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 

Harvesting things.

What we have been doing this week is...

Picking pears

Harvesting the first of the potatoes for storage. We have been eating them since June, but now it is time to lift them and let thm harden off on the surface for a few hours, and then store them , for use in the winter months.

Harvesting the Lavender, for use in soaps and lotions and potions.

Some of the Onions, lifted (finally!) It has been SO wet we have not been able to and were really worried they would rot in the ground...)

More Onions, a tray of shallots ( really good crop this year!) and the first of the pumpkins!

Plums. Lots of them. We have called in friends to come and pick the surplus!

A quiet weekend in the garden

This weekend has been a peaceful, if busy time. Time spent tending my garden, weeding , harvesting and talking to visitors about my work in the Wood and the various renewable energy systems we use to reduce our carbon footprint.

Yesterday afternoon and this morning I have; cleaned out the eglu, cleaned the two large wooden hen houses, the walk in run and all the feeders and drinkers, filled 8 compost bins with assorted stuff, moved 8 wheel barrowloads of an old bonfire pile to somewhere else ( lots of digging involved), hand mowed around the potato patch ( the raised bed ones), tidied the barn and swept the paved areas, watered and fed the polytunnel and picked lots of produce from the garden. I did lots of other stuff as well, but I can't remember the details!

I also did lots of inside, housework...and washed, hung out , dried and put away 3 loads of washing. I love the smell of freshly line dried washing!

Compostgirl went to play at her best friend's house today, and I gave a talk to a group of crop sharers from a local CSA scheme just up the road. They walked across the fields to us, and we had a pleasant hour or so in the wood, where I gave my talk, they asked questions, drank tea and generally had a look around at how we keep chickens, grow veg, make compost and generate our own electricity and hot water and wood products. They were a lovely group of people and it was a pleasure to talk to them.

Then it was time to collect a tired but happy Compostgirl and have our evening meal, which was entirely home grown or home reared.

A good weekend.

A day out with fellow composters....and a really good talk!

Back from a lovely day out at a social gathering of Herefordshire and Worcestershire Master Composters held at Worcester Woods Country Park. We had a fabulous talk from a member of the Countryside Services, Senior Greenspace Officer Wade Muggleton, on his amazing recycled garden

Wade is a local award winning gardener and writer. His talk was titled "Gardening like a Womble! a talk on permaculture and gardening"

Wade has travelled extensively in New Zealand & Australia, visiting and working on organic farms and permaculture projects. He “walks the talk”, having spend the last 7 years developing his own small garden into an intensive food producing plot that contains more than 23 kinds of fruit and about 20 types of vegetables. “Grow It” magazine awarded him their coveted “plot of the year” award in 2009 and he writes for Permaculture magazine.

It was a really good talk, as Wade said, “if we use small garden plots and allotments we reduce carbon emissions, waste, transport and pollution.” He is the most amazing skip diver, vegetables and fruits were flourishing in an amazing variety of containers and raised beds. As you might expect from an audience of Master Composters, we then had a lively question and answer session .

We had some lovely lunch, followed by a workshop, again headed up by Wade, on making willow structures such as obelisks and hurdles. We all had a really good time and, as always ,I came away enthused and energised by these gatherings with like minded folk.

Wade demonstrating how to make a willow obelisk

Also no hens were killed today and it was lovely weather.

So all in all a good day!.

Master Composters cutting willow.

Finally, if anyone reading this lives in Herefordshire or Worcestershire, the Waste Management team are looking for some more people to train as Master Composters? So, if you are interested, give me an email and I can give you more details?

Me and my lovely willow obelisk.

Buddys Friday

Margaret, over at Margarets Ramblings, came to visit us this week, along with lovely daughter Fiona from
A pot, a thought and a smidgen of dirt

It was lovely to meet them both "in person" and they stayed to lunch with Compostman and I.

We walked around the garden, they met the cats and hens, we went in to a (very wet soggy ) wood and generally had a good old natter about this and that ( as you do!)

They left to go back to their holiday cottage a bit earlier than planned(Garak their lovely dog was getting a bit stressed because he had to stay in the car I think, which was a shame but our cats, especially old Kitty Cat, just don't get on with dogs :-( )

So they didn't get to meet Compostgirl as had been originally planned but it was really great to meet up with them and have them stay for lunch!

Margaret and Fiona, you are as nice in person as you both come across in your blogs.

Margaret runs a regular blog event called "Buddys Friday" where you are invited to join in and share help, support and advice on a number of subjects. its a really good idea and in these troubled, recession hit times anything which helps folk to be more frugal and self reliant is A JOLLY GOOD THING in my book :-)

So...why not pop over to her blog and have a read?