Georgian Embroidery Workshop ...

Last Wednesday I headed over to Osterley Park, where their lovely volunteers were hosting a Georgian embroidery workshop. It sounded amazing, and, whilst my terrible eyesight makes embroidery a bit of a challenge for me, I was intrigued to learn about a group of ladies who were keeping alive the skills of the eighteenth century needlewomen. Bravo to them!

As it turned out the workshop was on whitework, which involves white stitch-work on the finest and most delicate of cotton cloth to produce an effect (when done well!) not dissimilar to that of fine lace. With my limited experience and wonky eyes it would have been difficult to have come up with something that was a greater personal challenge for me. However, the wonderful ladies assured me that they would not be put out in the least if I failed to place a single sensible-looking stitch in my fabric. The object of the workshop was to learn, to be inspired and to enjoy.

The ladies leading the class had very kindly brought along their own favourite books on the topic, which they invited us to look at for some inspiration.

Ham House ...

They say it's haunted ... very, very haunted ... .

Ham House, Richmond viewed from the Duchess's Garden

And I guess if a house's been standing since 1610, just playing the statistics there's got to have been one or two residents over that length of time who were reluctant to move on - especially when the setting's as splendid as this one. So if you're going to go looking for spooks and ghosts and things that go bump in the night ... then this house is probably a pretty good place to start.

the cheesemonger and his tomb in the leafy churchyard of St. Mary's, Ealing ...

When I'm going to South Ealing tube station I often take a shortcut past the allotments, and down the side of St. Mary's churchyard. St Mary's is a rather lovely old church. Most of the building dates from the eighteenth century with later Victorian and twentieth century additions.

 Now I have to 'fess up: I've always been fascinated by churchyards. To me they represent libraries filled with the life-stories of those interred within, all laid out and filed in a random system of headstones and tombs. 

And there's one large, distinguished-looking family vault, resting in a prime position just beside the wall of St Mary's church that's always made me pause.

The family name, Strudwick, sounded very solid and English and respectable to my Irish ears. And I've always wondered about the patriarch lying within, surrounded by several of his nearest and dearest. His rather succinct inscription reads: 

William Strudwick died December 30 1829 aged 60 years

The other morning I had to wait around for some workmen. I couldn't get on with any proper work of my own. But I had my laptop and an internet connection. So, to while away the time, I decided to do a little on-line detective work to see what I could unearth about this William Strudwick. 

Fantastic Mr Fox ...

I got a surprise this morning when I looked out the kitchen window. There, larger than life and full of vigour, sat Fantastic Mr Fox on my garden wall, and he carried on sitting there staring in at me for at least half an hour. I was transfixed ... watching him ... watching me. He wasn't in the least bit timid. In fact he looked like the Lord of the Manor, surveying his domain.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Okay, okay, I may be gilding the lily - or should that be the daffodil? -  a bit. In truth it's hard to do the lonely as a cloud thing on Ealing Common with the traffic thundering by on the Uxbridge Road, but it is just a little bit glorious out there at the moment with the wonderful mini-daffodils that are exploding with cheerful colour all over the grass. 

TGI February ...

Phew ... we've made it! We've got through the awful grey doldrums of January. At the risk of repeating what I said last year: January sucks! It's the one month of the year that I'd be happy to miss. Wake me up when it's over! And this year, with grey weather, sniffles and colds and a nasty dose of flu here at Talk-a-Lot Towers, it was especially grim.

But roll on February ... with Pancake Day, Valentine's Day, loads of spring flowers and the half term holidays to look forward to. January, with its dowdy back-to-work mentality, and those awful New Year's Resolutions, makes February shine. Yeah! Fun-time February has arrived, and not a day too soon in my book.

Yesterday the Wonder Dog and I took our customary walk around Ealing Common. The daffs were up, the sky was blue and it definitely felt like the season was turning, but there were still a few traces of the post-Christmas hangover lingering around the edges of the green. Here and there a few discarded Christmas trees still lay dejectedly on the grass. Can you spot the sad little conifer lying forlornly at the bottom of the second tree from the left?

There are few things that look glummer than last year's Christmas tree, dumped outside, withered and grey, when the festive season has long since been and gone.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Osterley Park's 7 swans a-swimming ...

I'm almost there ... I've almost got everything sorted for Christmas. It's been busy, but I feel as though I'm finally cantering up the home straight. Emi's been off on his Christmas holidays for a week now, and together we've got everything sorted from last-minute presents and Christmas cards, to hair-cuts and dental appointments.

And, powered-on by this new and relaxed sense of completion, we took the Wonder Dog for a gallop round Osterley Park this morning, where we met this lovely chap:

Happiness is ...

... having a Great Spotted Woodpecker as a neighbour. He totally floats my boat.

Isn't he amazing?

He's a timid soul, clutching the branches of the trees in a Gollum-like fashion, and peering carefully around them to make sure the coast is clear before he ventures out to help himself at the feeders.

Happiness is ...

... seeing these little guys breakfasting just outside my kitchen window: a charm  of goldfinches enjoying a niger seed banquet.

Even though the London weather is grey and dismal they've brought a little sunshine into my morning.

Hope you're finding inspiration in whatever you're doing today.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Greece v Rome ... intelligence squared

On Thursday night Mr B and I went with some friends to a debate, Greece v Rome,  organised by Intelligence² at Central Hall Westminster. In the Greek corner, we had London Mayor, Boris Johnson, arguing the case for the world's first democracy, the satire-loving Greeks, and in the Roman corner we had the formidable Prof. Mary Beard. The billing for the event boasted that, had Mary been in charge, the Roman Empire would still be going strong! And that wasn't hyperbole. For all of Bojo's considerable eloquence and charisma, she wiped the floor with him.

Going into the debate 30% of us (self included) had no clear view, 38% favoured Greece and 32% were in the Roman camp. After Mary had finished her argument, the vote went in favour of Rome as she romped home with a 56% majority. She argued about the enduring legacy of the Romans, how they had built the first super-city in which their architecture was only eclipsed by feats of engineering made possible by the industrial revolution in the 19th century, and about how they had been inclusive extending citizenship to everyone, regardless of their country of origin or how humble their status, to create an upwardly mobile, multi-cultural society.

It was a good-natured exchange that threw up lots of interesting insights into the classical world and both speakers made us laugh. Intelligence² have an amazing programme of debates over the coming months. Videos of many of their past events can be viewed for free on their website: Intelligence Squared. The only thing to bear in mind, if you'd like to go along, is that tickets sell out quickly. So, if you see something that tickles your imagination, book it straight away.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

It's a dog's life ...

I've cracked it! I've got the answer to the prickly problem of how to make friends if you move to a new neighbourhood. All you need is one of these:

Hello October ...

We've been cooped up for far too long, the Wonderdog and I. I've been crazy busy with work for several days now, tied to my computer and unable to go outside and enjoy this lovely late summer/ early autumn weather. Sadly the weathermen are telling us that after today we're in for a change, so we seized the initiative this morning and headed out into the elements to embrace the season.

the life and times of the urban fox ...

Living in the middle of London you might expect not to see much in the way of wildlife, but you would be SO wrong. Our back garden is like a jungle - and that's not just down to my laissez faire style of gardening! It's full to bursting with life. And from where I'm sitting (elbows on worktop, coffee in hand, staring out of the kitchen window, wishing that spring would return) Foxy is the cock of the walk.

He's a great big dude who includes our back garden in his home territory. Occasionally he has an afternoon siesta under the decking or beneath the bamboo, where the dry leaves keep him nice and cosy.

He's an expert on the Green Cross Code, crossing the road on his morning and afternoon patrols without ever coming to any harm. He cruises up and down the little alleyways that run along the back of our gardens with the aplomb of one who owns them. As well he might, because he's got nothing to worry about other than a few hopelessly well-behaved city pooches, like the Wonder Dog, who have been schooled in getting along nicely with the other dogs in the park and never, ever barking at cats.

Foxy's principal protagonist ...

 So, as you can see, it's the life of Riley for Foxy. He's got all the food he can eat, served up carefully in hygienic plastic containers on bin day. Heck my neighbour across the road even leaves dog food out for him on a nightly basis.

I always notice when I go to the country that there aren't nearly so many foxes around, and they don't look anything like so healthy and well-fed as Foxy does. I guess his country cousins have to get by dodging the odd bullet and without any of the food deliveries and creature comforts that he's gotten used to.

This is his favourite morning perch:

The lady next door had a sedum roof put on her garden shed, which is nice and soft to snooze on, and with all that scientific drainage and rain-water harvesting that's going on, it's pleasingly dry underfoot. It gives him a good vantage point from which to spot dangerous predators ... like ... the Wonder Dog, who sometimes even manages to pluck up enough courage to bark at him.

One day old Foxy did push the boundaries a bit. The lady two doors' down on the other side used to have three very fine hens. Notice my careful use of the past-tense. Foxy sorted them out one afternoon in broad daylight. He didn't do himself any favours, because he didn't kill them for food. If he'd been hungry people would have understood, shrugged their shoulders and said that it was sad, but Foxy was doing what he had to do in order to get by. Instead, however, Foxy killed them for the fun of it and didn't eat anything - probably because he's developed a preference for having his meat well done.

For the next few days there were heated discussions about how something had to be done about Foxy. He was getting out of hand. Maybe we should call in the pest-control people and have him eradicated. But, we were all a bit squeamish about having Foxy eradicated, so, after we'd vented enough steam, we all quietly got back to doing nothing about our fox-infestation. I suppose, if we'd had him removed, we'd only have created a territorial vacancy, ripe for another foxy take-over.

Better the fox you know, I say.

All the best,

Bonny x

Salt and Silver photography ... faces from the 1840's

It's not every day that we get a chance to stare history in the face, and marvel at how the good folk of yesteryear looked ... well ... a bit like us, but if you mosey down to the Tate today you'll be able to do just that at their Salt and Silver exhibition. The costumes, the gentlemen's whiskers and the hair styles belong to another age, but stripped of the fashion foibles of their time, the faces that look out at us look just like the ones we see in the mirror every morning.

Look at this photograph below. It's thought that the subjects were mother and son. I wonder where Dad is, and why he's not in the frame too. They're posing in their Sunday best, and mum's seated on a chair to rest her weary legs. Her nails look like they belong on hands that work hard every day, rather than hands that get treated to time-consuming manicures. Just look at the way she's threading her arm proprietorially through that of her son; look at how she's gazing with maternal affection at her pride and joy. It's an attitude that wouldn't look out of place in a status update photo posted on Facebook today. I love how the boy's neck tie is a bit askew with a loose end jutting out too far to the left of his chin. Maybe he was proud of having tied it himself for the very first time that morning.

Many of the photos in the exhibition are small, which creates logistical difficulties for someone with terrible eyesight like yours truly. And I'm sorry if you were there at the same time as me, and I seemed to be hogging some of the exhibits with my nose as close to the glass as I dared put it. The truth is that I found those faces and portraits from the far-distant past totally compelling. I really had to tear myself away from some of them to give the rest of the people in the gallery a chance.

The whole shooting match kicked off with an amazing polymath called William Henry Fox Talbot who figured out how to make his first camera way back in 1835. Apparently he was motivated to do so because he was a bit rubbish at sketching. He'd used the camera obscura and the camera lucida to help him with his compositions and got to wondering whether he could invent some new gizmo that would capture the scene before him without needing to resort to pencil or charcoal. In time he came up with the technique of producing a negative image of the subject using paper soaked in silver iodide salts. These darkened on exposure to the light producing a negative image of the subject before them.  This negative image was then photographed again to produce a positive image. It was a fiddly process by the standards of today, but it was easier that what his rival photographer, Louis Daguerre, was doing with his cumbersome plates.

Henry Fox Talbot

The image (below) of Nelson's column as it was being constructed was taken by Fox Talbot himself. Isn't it amazing to see a scene that many top-hatted Londoners must have driven past in their carriages tut-tutting over? They probably thought it an eyesore and a huge inconvenience. And just look at all those bill posters that entrepreneurial types have stuck to the hoardings to promote their wares. How very 21st century! Look at the little wooden hut, where I'm guessing the workmen would  have locked away their tools of an evening when their day's work was done. It looks just like next-door's garden shed.

And the image below is another one of Fox Talbot's, showing the view from his hotel window in 1843 when he'd gone to Paris to promote his newly invented salt prints. Isn't it an intriguing snapshot in time of a Paris street scene with the cabbies all patiently waiting in a line for a fare?

I was enchanted by some of the bucolic scenes of country life. Just look at the wonderful image below by Paul Marès of an Ox cart in Brittany, taken in about 1857. Doesn't it look charming? Like it could have been painted by the Impressionists?

For me it is a perfect example of that soft, velvety texture that was a key characteristic of the technique, and made the image appear much more arty than the sharp definition of the contemporaneous Daguerrotypes. However, those white crosses that were painted on the wall, seemed a bit sinister to me. They jar with the gentle charcoal quality of the composition. On reading about the image I learned that they were commonly painted on walls of rural houses to warn passers-by to keep their distance when the occupants had succumbed to some awful infectious disease. That little nugget of information brought a sinister note to the idle ox cart. Was the driver suffering alone somewhere in the bowels of his home when the image was captured? Did everyone round about feel terror clench their chests when their eyes fell upon those markings? Did they all walk on by and ignore the plight of the people inside?

Or take a look at these Newhaven fishermen in the photograph below:

Do they look as though they're swaggering to you? Once again, in the age of self-promotion on social media, I find their pose thoroughly 21st century. Dressed in jeans and t-shirts they could be a bunch of lads off on a stag weekend. I wonder what they thought about getting their photograph taken? Did they even understand what the man with the strange camera was doing? Did he ever come back and show them their photograph after it had been printed?

And for me that's the lovely thing about this exhibition: it gets you started on a journey of a thousand maybes. As you look at all these individual moments in time your mind, or maybe your heart, craves the backstories and the what-happened-nexts. For anyone with an interest in either social history or the history of photography this exhibition is totally compelling.

If you'd like to go along and see what all the fuss is about for yourself you can check out the website here: Salt and Silver: A rare and revealing collection of early photography. It's running until 7th June. Enjoy!

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Osterley Park's snowdrop drifts ...

Yesterday Emi and I headed over to Osterley Park with Maxi, the Wonder Dog, for a bit of a race around. It was a truly glorious morning: blue skies and sunshine with the mercury pushing up towards something approaching a hospitable temperature. It felt like maybe, just maybe, spring had sprung.

I've written about Osterley Park many times before. It's our local National Trust property, and I absolutely love it. It's where we come when we need a spot of fresh air and don't want to travel very far to inhale it. 

After we'd given the Wonder Dog a race round the park we decided to head into the gardens to see what how the spring flowers were getting along. 

We were delighted to see drifts of snowdrops encircling the trees.

They really were pretty. I think we'd inadvertently caught them at their best.

I love the snowdrops. They make my spirits soar. After the long haul of winter and the dreary grey of January they are such a welcome sight. Much as I love them, however, it would never occur to me to pull some and bring them inside. I remember as a child my grandparents' lawn used to turn white with snowdrops. They'd been growing there since forever and had spread around this way and that until they covered the grass with their floral snow, but whenever I asked to pick some to bring inside my Grandma would gently, but firmly, say no, adding that it would be unlucky to do so. 

And so the lovely snowdrops remained outside, and we admired them from afar.

This superstition seems to be one that many people in other parts of the country shared. It was commonly believed that to bring a posy of snowdrops into your house was an invitation for death to follow. Perhaps this was because they were planted by the Victorians on the graves of their loved ones, and hence they became tainted by association with the churchyard. Others have sought to explain the superstition by suggesting that the small white petals resemble a shroud. Speaking for myself I find it difficult to see anything shroud-like in the delicate beauty of the snowdrop, but each to their own as they say.

In earlier ages they were known as Candlemas Bells owing to how they were normally in bloom on Candlemas Day, the second of February, when people traditionally celebrated the Virgin's ritual purification 40 days after the birth of Jesus. As a result, in religious art, they were sometimes used as the symbol of the Virgin; their lowered heads a reminder of the Virgin's sorrow at the Crucifixion. 

Snowdrops are not native to our shores. It's thought that they were first introduced by Italian monks who carried them from their homeland to plant around the Cistercian houses of pre-Reformation England. This would mean they probably arrived here in the twelfth or thirteenth century when the great age of monastery-building was underway, and large numbers of people in Holy Orders were flooding into the country to assist with their foundation.

Perhaps those early monks carried them along as part of their medicine chests.  In the Middle Ages snowdrop bulbs were sometimes used as a rub-on treatment for headaches and as an antidote to certain poisons.  In the Caucuses people have long believed that they would remain young and retain the full sharpness of their mental faculties if they ate the odd snowdrop bulb. Modern medicine has vindicated their faith in the health-giving properties of the snowdrop, having established that the chemical galantamine, present in the snowdrop bulbs, helps to arrest the progress of Alzheimer's disease.

Osterley has a very special winter garden, where there are a great many other things vying with the snowdrops for your attention. I enjoyed admiring its fine bones. My mum always says that a good garden stands out in winter as you get to see all the underlying shapes and the structural backdrop when the leaves fall. She's not wrong. The centre of the garden (above) has been skilfully designed so that your eye travels on into the middle distance, between the trees and along the grassy path. I also love how they've used the red dog wood to add a dash of colour on the left hand side.

I loved the dwarf irises ... 

... the hellebores ...

.. and the crocus ...

... and I was blown away to find a sheltered bank, where a few daffodils were stealing a march and already blowing their trumpets ... .

All things told it was a very fine stroll. 

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Egyptian goose ... in Chiswick

Isn't it a beauty?

We were out for a walk on Sunday when it sailed by on the Serpentine in the grounds of Chiswick House. My first reaction was to admire the patchwork duck. A quick Google-around later, however, persuaded me that my patchwork duck was in fact an Egyptian Goose.

This native of the Nile Valley was once considered sacred by the Ancient Egyptians, by whom they were first domesticated. And like all nicely brought up ducks, they tend to pair with a mate for life.

It seemed strange that it should look so very much at home on a frosty morning in a London park. But then London's full of folk and fowl who come from strange and exotic places; that's a big part of its charm.

All the best,

Bonny x

As shared on Texture Tuesday

The coniferous ghosts of Christmas past ...

There's nothing that shouts the party's over any more definitively than a heap of abandoned Christmas trees waiting sadly for the bin men to come and collect them.

And they're dotted all around Ealing Common this morning as residents drag out the bedraggled remains of Christmas past to be wood-chipped and fed back into the merry old circle of life. 

Bleuch! I'm not a big fan of January. 

And it's cold and grey and miserable with high winds and rain promised by the weather forecast. Would anybody else out there like to hibernate until it's all over?

All the best for now,

Bonny x

Osterley Park's Christmas Bling ...

This morning dawned cold and frosty with clear skies and December sunshine: a perfect winter's day.

Emi and I headed out to Osterley Park to make the most of the good weather. I'd heard that they'd got all their Christmas decorations up and were opening the doors to let us in for a look at their Christmas bling.

I've written about Osterley before (The Jersey paintings return to Osterley Park and Bluebells in Osterley Park). It's a wonderful National Trust property just down the road from where we live, and is one of our favourite haunts for walking the Wonder Dog. When we want some fresh air and can't think where to go this is usually where we end up.

We had to leave the Wonder Dog behind as we were going inside, so we were able to stop and watch the ducks for a while. The Wonder Dog does not approve of ducks, and we normally have to walk quickly on by so as not to upset them with his barking.

It's hard to believe that this place is in Greater London. You can just about make out the aeroplane on its descent to nearby Heathrow.

As you walk around the estate you sometimes hear the roar of distant traffic, but otherwise it's incredibly peaceful. It's a great spot to come and enjoy Mother Nature's seasonal best. For those of us who live in the city it's easy to miss the passing seasons, but a quick trip out here soon puts us in touch with the natural world.

I like to sit on these chairs, with the sun on my face listening to the birds.

I love the majestic sweep of the branches of this Cedar of Lebanon that trail down to the water's edge. This old chap's got to be my ultimate Christmas tree.

Another old friend of mine lives on the opposite side of the house. He's an oriental plane tree who's been there since about 1755.

 They think that he originally came from Iran or Turkey. Isn't he amazing? His branches grow in strange ways, almost like the arms of a monkey who leans on his knuckles as he walks along.

Can you see little Emi standing amidst the branches to give some sense of perspective? If this old tree could talk, his tales would be well worth listening to.

The rest of the gardens were looking neat, but at this time of the year they owe their splendour to the beautiful rise and sweep of the trees.

Here and there we found the odd little reindeer, flexing his muscles and gearing up for the Big Night.

The gardeners had given each one a name. The chap above was called Blixen. Emi had a great time running from one to the next discovering their names and shouting them out into the cold air for everyone else's benefit.

Finally we remembered what we'd come for and headed inside.

In the long gallery, one of the surviving Tudor parts of the house, we found the most magnificent tree. Doesn't it look grand?

Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, came to visit Osterley on at least two occasions. I like to imagine her striding energetically up and down in here on rainy days with her courtiers fluttering after her like great black crows in a newly ploughed field.

It's a cracking room with exquisite paintings and objets d'art dotted around.

One of the many, many things that I love about this place is the staff who volunteer to help. They're all so enthusiastic about the place. This morning many of them had dressed in stunning period costumes. And without exception they were happy to chat about the place and answer Emi's questions.

Emi had a game of Devil Among the Tailors with a lovely young man who was bewigged (18th century style) and volunteering as a guide. The object of the game is to send the spinning top whizzing around the table to knock over as many skittles as possible. Each skittle has a number value and you have to take your aim with a view to hitting as many of the high-value skittles as possible. It's a game of skill and strategy that was once popular in London's many public houses.

Devil Among the Tailors is a name that was given to the game of table skittles after a group of tailors kicked up a rumpus outside a London theatre where they were staging a play called The Tailors: a Tragedy for Warm Weather. The play satirised the London tailors, and they took umbrage at the way in which they were being portrayed. They showed up en masse on 15th August, 1805 and started to riot. The special constables of the day were helpless against the numbers of angry tailors brandishing scissors and whatever else they had to hand. The Life Guards were called in and they did the job of dispersing the rioters so effectively that they were compared to a ball ploughing through the skittles.  And ever after the game of table skittles was known to Londoners as Devil Among the Tailors. 

Having made some Dried Orange Slice and Cinnamon Stick Christmas tree decorations I was interested to see how they had used dried fruit to make decorations too. In the Long Gallery they'd brought in lots of standard bay trees, which looked amazing with slices of dried apple and orange and whole dried clementines and limes: so many ideas for next year ... .

In the hallway they had a wishing tree, where Emi recorded his Christmas wish on a special label. Here he is with another of the lovely volunteer guides, writing it out carefully in his very best handwriting. 

And then he tied it to the tree along with all the other children's Christmas wishes. It reminded me a little of Buddhist Temples I've visited in the Far East where people write out prayers and tie them to trees in the Temple gardens. Our guide told us that this was once an authentic English tradition. I've never heard of it before, but as I think it's rather charming, it's one I'd be happy to adopt. 

This wonderful table centrepiece caught my eye. Back in the day the pineapple on top was probably worth more than they paid the cook in a year. 

Or how about this dumb waiter, groaning under the weight of its seasonal delights?

And every mantlepiece seemed to sport its own festive garlands and decorations.

Down in the kitchens they were making griddle cakes and we had a go at stirring the Christmas pudding. The cosy warmth from the old range cooker and the smell of Christmas spices were magical. 

We came away with grand plans for further embellishments to our own modest decorations at home. Emi has spent a good part of the afternoon working on his paper chains. If you're in the London area and you need something to reboot your Christmas mojo you might like to consider a trip out to Osterley Park. You can find their website here: Osterley Park.

All the best for now,

Bonny x

As shared on image-in-ing