green light

 

The  Apple Affair was a sadly washed-out and wet affair. I was at  West Dean for a weekend course with Julie Arkell and although our dry, warm and bright workroom was full happy stitchers creating 'objects of curiosity', outside the weather was just the kind of thing that must have visited the Apple Affair organisers in their nightmares in the run-up to the event. (It's still so gloomy today that I can't photograph what I made.)

 

I couldn't not have a look at the apples, though, and a wander round the walled garden at West Dean is always worthwhile. It's all text-book stuff, something of a throwback to Downton Abbey times, with copperplate writing on metal plant tags, melons growing in mini-hammocks in vast, whitewashed greenhouses, and terracotta rhubarb forcers. And yesterday the light and colour were quite exquisite.

 

Several of Elizabeth Taylor's novels describe small rooms with greenish light (the kitchen in At Mrs Lippincote's, for example). When I read these passages, I can see and feel the damp, musty atmosphere created by light filtering through too-close, creeping foliage and decaying nature, and it fascinates and repels at the same time. I was reminded of these rooms and this light as I walked in the enclosed garden under dripping apple trees and felt enveloped and enclosed in the strange light and atmosphere. (I think Virginia Woolf also captures this greenness brilliantly - where nothing is ever quite dry.)

 

In the orchard, I met a man not with seven wives, but a big bucket of apples strapped to his front. The reds stood out against the green, made even more vibrant by the gloss of rain.

 

The grand flint-faced house kept to the colour scheme and looked glorious.

 

Red and green should always be seen.

Tomorrow: dry goods.

Comments

[Charlotte]

Fabulous pics. Can't wait to see what you made.

[jacky worby]

Beautiful photos made me smile on a grey, wet, miserable monday!! Jacky

[Rachael (Tales from the Village)]

Those first apples made my mouth water with that anticipatory feeling you get when you know you're about to bite into something gorgeously tart.

And don't you wish chard would taste as lovely as it looks?

Beautiful photographs. Our apple day was a bit wet here, too.

[Virginia]

I love how they seem to glow from within.

Where I grew up in Virginia (the state), we lived in the middle of a temperate rainforest, and that was never made so clear to us as when it rained. Afterwards everything would glow with this (almost) unearthly light.

During the summer it would rain and glow and the scents of honeysuckle and my mother's roses would fill the house. It remains one of my favorite memories.

[Katy]

Beautiful photos, especially the chard!

[knitlass]

Hello from sunny Edinburgh! Love the red, red, red apples (and all your photos). I ate one or two such fruits this morning, they came in our organic veg box last week. Not quite as yummy as they looked, but local and fresh and organic and jolly good for both body and soul.

[greedy nan]

Those apples are making my mouth water!
Really would like to see what you created at JA workshop.

[Lisa]

Wow.

[trina]

Gorgeous photos Jane. So utterly green. Can't wait to see your creations!

[Annette]

Those apples look mouth-watering delicious! I love the last photo of the red leaves against the grey stone. So beautiful!

[Lucy]

Ooooh - such beautiful Autumn colour, delicious!