Messages

Now I'm not a superstitious person - messages come usually by email or through the door in an envelope with a stamp on. Last week however, I went on the train to Edinburgh to visit the Scottish national Gallery of Modern Art and on getting out of the (very convenient) Gallery bus at the front entrance, there, shining out across the building was a message that seemed to speak straight to me -

It put me in mind of Julian of Norwich's axiom 'all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well' - there's a comforting thought.
However, when I walked out to the sculpture trail, leading from one of the Gallery buildings to the other, there was another 'message'.

I almost laughed out loud !
The installations are by Julian Opie who has the 'running horse' piece in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
He must have known I was coming.

Not Another Bug House!!

No ..... it's not!  This one is at Croft Castle and is now complete since my visit last year and very resplendent it looks too as it overlooks the pond which has newts, frogs and grass snakes visiting.

Tatton Bug House

A very rustic bug house in the walled garden at Tatton Park. I am sure the bugs do not mind!

Yet Another Bug House

This lovely bug house with its own Green Man was one of several in the Stumpery at Burnby Hall Gardens which I visited last week.
There were a number of sculpts and things of interest in the garden so it was a lovely visit despite its main attraction, a National Collection of waterlilies is not being in flower until July.

This is the remaining stump of a giant redwood - the scale is hard to see in this photo but look at the next one to see what the log was used for.

Beat that for a summerhouse !

Just Another Bug House!!

I discovered this photograph recently whilst moving some pictures into folders.  I think it was taken at Ryton Organic Gardens in 2014.

Here comes the sun !

Well at least for a day or two - enough to make me abandon housework (visitor tomorrow) in favour of a jolly walk through the churchyard and onto the downstream river path, along the Ure and a turn off up the Burn - sun and snowdrops all the way.

The alder catkins look lovely - soon they'll be full of pollen and spring will really be on its way ! They still look good though and fill me full of cheer.

You can see the debris from the river around the roots - in some parts the path was swept away and there is a great deal of sand from the river bed on the path and the banks - doesn't stop the snowdrops though !

Finished at last !

I can't believe how long a 4" square can take to cover with thread ! This is my piece  - the bottom right hand corner of a vastly enlarged photograph taken in Ripley Castle's walled garden last year. The photo was divided up into 60+  4" squares and by a lucky dip process, everyone at the R&L EG took a bag containing a copy of the relevant square, plus calico, wadding, card and instructions for lacing and backing the square. Mine is entirely machine embroidery with a bit of applique, also machined over. I had some problems with distortion, mainly because I forgot to

use a backing fabric for the calico, so had to do a little 'fixing'. The hardest part was the lacing and stretching - this took an inordinate amount of time, mostly because I  haven't had much practise with the technique and because of my tendency to bend the holding pins and get the lacing thread caught around them.
 I probably needed to cut away a little more of the fabric too - the corners are not very sharp . I'd like to say it will be better next time but I am definitely not volunteering to do another. At least the square I got was a simple image - don't want to risk getting a complicated one !