rural England.

Afterwards I had to collect Best Beloved from the harvest festival. And this event always fills me with pleasure: if a large group of unrelated folk can meet in an old agricultural barn, sit on spiky bales of straw, eat the simplest of home made fare off bare trestle tables and have a great time then there can’t be much wrong with village life.

Tomorrow it may be raining and I shall be as grumpy as usual about our weather but for now I’m not complaining about the summer being over. Instead I’m looking forward to harvesting fat leathery pumpkins from the veg patch and collecting apples to crush into the freshest juice.

I’ll collect shiny mahogany conkers for the little boys up the road and have promised a friend our golden quince and mushy medlars for her conserves so I shan’t be consumed by guilt for leaving them to waste. Come on, roll on Autumn, I’m ready.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

The Real Thing - Dream on

In the UK we’re spoiled for good home design: from top notch designers in chic city centres to humble high street stores, there’s something for everyone at every price. Years ago good design was only for the rich (we Brits had had a bit of a go at good design in the fifties but had priced it out of most peoples grasp) then along came Habitat. Terence Conran’s shop transformed the homewares design scene.

We went from drab or gaudy, gross or dreary stuff to simple, toning, well-balanced and stylish. Suddenly sofa’s were boxy, tables were cubed, kitchen utensils were coloured and fabrics were crisp. No more curlicues, no more reeded coffee table legs or velvet pouffes. Other shops followed. We were suddenly into ‘good’ affordable design.

But Habitat stuff was not cheap. Much of it came from Europe where design had been an important element in furnishings: in Germany throughout the 1920’s and thirties, along with cool Scandinavian stuff and glitzy Italian gear. British stuff lagged behind.

But after a decade or two of Habitat stagnation set in. The good stuff on offer was expensive, the cheap stuff rubbish. Until Ikea. Be as rude as you like about it – some things are tat but the majority is perfectly fine and excellent value - but Ikea offers decent ‘design’ to the masses.

Some of it is so cheap – who wants it to last – that anyone can afford it. Every student digs and Buy-to-Let flat is furnished from Ikea. There are copycat retailers and superstores now and even the big department stores offer economy ranges to try and tempt the closet Ikea shopper.

But still some are sniffy: the design snobs. I’ve just been reading a piece in The Times by Stephen Bayley decrying Homebase for copying a design classic: the Barcelona chair by Mies van der Rohe. Of course it’s not as good as the original, of course it doesn’t have the same panache.

The materials are inferior, the lines less fine, the proportions not as pleasing. Boy, would I love an original. But then an original Barcelona chair would knock me back £4,350: the Homebase one three hundred quid. And I’ve always drooled over an original Corbusier lounger, but I’ll never have the spare cash to buy one.

At the Museum of Modern Art in New York they had a great display of chairs when I went. The great names of Avante Garde and Modernist chair design - Corbusier, Breuer, Dieckmann, Thomas, Aalto – are in museums all over the world. But in New York there was the Butterfly chair. Years ago I bought one.

Yes, it was a copy of the original design. It was great fun. Everyone who came to our house wondered how to sit in it. No-one wanted to get out of it when they did. No-one could get out of it as it happens. Because I owned it I got to experience what the design was all about. Original Butterfly chairs are worth a lot of money now but they were too expensive for me even then.

But when I saw it lined up there at the MOMA alongside the classics I had a little smug grin. I had recognized a classic. I had bought into good design. Admittedly a rather lowly one compared to the Mies van der Rohe’s chair but nevertheless a classic in its own way. Now Starkey would deny me that.

I think it’s great to experience the real thing (admittedly even better to own one) to appreciate what good design is all about - back to those materials, lines and proportions – but if aspiration is all most of us can afford it’s really quite nice to go home, sit in one’s own humble copy, forget the design snobs and dream.

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Laurence Whistler and etched glass

Funny how one thing leads to another. Some time ago I visited the lovely little church of Saint Nicholas at Moreton in Dorset. I’d gone in particular to see the etched glass windows by Laurence Whistler.

They are quite distinctive, being clear glass with the delicate etching standing out like white tracery. So when I came across another, miles away, I at once recognised the style and felt quite the historian.

The church at Moreton was originally built about 1400. Like most old buildings it has changed over the centuries being rebuilt more than once, the last time in 1776. The colourful stained glass windows were destroyed in 1940 when a bomb fell in the churchyard. In 1950 Laurence Whistler (1912-2000) was invited to submit designs to replace them.

Originally five were installed but as time went by funds were found or donated to add more. Now all twelve windows have been designed and installed and quite a stunning effect they create. Of course engraved glass was an old, traditional craft, but Whistler's revival of the art form is quite magnificent in its scope.

His style reminds me a bit of John Piper’s spidery sketchy lines. He was after all a contemporary of his. The theme of the windows design is Light – physical and spiritual – such as candlelight, starlight or sunlight. Even lightening is included! The designs include metaphor and emblems of either seasons, festivals or bible stories.

Others commemorate someone’s life (the church is close to an old wartime air base) or a happier event. Some are landscapes, a few mystical scenes, but all are beautifully and originally worked. Unfortunately, I can't track down my photos of the windows so please do look them up on the web.

We are so used to seeing the bright jewel colours of stained glass in windows that it is quite a surprise to enter a church where the glass is clear. The result is an interior flooded with light and a feeling of openness and modernity. Quite refreshing.

Whistler was a writer and poet as well as an artist and it seems to me that he combined both the poetic and the artistic in his window designs. The sensitivity of the designs suits the subjects so well.

Anyway, when visiting Stowe in Buckinghamshire, we crept into the small (rather spoiled architecturally) church in the gardens. Although it has been messed about with there are still some very interesting effigies and fascinating memorials there. Investigating every crook and cranny I was very excited when I noticed a tiny pane of glass with some etching on.

The style looked familiar and finding a bit written about it I was thrilled that my hunch was right: it was by Laurence Whistler! He had been to school at Stowe. Just goes to show, one thing can lead to another.

Lucy

PS There is also a Whistler engraved window in Salisbury Cathedral: I don’t know if there are any more.

Butterflies Flutterby

There is something very cheering about a butterfly fluttering past me in the garden. It’s such a simple thing - such a transitory thing – yet I instantly feel better. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they arrive with the sunshine.

They are not about too early in the day, nor too late in the afternoon. Like dragonflies, they need the warmth of the sun before they become active. Sheltered spaces are what they like best and they’re particularly attracted to some garden plants. Buddleias are not known as ”the butterfly bush” for nothing, whilst herbs such as marjoram and lots of perennials such as Sedum spectabile can attract every butterfly in the place.

Today, turning around after hanging up a bed sheet on the washing line I was amazed to see a large black butterfly had settled on it. I was surprised, firstly because I would have thought it would have chosen a background to match its colour and, secondly, because it opened its wings to reveal that it was in fact a beautifully coloured Peacock.

Butterflies have all round vision and yet I could stand quite close to this one and it didn’t move. It also very obligingly stayed put for long enough for me to get my camera. The beautifully crimped edges of its wings could be really appreciated when they were folded because they stood out against the white of the sheet like the profiled silhouette of a cameo.

Oddly enough, we’re warned that as many species of butterfly are at risk as ever, and yet there seems to be more butterflies in the garden this year. I suspect that it has something to do with the profusion of blossom that I’ve already written about.

In April there were lots of Orange-tips in those areas of the garden with meadow grass, especially around the pond. But they were not about long. Apparently they only have one generation because once their meadow flower food source no longer blooms their pantry is bare.

At the time the butter yellow Brimstone kept it company. Although they do have a second generation which hatches in July and August so they are still about now. Following them were a mass of Browns. I should like to think that some of them were rare Heath fritillaries but I find it almost impossible to identify the profusion of little Browns, they're so quick to make off.

I’m OK at telling the difference between the showier garden species – the Red Admiral, Tortoiseshell, Comma and Peacock - but many others are a mystery to me. The Whites are similarly confusing, with the exception perhaps of the Cabbage white because we have so many of those. And I have exactly the same trouble with the Blues.

Was that a Common blue or a Holly blue? A Short-tailed or a Long-tailed blue? The trick is obviously to know all about their habitat but that needs quite a bit of study. Many blues do like a chalky habitat and as my garden is on clay I tend to have more browns.

The only brown butterflies I have time to identify are those poor insects that die in my conservatory. The floor is littered with their corpses. I only hope I’ve left enough weeds and wildflowers out there for them to lay their eggs on. That may salve my conscious. And I shall make sure I leave their caterpillars a larder for next year. I really look forward to butterflies fluttering by.

Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist

This is a very slim volume. And the subject not exactly inspiring. I mean, who wants to read about the murderer who was pardoned in order that Jesus of Nazareth got to die in his place? We all know the story surely. After all, there’s not much to say about the robber and murderer, Barabbas.

However, Par Largerkvist manages to retell the tale in the simplest terms, with his fictional take on the fate of Barabbas written in such a way that one could believe it is all a true story. The novel is a spare tale, pared down to great effect.

Originally published in Sweden in 1950, it was published in the USA, by Random House Inc in 1951. Reprinted by Vintage Books in 1989, this book has become a classic. It’s been on the reading list of many an American university student since then, our book group host among them.

Lagerkvist was a poet and thinker, playwright and writer. Barabbas is a tale of morality. A parable. The characters show spiritual torment, questions about Man and his destiny are posed, and overall we are asked to ponder the meaning of this great drama.

The crisis of faith is the big question in this novel. There is faith (in this case a belief in God) and its opposite, doubt. Without faith in God (something to give our life meaning and direction) it can be difficult to know the difference between Right and Wrong. But a belief in God is difficult to prove.

Barabbas, on his way to be crucified, is aquitted: he is thereby condemned to godlessness. He then has a relationship with a poor disabled outcast. He shows signs of love and care – in spite of himself – when he buries her. But Barabbas soon resorts to his former life of murder and pillage.

Because of this he is caught; chained to another slave in a mine he learns that the name carved on his companion’s slave disc - Christos Iesus - is that of the man’s true master, his Saviour. Barabbas realises that this Saviour is the man who died in his place. He asks the slave to carve it on his disc. He says he wants to believe.

The slave is rescued by a sympathetic Roman and in turn saves Barabbas by insisting that his companion must accompany him. But, later, when this slave is asked (on pain of death) to denounce Jesus he refuses. But Barabbas does not support him: he denounces faith in Jesus. The slave is hanged. Because he does not support the slave, Barabbas is not condemned to die: he is saved again.

The character Barabbas never undergoes an illuminating conversion. The fact that he is a murderer - and the portrayal of him so believable - such a thing would not actually ring true. But Lagerkvist does have us thinking that Barabbas wanted to believe.

Barabbas does not believe, but neither does he disbelieve. Barabbas, in his own warped and misguided way, finishes up by doing all he can to help the Saviour when he rises again. Or does he just get the wrong end of the stick? You will have to decide for yourself: the book is a poser, the ending enigmatic.

So pack this book in your hand luggage: its a perfect size and length for holiday travel. It will add a little gravitas if you only have Aga Sagas or Chick Lit packed but if you're weighed down with fat biographies it may even seem like light relief!

Lucy
www.lucyannwrites.blogspot.com

Stowe - a wonderful landscape still

Once upon a time.....Stowe was the greatest English landscape garden: the incomparable Georgian forerunner of the English landscape style. A classical naturalistic landscape copied throughout Europe, inspiration for centuries to come.

Since the garden was begun in the 1680’s, the greatest designers of the Georgian age had their hand in the design: Charles Bridgeman (the ha ha), William Kent (serpentine streams) and Capability Brown (naturalistic vistas) made their mark. Architecturally, equally renowned men designed their ornamental buildings: among them Robert Adam, James Gibbs and John Vanbrugh.

Plonk yourself down in an English village circa 1700 - what would you have seen. Depending in which part of the country you lived, you would notice small rural buildings (roofs thatched or covered in slate or clay tiles), hedged or walled fields, the occasional field tree, perhaps coppices, forests or moors.

The small rural village consisted of mismatched vernacular buildings; scattered tenant farms dotted the scene. The local big house may have had a deer park, or straight paths and formal beds. The river would have supported a mill, bridges were practical, gates stockproof.

Roads at that time were unmade and impassable in very bad weather, farmyards mired in muck, houses lacked sanitation. Mess and mud were part of life. Everything was utilitarian. Life was hard.

For those lucky few - men of wealth and leisure - travel to Europe was de rigeur. On their return they were able to indulge their fancy and show off their education and wealth. They strove to impress society with their knowledge of the classics and superior taste. What better and more conspicuous a way than to improve their estate. And the owners of Stowe were no exception: they conceived the greatest idealised classical landscape of the time.

In the 1700’s the visitor to Stowe - unused to the wonders of world-wide travel - would have been enchanted to see a rolling landscape, a rural idyll, planted with trees on hill tops and a clear meandering river in contrast to their plainer, less ordered rural environment.

At each turn, they would be transported by a framed view of a beautiful classical building with - what a joy - yet another and another from every angle. It was a scene they could believe existed in Greece or Italy. Of course, most would never have seen anything like it except in the paintings of Claude or Poussin.

Today, one would imagine that the world-weary sophisticate would find this all very ordinary. But not at all. Strangely, in spite of the run-down complexion of the whole at Stowe (structures in various state of repair, lacking the statuary and embellishments that they used to boast) the casual visitor experiences much the same sense of surprise and wonderment that his 18th century forebear would have experienced, although for different reasons.

Sated with televised visions of beautiful landscapes, wonderful buildings, incomparable views, it's refreshing to find that we can still be impressed with the less than perfect, here and now. Stowe offers the visitor something we have all become rather unused to: a landscape that's not manicured. Buildings that are not finished to pristine Disney standards.

And so natural and realistic does this sort of manmade landscape look to us now that we're as surprised to find Grecian stone structures hidden around every corner as the original visitor most probably was over three hundred years ago. Stowe is a wonderful landscape still: those of us without a classical education may miss the all but most obvious allusions but it is still a delight, a pleasure to visit.

Lucy
lucyannwrites@blogspot.com