Home is where the heart is........

A special blog for someone who will remain nameless, lets call her Betsy and anyone else who might just be wondering the same thing.

Where do I hang out when I am home?

 Above is one corner of my studio, the corner I sit at the torch.  My studio is in the garden under an enormous great tree that goes the most beautiful rustic reds in the Autumn.  I get lots of Jays, Sparrows, Magpies, Robins, Pigeons the odd duck and bird of prey in that tree too.

I took all these photos this morning, Sunday February 14th 2016, its not tidy in my kitchen, or anywhere in the house really I have been poorly for a few weeks and my husband has worked nights all week so cleaning has been a bit lapse.

When on my laptop writing, loitering on FB, wrapping beads for sending as well as eating, cooking - ok watching the husband cook - lighting fires  and a myriad of other tasks I am in the kitchen.  My kitchen is a big room, the dinning table at one end and the pantry at the other.  Three doors lead from the kitchen one to the utility room - no photos if the rest of the house is bad this room is strictly off limits! one to the pantry and the other by the fridge to the hall. The utility leads to a small shower room and a door takes you outside, this is the back door but is the front door as its most used and has the letter box.  Like my life the house is a bit back to front and upside down, perfect living really.

So, photo above facing the dining table, as you can see Iz and Defi have had breakfast and their raised bowl stand will be put away in a minute...  or two.  Can you see the prone shape on the fire hearth?  

The corner to the right of the dining table is where my book that I am currently writing is housed in a rather bespoke box that looks like an old encyclopedia, I love that box!

Facing the other end of the room, my rocking chair I stole from one brother who had stole it from our other brother.. they are twins and I am the eldest, I liked it, I pinched it, its been with me for about 20 years!  

The door on the left is the pantry the other door leads to the room of doom, otherwise known as the utility room...shudders at visions of mud splattered walls and dirty laundry....

The third door from the kitchen takes you into the hall and the monolith that is Gordy Towers is across the front door that we don't use.  A bookcase stands to the right and that is where the cats eat and the stairs take you to the bedrooms.  I like the glass doors, we have this one and the one from the hall into the living room which is on the left of Gordy Towers: the glass is always covered in nose prints and dribble and although they are smeared and in need of constant cleaning I can spy on Gordy when he is playing by himself in the hall, in turn he can sit and sulk at the door to come in when he is banished at cooking times!

My living room, bit of a mess!  this is the corner you could see from the door way and my 'end of the sofa'  I have drawing pads, pencils, crochet hooks, yarn and fish tanks.  I love my nursery fish tank on my old hexagonal table, one day I really will decorate this table in the style of the narrowboats.  I have said that for the 15 years I have had it!!

Close up of the 'stuff' on my table and its all mine.... 

Stuffed between the fish tank and the sofa, filling for crochet toys, my bag of hooks and my sewing box my son brought me for Christmas that has my fine threads in that I will probably hoard for a few years before using and my toys eyes.  NO ONE else in the house is allowed piles but I follow my own rules!

The fish tank and me still in my dressing gown and pj's!!

From the right of Gordy Towers in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs is a window that shows you the back of the garden.  The house sits not quite in the middle of the gardens so we don't have a front and back but this is to the back of the house, just a corner mind the garden is a lovely big size, surrounded by fields and country lane.  This is my studio shed under the big tree (right photo below) that is still quite bare.  My garden is not at its finest and this part faces North so it does get the wind and rain.

The left hand photo was taken from the window in the living room at the front and shows my very impressive bamboo and my sons van that is actually in pieces!!  Bloody kids!!  I can't show you the other end of the drive that wraps around the house and takes you back to the kitchen and utility because to be quite honest its a mess of mud, cars, wood for the fire...   Tucked in the bamboo is my bird table so I have some lovely movement and chirrping from this area.

Taken from the same window in the living room but pointing to the left of the garden, the sun was just rising this morning.  This is the gate that leads out onto the lane, that telephone line that stretches the length of the lane quite often has big rooks, ravens, crows, magpies, pigeons, owls, red kite and many other beautiful birds sitting on it annoying Defi and making him bark!

Remember the prone figure from above?  You guessed it just another morning protest at the lack of fire for his lordship!

...and on the table is the most recent copy of Gordy and Me in Cat World Magazine, I leave it there to remind the family what a fabulous writer I am and that I really need time to finish the book and do next months article.

How is that Betsy?  Now you know where I live and how, creativity chaotic!!

This blog post is part of the Creative Sunday Blog Hop hosted by Jill of Kiln Fired Art

Garden project.

I got the lawn mower out yesterday, finally, after days of rain and shine and being busy driving up and down the motorway with my husband collecting cars for his garage.  Straight after walking the dogs and still wearing my comfy wellington boots I got out the mower, filled it with petrol and started.

I had my mobile phone in my pocket so I took a few snaps.  I have been looking around my garden for months, watching the flowers bloom and then fade, the rain come and the winds sweep through my tall wispy bouquets of cottage garden colour and flatten them. 

After having the chickens, and missing them terribly after foxy loxy and badger took them, most of my fragile plants are gone, the girls took great pleasure in up rooting them and scratching around in the worms and bugs that lay underneath.  I replaced the plants with hardy shrubs, those that don't need much tending and can survive the inclement summers of the UK as well as the wrath of the chickens.  I found I liked the shrubs.  As much as I love a good potter around in the garden I can't give it the time it needs to maintain that cared for look that all the gardens around me have, mainly because they have a dedicated paid gardener and my garden has me!

Thyme from my step fathers garden.  If only I had some time to plant it where I need it to go, around the back door where Defi jumps on Iz and between them they crush my lavender to release the scent into the air around the damaged stems.

My old veggie beds, two of which I planted up with cottage garden favourites and they were beautiful.  Butterflies and bees, dragon flies and beetles all flocked to these beds which delighted our Gordy.    

I planted some wild Sweet Peas in with the Clematis against the south facing wall of my studio, I love to watch the bumble bees and the butterflies from the window as I torch my glassy blooms.  I have got very good at catching the butterflies that come into the studio, I love to feel them light and soft in my hand before releasing them out of the door and watching them fly into the sky.  The bumble bees I chastise and point the way, their big stripy bodies hum towards the heavens.  When I was a little girl and terrified of bees my Grandmother used to tell me to talk to them and that they would listen and leave.  She was right.  They do.

My old chicken coop that sits under the big window of the studio I decided to use as my vegetable bed this year, already fenced off it stopped Defi from helping me dig up the not quite ready veg.  The hedge is in need of a cut but my son, who was supposed to be doing it hurt his back a few weeks ago and so the hedge never got done and now he is better its a case of catch up and the hedge is not a priority for the men folk, but then the same men folk don't cut the grass and have to fight off the reaching brambles and nettles.  The vegetable beds became over grown too quickly, I just haven't had the time to tend the garden this year, so I have made the decision to abandon the vegetables and my son has said he will help me to take down the fencing and leave the grass to grow back.

I am lucky to have an enormous garden, but I don't have the enormous amounts of time to put into it, so I have a plan for next year.  The old chicken coop is going.  We don't have a front and back garden as the garden wraps around the house but...at the front (no photos) I started a wildlife garden this summer and the seeds I have been collecting from the wild flowers in the old veg beds will be scattered there. Gordy has enjoyed the long grass and the bees and flies that visit the wild patch and I enjoy watching him watching them and trying to catch the odd fly.  Its exercise for him both mentally and physically and it makes me smile watching my little cat with problems (for those that don't know Gordy is brain damaged) be a cat in his own awkward way.  So that is staying, its easy to keep as it really keeps itself just needing chopping down at the end of the summer.

The veg beds are going.  I am not growing as much veg for the foreseeable future, maybe some spuds in the bags but that's it.  The old veg beds I am planning to turn into raised beds, adding some shrubs or something, although the third one will remain with strawberries and rhubarb.

I would love more roses, the big old English garden ones with heady scent and although we can no longer have chickens due to the midnight raids from our neighbouring foxes and badgers and I miss the movement the chickens brought to the garden so I will be looking out for some big waving shrubs, the kind with large clusters of flowers that attract butterflies, like the Buddleia.

Well, that's my plan, or at least the start of a plan.  I feel that summer is over here, the days although still warm are not the hot and sticky days were getting, which I loved but did mean that Iz Defi and I spent a lot of time at the river, time that I could, or should, have put into the garden maybe?....