jane brocket

sorting

 This is when I think I could do with either a real librarian or a real librarian's qualification. For the nth time this summer, we are sorting out books and it's taking up all the imaginative, categorising and sorting skills I have. So we aren't getting far.

We've taken books off shelves, packed them in rented crates for several months, unpacked the crates so that we didn't have to pay to have them for longer than necessary, sorted out the books according the space available in the new kitchen, resorted the rest in the garage (which will need re-resorting before the onset of damp), put the chosen books back on shelves, taken them off so that the shelves could be repainted, and now we have a hall full of books that need sorting out yet again and putting back on newly painted shelves.

But how best to sort them? As I'm not up to using the Dewey Decimal System, we have to decide whether to go alphabetically, by matching height, by matching jacket colour (there are some great photos on Flickr of colourful arrangements), by subject, by publisher, by edition, according to weight (don't want the shelves to sag), most used/least used (least used on top and bottom shelves, most used at eye level), stacked vertically, stacked horizontally, stacked vertically and horizontally, making a concave/Golden Gate Bridge design on each shelf, making a convex/hillocky design on each shelf, putting objets d'art (should we happen to have any) between books, not filling/filling every shelf so that we have interesting positive/negative space things going on, slipping in the odd bar of chocolate camouflaged in Penguin/Persephone colours for emergencies, or a mix of each and every system just to keep us on our toes when we need to find a particular book.

Or maybe we just leave them on the floor a little longer.

old habits die hard

'West London Allotments', Jane Brocket, 19 September 2009 

'Greenhouse and Garden', Stanley Spencer, 1937

Like drying onions in the greenhouse.

Like wanting to have my wish granted so that I could find out what is behind a high wall.  (Tom told me that the allotments were holding an open day at the weekend, so I hot-footed it down there and had a magical time wandering round some of the 385 plots behind the wall that has kept me out for so long.)

Like not being able to choose just one photo to show what the place is like. Like showing lots of pictures (because this is a photo essay, I've just decided).

Like not being able to resist pretentious captions (this is a photo essay, remember).

 

'Ripe pumpkins beyond the corrugated iron fence'

'Vine and marigold bower'

'Butts and barrow'

'The Good Gardener's Wicket Gate'

'Bollard and bridge and compost heap growth'

'Watering can installation with nasturtiums'

'Pears that round the shed-eaves run'

Like never failing to love a good allotment (or 385).

Like being happy my wish has been granted.

wishful thinking

Weightless, calorie-free marmalade buns with juicy orange icing.

What the heck, I eat them anyway.

                                                        ***

I want to thank all those who have commented on the last few posts and everyone else who visits this blog, especially those who keep coming back regularly. I have been blogging now for four and a half years and that's a long time not only in the world of computers, but also in any individual's life. Needless to say, there have been good times and bad times, and I think I can safely say I am now amply qualified to write or talk about the experience of blogging  - something that is very different to the discussions of the role, nature and contents of blogs and their writers, and that has yet to be discussed in depth anywhere except on blogs themselves. And maybe one day I will. But in the meantime, please know that I love having you here to visit.

prize-winning quilt

You know, life is not all about winning the glittering prizes. Sometimes, you just have to be grateful for any prize. Even if it is the booby prize.

Today, I present my prize-winning quilt. It appeared in Kaffe Fassett's Country Garden Quilts which was published last September which of course was a huge thrill and honour, but it was only when I was trawling through my older photos yesterday that I realised that I hadn't shown it here. However, I can at least now say that is has the distinction of winning a prize. I see on Amazon.com that someone has reviewed the book and, commenting on the quilts therein, says, 'The Allottment [sic] quilt takes the prize for the ugliest.'

How kind. How generous.

                                                        ***

It's the second version of my Allotment Quilt and was made with richly coloured Rowan fabrics. In Kaffe Fassett's book it is photographed in the fantastic garden at Great Dixter, but here it's photographed in our garden. 

time well spent

cartoon cake © phoebe

always read the label

pear-shaped beauty

 

green envy

 

It's not pretty, is it? I don't mean my red cabbage which I think is beautiful despite the ravages of pests, but the feeling of envy. I've been experiencing quite a bit of envy and going green round the eyes over the last few days, and it's all because of other people's skills with growing and photographing things.

We watched Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers the other night and though I was very pleased to see that he has as many slugs and caterpillars attacking his veg as I do, I found myself horribly envious of his wonderful garden. It's a posh allotment in a way; a long, thin, urban plot with neat box borders and classical lines. It's a smart take on an old design, and I would give my eye teeth to have something similar beyond my back door.

On the subject of allotments, I was engulfed with more envy when Tom told me he and his 'A'  Level art group were off to the local allotments to make sketches and take photographs. These are spectacular allotments enclosed by a high brick wall and securely locked at all times. I've driven past them for years and every time I have wished that I could go inside for a peek, so was very jealous of Tom's foray in this secret garden. 

I was very touched when he showed me an 'aerial' view of rows of plants that he'd taken knowing it was my style and that it would appeal to me. But I was bowled over by the photos he took with his own eye - and by the fabulously eccentric and varied allotments that exist behind that high wall.

I had another surge of envy when I saw the organised chaos, the colours, the fruit and veg, the creativity and improvised structures.

For me, this is a suburban eden. Cue more envy.

But the greatest envy wave of envy came when I saw this photo in Tom's album (above - even better printed large on photographic paper). If there is one photo I wish I could have taken, it's this. It's a view of an allotment that I would never, ever see - and that, I think, is what good photography is all about. It makes you see things in a new way or shows you aspects of your world you'd never normally notice. I watched an excellent BBC Imagine programme about William Eggelston last week and was amazed by his photographs and could see that naturalness of vision is what it's all about. Damn it, I'm envious.

star stripes

 

Alice and I went to see Coco Before Chanel at the weekend and thought it all very lovely and good, but with nowhere near enough about the way Coco Chanel developed her ideas, created her designs, and incoroprated her inspirations into her clothes. In short, we would have liked to see a lot more in the atelier and a lot less in the bedroom. 

But the love interest longueurs gave me plenty of time to consider the details that we did glimpse, and I was once again bowled over by the beauty of simple, striking, timeless stripes, seen in the film in the Breton sweaters worn by the fishermen and then on Coco Chanel herself (who wears hers loose and cinched at the waist with a belt, so looks nothing like an old sea-dog). For years I, too, wore stripey Breton sweaters and long-sleeved tops (and no doubt looked more like an old sea-dog than Coco Chanel) after first discovering them on French exchanges to St Nazaire. And I still love blue on white stripes.

When I was making quilts for my book, I was thinking about stripes a great deal, and went looking for more inspiration. I found plenty in the deckchair and hammock fabrics sold by Deckchair Stripes, which has to have the best selection ever. I bought a swatch pack which contained a strip of every fabric they sell, and had a great time sorting them out and playing with stripes - making pictures that resemble the great canvases of Bridget Riley and testing out their infinite variety.

 

And agreeing with Coco Chanel that stripes are complete stars.