yarnstorm

suffolk solitude

I haven't thought about African violets for years. They used to fascinate me when I was a teenager and carried on a serious love-affair with indoor plants; cheese plants, rubber plants, spider plants and the ultimate, the plant to which I aspired but never owned, the apidistra. So very 70s, so very passe, I know, but they kept me company in my bedroom while I revised for chemistry tests and learned Russian vocabulary and listened to James Taylor and Maxime le Forestier and wrote my (execrable) diary and generally wondered why life was passing me by. As you do when you are fifteen.

These last few days in Suffolk I've had a little, velvety African violet (Saintpaulia) for company. Now success with these plants eluded me in the past, which saddened me enormously because I liked their richly coloured flowers and their fuzzy, fake-style leaves. So I decided to enjoy it while it lasted but not test my luck further and I left it in the house. Its demise can be someone else's responsibilty...

I'd love to show you all the wonderful things I saw in Suffolk, but I'm afraid they were all in my head. This lack of photos is a problem when I write a visual blog - but I promise you there were plenty of marvellous scenes because I was working on my next book which is once again based on children's literature.

But I did get out to see the big wide world - such an apt phrase for this flat county with a huge sky. There was just one beach hut on the beach, and barely a soul around in the eerily quiet town.

Even the houses were huddling together for company.

And now I'm back home and in the midst of bustling, noisy, demanding family life once again. I love and value solitude but hate loneliness, and I'm lucky I've found the perfect place for solitude in Suffolk.

shedding

At Petersham Nurseries yesterday there was a soggy, melancholy stillness about the place that I found very restful and appealing. Nature is paring back and simplifying, shedding leaves and coverings, and I like this gentle denuding of trees and plants and landscape.

I'd been immobilised by back pain for a few days earlier this week, forced to stay in bed and unable to do much except stare and think and read. And I found it strangely liberating to shed so many of the details and cares of daily life - it was as though I'd lost my own leaves and wrappings. I don't rate pain at all, I hate it, and I was fortunate to be treated quickly in hospital, but at least it gave me a chance to sort out a few priorities. I also lay and thought of all the children in books who are bed-bound because of back injuries and problems - Clara in Heidi, Katy in What Katy Did, Colin in The Secret Garden - and the way they are changed and made better by the experience. There's hope for me yet, I see.   

Plus, I had the sheer pleasure of being able to read Miss Buncle's Book in one sitting/lie-in. An utterly lovely, clever, funny and beguiling book, and I think it should be available on the NHS as a new, alternative therapy.

I am enjoying

Knitting socks with a ball of yarn that looks like a big dollop of nougat.

Watching the leaves fall like confetti - but with a rustling sound.

Admiring the foresight of the people who planted the trees in the suburban road I drive down every weekend to take Phoebe to the river.

Julia Child by Laura Shapiro. A small, compact book which somehow conveys the huge personality and many achievements of a very tall woman.

Wild Swim by Kate Rew. Simon and I are swimming outdoors every weekend while Phoebe is on the river. I admit we manage this because it's a heated pool. Lovely book, great recommendations for places to swim, including our pool.

Watching Austin Healey dance. Trying to convince Tom that jiving is a good alternative to rugby. Accepting it's unlikely he'll agree. Watching him play rugby instead. Being delighted for him now that he's a county player.

Enjoying a slice of coconut cake while I work.

Hearing about Alice's work experience. My, she's learned a lot about real working life this week.

Watching Friends with Phoebe. It's what half-term is for.

The prospect of the weekend.

markets and kitchens

I was on Market Kitchen a couple of weeks ago talking about Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer and was intrigued by the market-style set with wooden crates of fresh food and piles of ingredients everywhere. It's all very relaxed and attractive and comfortable and I wondered where I'd seen it before.

And then when I was in Lewes a couple of days ago, I realised it was just like Bill's Produce Store. I've written before about Bill's, the great food, the beautiful displays, the noisy, munchy atmosphere, but this time I really felt as though I was sitting in the middle of the most amazing film/TV/photo set. I had a seat by the window and from there I could survey the whole scene (the cafe and shop), the actors (the waiters and waitresses), the extras (the customers), the props (fruit and veg and flowers set in patterns and clever arrangements - see top), the director (the manager), the sound and lighting (the shop staff and the chefs). I half-expected someone to shout 'Cut!' and for everyone very obediently to stop eating/drinking/talking and then resume when they heard 'Action!'.

I'd never considered the theatrical aspects of fruit and veg before going to the Market Kitchen studio, but Bill's made me see that they really can be stars of stage and screen, market and kitchen.

apple appeal

I expected no less of Stockport. I wouldn't have been devastated, but I would have been surprised if it hadn't rained while I was there. And true to form and all the legends about wet weather in the north, it poured down.

My Mum still lives in the house I grew up in and when I see the rain from my old bedroom window it takes me back to all those boring grey weekends I endured when I was young. It was this greyness and wateriness that made me paint my bedroom lime green and purple, cover the walls with Biba posters and pages torn from Petticoat and Just 19, and make gold-sprayed pasta collages and smelly perfumed candles and tie-dyed T-shirts and lilac suede belts. Anything to counteract the weather. 

My brother and I also used to pick the apples from the apple tree, wrap them in newspaper and store them for the winter. As a result, the garage always had a pleasantly cidery smell (when I wasn't making exploding ginger beer or my brother wasn't brewing very successful lager in there) to go with the wellies and tools and bikes.

I found a big bowl of this year's apples in Mum's kitchen. For Proust it was the madeleines, for me it's these unnamed, red-streaked apples that transport me to a different time: apple-picking, apple fights, apple games, siblings and summers all come flooding back.

And now there's there's also a newcomer planted recently by my step-father, a little tree that gives the larger, redder apples in these photos. It reminds me that the generations are moving on and that we need to plant new trees ready to replace the old. But the older ones are still doing fine, thank you very much; and I hope they will continue to do so for quite a while yet.

This weekend I did what I always have done in Stockport; I ignored the grey skies (below) and concentrated on the colour.

Without the greyness, though, I don't think I'd appreciate the appeal of the apples quite so much.

cheshire life

I expected no less of Knutsford. I would have been devastated if it had a neglected, run-down, weed-ridden railway station. But instead it has a station befitting its station, so to speak, as one of the country's best-known towns. Because Knutsford is the setting for Mrs Gaskell's wonderful Cranford and it's still very easy to imagine the Miss Matty and Miss Pole darting up and down the high street and in and out of each others' houses.

I was in Knutsford to speak at the Literary Festival on Friday. But the trip also turned into a little meander down memory lane. I grew up near Knustsford and loved the Cheshire countryside. But I hadn't seen it for a while and found myself quite overcome by its loveliness (the sunshine might have helped). Cheshire is a gentle, rain-washed county, one of grazing cows, rolling green countryside, wide winding roads, red-brick houses painted cream and maroon, and excellent place-names such as Mobberley, Goostrey, Over Peover, Lower Peover, Cranage and Puddinglake.

I had only a very short time in Knutsford before my event but I spent it well. Steph, who reads the blog, had very kindly emailed to tell me I must not miss Fibre + Clay and she was right. It's the most wonderful place and I only wished I'd had longer to look at the fantsatic collection of hand-made ceramics and bags and jewellery. And as for the fibre bit, well, I'd give my eye-teeth to have something like this on my doorstep.

And look at this. It's part of the shop's frontage - a separate display cabinet set in the wall. I can just imagine it in the 1800s, tempting the ladies of Cranford/Knutsford with the latest wools for their crochet and Berlin woolwork - it's so good to see a shop fixture like this still being used and still evoking another era.

And then it was off further north to my Mum's house in Stockport.When I was little, Stockport was technically in Cheshire and then the county lines were redrawn and we became part of Greater Manchester. But I still felt part of Cheshire life and, to my surprise, I discovered this weekend that there's a tiny part of me that even now still does.

oh, I do like to bead beside the seaside

Even the greyness of England is different when I go to Whitstable. There's a silvery quality to it, just as there's a precious quality to a creative weekend in one of my very favourite places in the whole world. As usual, it was just us, the weather, the beauty of the place in which we stayed, and nothing else to distract from making and absorbing and enjoying.

It was a beading weekend which reminded me forcefully just how much I need some new glasses. It also made me appreciate the huge number of clever possibilities when you work with tiny seed beads and delicas. Zitta, our tutor, taught us new techniques and we sat for hours at a long table, focussing on our mats and our little twinkling, shimmering bead piles while the wind blew, the rain pelted down and the rest of the world carried on whatever it was doing.

I made two spiral ropes to wear round my neck, and practiced (but didn't perfect) working with herringbone stitch.

And took breaks to eat flapjacks and bunny-shaped shortbread biscuits and a slice of raspberry sponge cake, while noticing that my shoes were a fetching shade of Battery Blue and matched the Battery lino floor, wall paint and painted chairs.

Then it was back to the mat for more playing with beads, all the time singing to myself 'Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside' (but not as well and exuberantly as Basil Rathbone in this clip).

I went to sleep dreaming of peyote stitch, bead-weaving, spirals, beaded beads, colour schemes and clever designs, and woke up to see the sea and a lovely little floral arrangement in a milk bottle.

I know I'll never be an ace beader but I do love what can be done with tiny pieces of glass - things like these wonderful beaded flowers which are displayed on one of the Battery windowsills.

But then again you never know. With the new pair of glasses I have ordered today (apparently I'll be able to actually see the beads properly with them on) and a little more grey weather to keep me indoors and beading, I may one day succeed. That's the truly lovely thing about a Battery weekend - it makes you believe you can do anything.

what i did on my holidays

When I was little I dreaded the return to school, mostly because I knew I would be faced with that old chestnut of an essay title,'What I did on my holidays'. My mind would go a blank and I would be totally unable to make any sort of story or narrative out of the previous six or seven weeks.

So when I decided to have a holiday from the blog, I wanted to make sure that the same thing didn't happen, that when I was asked or, more likely, asked myself, 'what did you do on your blog holiday?', I'd at least have some sort of meaningful recollection.

When I visited Chartwell in June, I found a lovely illustration of what I was trying to do. The photo above shows a single window, like an eye, set in the wall of a terrace looking out over the vast and stunning Kent countryside. It frames and focusses the view perfectly.

Then, as I walked around the gardens, I suddenly saw the same window from the other side and now at the top of a very high wall, and was surprised how different it looked covered in creeping ivy and so unexpectedly small. It made me think how important it is not only to observe and view but also, occasionally, to turn your gaze in a different direction and look at life and yourself from a different angle.

When I younger I was really only good at seeing out, which is why those essays were such a torture. But writing this blog has changed the way I look at things, and even though I was on a break, I often found myself reviewing what I'd observed or made or read and composing posts in my mind. And it was amazing how much this practice of trying to look from a different perspective, articulating my thoughts, finding words, capturing moments, made all sorts of little events and pleasures so much more significant and meaningful.

I'd also decided to keep a very limited diary - really just a few words. At the end of each day, I noted down the things I felt I'd achieved or enjoyed, so that by the end of the 'holiday' I had pointers and signposts and milestones instead of a vast wilderness of lost weeks. Saturday 21 June, a fairly typical day, included: making recipes from the (wonderful) Ottolenghi Cookbook book for a meal with friends, finishing laying out a quilt, making bread in an old Hovis tin, listening to Bob Dylan on the radio, watching the beginning of Meet John Doe (with a breathtakingly beautiful Gary Cooper - how did I ever miss him up till now?), reading more of Miss Ranskill Comes Home (highly recommended, excellent book). And picking a jugful of pale, peachy-yellow roses - perfect for the longest day. Maybe not as expertly grown as the roses at Chartwell (below), but incredibly lovely, nevertheless.

It wasn't really a holiday, of course. I was still busy with the children, school then school holiday stuff, work, and all the minutiae of daily family life. But it's amazing how a change of viewpoint is as good as a rest. As they almost say. 

haberdashery revisited

When I wrote this post, this is the kind of place I was thinking of. Two huge walls of buttons. Shelf upon shelf upon shelf of ribbons. Another wall of lace. A section devoted to dressing-gown cords. Another to tassels. Jars of pom-poms graded by size. Needles, pins, threads, scissors, feathers, elastics, felt, doll's heads. And, yes, bra straps.

I found it all at The Haberdashery Shop in Ramsgate. As haberdasheries go, it's huge (although it's about to move to a new location) - in a section of an old department store with a listed frontage with fabulously evocative 1930s windows. It may not have been all period fixtures and fittings and mahogany, but what it lacked in tradition, it made up for in stock.

It was utterly mesmerising and bewildering, and I wandered up and down the aisles trying to work out what I came in for.

Was it blue or gold or pink or white buttons? Was it thin or thick ribbon? Velvet or or satin or cotton?  And did I really need some glass-headed pins? Or shoulder pads? And could I justify some bra straps?

It was a lovely quandary in which to find myself. In the end, though, I came away with just a very modest selection of ribbons and bows, but a huge and lasting impression of a wonderful haberdashery.

local discovery

 

We do like our holidays in Britain. We've been taking them for years (since we lived in Germany and Belgium, and England was 'abroad' to us), long before it became newly fashionable to enjoy holidays here.

And what a wonderful place it is for a holiday.There's nothing like poking around a new part or county for making excellent local discoveries. This is the joy of holidays close to home (as well as the fact that you can cram the car with everything from wellies to bikinis) - there's so much you overlook in daily life and it's only when you reduce your vision, go local and potter around, that you come across the real diversity, charm, and wealth of Britain in all its eccentric and colourful glory.

We spent the second half of our holiday in an amazing 1840s Gothic Revival house in Kent, in which the enormous ego of the architect could be be seen and almost felt in every room. Ramsgate may not be everybody's idea of a holiday destination, but it has to be said it's full of civic pride and happily close to plenty of interesting places.

These local Discovery apples were sitting proudly outside a traditional greengrocer's in the very traditional town of Sandwich (winding roads full of history, dahlias planted around the church, an art deco cinema, a ladies' linens shop unchanged since goodness-knows-when) and they reminded me how much I love little local discoveries of all types.

Like the cheerful lights along the seafront at Broadstairs, and the jaunty, friendly beach itself.

And Morelli's ice creams in the pink and peach ice cream parlour (all original fittings).

The Albion Bookshop in Broadstairs looks as though a bookslide is imminent; I feel seriously wobbly when I go upstairs to the gallery and have nightmare visions of being trapped under thousands of books when the whole lot suddenly comes away from the walls...

And then there's Margate.

Once home to the now eerily empty and ruined Dreamland and kiss-me-quick antics and a marvellous lido and this formerly smart 1930s shelter on top of a cliff (below). Still full of an amazing mix of Georgian, Victorian and Modern architecture, but looking sad and in dire need of the regeneration planned by English Heritage.

Then, when it rained (and it rained hard), we could make even more local discoveries in our rented home. We found out what it was like to live with Gothic ideas and decor (heavy-going),

and I fantasised about turning the long, elegant pentice, or covered walkway, which led to the front door, into a penthouse for tomatoes and geraniums.

We find there's a lot to be said for shrinking, rather than widening, our horizons when we travel.