Sunday outing - Archery, lunch and more h.Art visits

 Last Sunday we went out to Archery practise in the morning and then had lunch in The Bunch of Carots at Mordiford, which is right next to the River Wye.

After lunch we had a walk by the river.

Compostman showed Compostgirl how to "skim" stones :)

She caught on fast!

Then we left Compostman to do stuff at home and went out to see some h.Art events. Compostgirl was at school all week so missed out on our earlier trip to Mike and Tamsin's event, so I said I would take her there.

But first we dropped into blue ginger Gallery to see all the artists at work

and Compostgirl had an ice cream :)


Then it was off back to Tamsin and Mike's place, where we found Mike in full flow, making chair legs from Ash logs.

Compostgirl was fascinated by it all :)

Tamsin had the most amazing display hanging from the beam over the veranda outside her workshop

Fabulous :) Simply stunning :) I love her work :)

We enjoyed our trip out together :)

Art in Herefordshire - h. Art Week

# h.Artweek   #h.Art

We have the most amazing artists and craftspeople here in Herefordshire and during September every year we have a fabulous event called h.Art, which runs for a week all over the county.

Established some 12 years ago, h.Art is a prestigious annual event across Herefordshire, with a huge variety of art on show with at least 16 different media, 250 individual artists and 100 different venues across the whole county

h.Art this year was on from 6th - 14th Sept so last week Compostman and I decided to go and visit Mike and Tamsin Abbott's event: Greenwood and Glass, just up the road from us at their workshops near Bishops Frome.You may remember we have been to Mike's wood in the past and also to talks at blue ginger gallery by both Tamsin and Mike.

Tamsin makes exquisite illustrated stained glass panels, painted and engraved, depicting rural landscape, folklore and fairytale.

Mike makes chairs from local ash and oak, cleft and shaved to retain the vibrancy of the living tree. He has over 25 years experience in running courses in green wood chair-making and is the author of many books on green woodworking.

 They live in the most beautiful place (but then nearly ALL of Herefordshire is beautiful!)

 This is Tamsin's workshop

We arrived and were delighted to find Hannah Willow and Pamela Thom Rowe were there as well as Mike and Tamsin.  Hannah makes the most amazing jewelry and Pam spins and dyes and creates beautiful things from her yarns.

Tamsin's stained glass is amazing

and it was displayed to great effect on these wonderful frames (made by Mike I suspect!)

Another lovely warm September day, my favourite time of the year :) We had a good chat, sitting on Mike's beautiful chairs, in the sunshine, drinking coffee.




Compostman and I came away and had a trip into Ledbury on the way home

and then I picked some more produce - tomatoes this time to go into the dehydrator.

Lastly, I finally washed and ironed the Celtic throw I bought in Wales so I put it on the sofa - do you like it? I do :)

Blue Ginger Gallery. An afternoon with The Sisterhood of Ruralists; and then an evening with Jackie Morris

I had a really lovely day out last week .

I had a meeting in the morning in the Frome valley near the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border, so after my meeting I went to Blue-Ginger Gallery in Cradley to meet up with Jackie Morris, Hannah Willow and Tamsin Abbott, who were all artists in residence for the afternoon creating postcard sized artwork in aid of The Big Draw.

This is the Dragon van of Jackie Morris in the car park  - Tell me a Dragon, in mobile form! I felt so excited when I saw it :)

Jackie, concentrating on painting a Hare

Jackie, Tamsin and Hannah all at work making beautiful things

Jackie working on the beautiful hare

Hannah cutting into some birthday cake :)

Some of Hannah's beautiful craft


All three of the artists were delightful to chat to, and I am amazed they were able to talk AND create wonderful art at the same time! I wish I could just create the art!

They are all lovely, lovely people and I felt very honoured that they were willing to chat to me and work. This was a drop in session so  I did not have to pay for the honour and, although I did buy some wonderful stuff, I did not have to and there was no fee involved :)

I SO love indy galleries and bookshops for putting on events like this :) Thank you to Jackie, Hannah and Tamsin and thank you to Sue for hosting the event.




Then later I went back for a magical evening (yes for this I paid for a ticket and was lucky to get one as they sold out really fast!) listening to Jackie telling tales from some of her latest books and talking about her craft and how she sets about writing. Magical, simply wonderful.

I also ate some lovely food and drank some nice wine provided by Sue Lim of Blue-Ginger Gallery, and had lovely conversations with other members in the audience.

It was a wonderful evening. If you ever have the chance to listen to Jackie speak and read from her books I urge you to go - she is a wonderful storyteller and is warm, witty and very engaging as a speaker. I had a magical evening listening to her read and talk and answer questions from the floor.

 Then I went home and when I got home despite being tired I started reading East of the Sun, West of the Moon; and I stayed up until 2 am so I could finish it in one sitting .I drank in the rhyme and the beauty and the words and feasted my eyes on the sumptuous illustrations which oh-so-perfectly enhanced the words.

I honestly could NOT put the book down until I had read to the end. And then I cried. THAT is how good a writer and illustrator Jackie is :)   

And then I went off to bed, to dream of bears and hares and cats.

Seriously, you need to go and listen to Jackie speak if you can -and you need to buy her books. All are so fabulous both as tales and as art.

I had SUCH a great evening. Thank you Jackie.


You can read more about Jackie's tour of the UK here