There are times in the northern hemisphere’s winter, when I can absolutely understand the grumpiness of bears as they wake up, having survived another round of grey coldness. Sometimes it looks so lovely but it doesn’t always feel so good.
Tag Archives: seasons
Snowy Wonderland
Sunday
What a perfect Sunday it has been, friends came for lunch, we roasted vegetables, stuffed pumpkins, and slow cooked leeks with cream and seeded mustard. For dessert I baked yet another upside-down cake with pears from our tree. Delightful. After lunch there was sewing and a garden tour in the autumn sunshine. I am looking forward to another busy week of lecturing.
Grey Old Day
Its a grey old day today, a day for snuggling in cashmere, drinking cups of tea and baking pear upside-down cake for a good friend’s birthday tea. Its been drizzling all day, the garden will be very happy. On the weekend we worked on installing our new (old) fire. its a little French multi-fuel enamel tower. I am looking forward to sitting by it in the evenings, it will be beautifully warm when it’s working.
Compost
A good compost is one of the best things in the garden. We are in the process of emptying our beds for winter and were inspired to spend Saturday building a spectacular compost bin. It has removable boards in the front for easy turning and removal of processed loam. It looks quite presentable tucked in under the pear tree (soon to be espaliered). I took great pleasure in delivering our juicing scraps to it this morning. Come next spring we hope to harvest a whole bundle of goodness from it.
Drawing
I spent the weekend basking in the most glorious sunshine, and we joked at the time the that was the end of summer. In fact I think it was, this week is grey and autumnal, and I am head down preparing lectures for the coming semester. Tomorrow, I am running a life drawing workshop at Gravelly Barn, the first in a series of three, we are going back to basics, proportion, mark-making and structure. We will all need to get the creativity flowing once again after our long summer.
Autumn
Autumn is in the air, wind, rain and cooling temperatures. Last night saw me snuggled on the sofa under a quilt, thinking about apple crumble. Very telling. The beans and cucumbers have begun to turn yellow, the holly is growing berries and our lovely pumpkin has ripened beautifully. I have just planted out new spring onions and leeks in an attempt to keep the garden productive, but there is no doubt the change is upon us.
Warm Air
Summer light, filtered through textured glass. A lovely feeling to have warm air in the evenings once again.