In the Summertime

“Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon”

— Cecil Day Lewis

You may have noticed I have been missing from the blogging world for a couple of weeks, several reasons for this. Firstly we have had lots of visitors, secondly the weather really has been too nice to spend much time sitting indoors at the computer, and thirdly we are in the process of trying to sell out home of thirty plus years and move to the city for our retirement, which, as many you will know, is an extremely stressful and time consuming activity!

this week I did manage to get ten minutes with my camera between meetings at the beautiful Hilliers Gardens in near Romsey - the English Country Garden, what better way to celebrate summer?

There was plenty of variety to choose from, I loved the soft greens and gold here

and I loved the grandeur of this artichoke flower

There were insects aplenty

butterflies and bees

Plants with defined structure

Plants that blended and melded with each other and the 'art in the garden'

and finally my absolute favourite, the burning pink heart of summer ( no idea what it is!)

Hope you are all enjoying your summer wherever you are!

Sparkles to Share

Family

This has been a very family orientated week with my niece's baby shower on Sunday and my son's graduation from the University of York on Wednesday ( if the chancellor looks familiar its Greg Dyke). Both were lovely occasions and really made me count my blessings.

Books

A book that I have been reading off and on for a while, and have just finished, is 'Steal Like an Artist' by Austin Kleon. Lots of good stuff here and I have decided to keep a log book as suggested by Austin. This is not a journal but rather 'a little book in which you list the things you do every day'. I kept a gratitude diary for over a year so am hoping to combine the log book idea with this and make sure I capture the 'sparkling moments' in my log book, or in my case log app as I hate writing!

Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told Me About the Creative Life

By Austin Kleon

Discovery

This week I signed up for anew e-course, the Renaissance Woman's Tool Box. I spotted the link on Kelly Rae Roberts sponsor page and before I knew it had signed on the dotted line. I have been majoring on art and photography courses this year so this is something a little different. Starts next week - very exciting!

Photography

I am lucky enough to either run courses or attend events at Hilliers Gardens where as well as displays of plants and shrubs, they also often have 'Art in the Garden' exhibitions. I only had about 15 minutes to nip out and take photographs on Monday but it was well worth it.

I really love delphiniums, but they are a flower you don't see a lot of so I was thrilled to see this display.

Even without the 'geraniums red' they bought this poem to mind - this is just an extract

“There once was a Dormouse who lived in a bed
Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red),
And all the day long he’d a wonderful view
Of geraniums (red) and delphiniums (blue).”

— A A Milne

See you next week, and in the meantime do share your own sparkling moments in the comments section.

I Don't Like Pretty!

Well I do really, it's more that it doesn't inspire me, it doesn't make my soul sing. Perhaps to some extent it's a case of familiarity breeding contempt. I am lucky enough to live somewhere where there's lots of pretty, thatched cottages, quaint streets etc. I find I have very little interest in taking photos of them.

Last week I visited Hilliers gardens near Romsey. Sir Harold Hillier was one of those adventurous types who headed for foreign climes to collect new plants and bring them back to the UK. The gardens were looking splendid, absolutely at their spring best, very pretty in fact. The star attraction was the magnolia avenue in glorious full bloom, very pretty indeed, so pretty I took a photo, but I don't like it. The magnolias became a blur of pink and white prettiness and from a distance you can't see the individual blooms (this may just say something about my lack of skill as a photographer of course).

What drew my attention instead was the interaction between the magnolias and the sculptures in the garden, or the white of the magnolia and the intense blue of the sky, the colours, textures and contrasts that capture the essence of the blossom for me. This is what makes my soul sing.

After the gardens I went into Romsey to have a look round. Plenty of pretty to be seen here, houses gardens etc. My eye was drawn to the abbey. Difficult to take a good photo of the outside, couldn't get the perspective, but inside was lovely. So many little details, shafts of sunlight coming through the windows and landing on different objects or parts of the building, but you couldn't call it pretty, glorious is more the word that springs to mind.