Fabulous Fritillaries

Just wanted to share these photos of a beautiful fritillaria in my garden, I have always found them fasinating.  Its the patterns on the petals, they look like gingham, almost not natural.

Beautiful.

Glad I took these when I did, as a couple of days later one petal had been eaten!

a good spring clean

First I must admit, I forgot my camera, so these photos are from a few years earlier.

Every year just as the season starts I spend a Sunday morning at the Tapestry Gallery with my chairman and some of our trustees.  Our job?  To give the panels and their cases a good clean inside and out.  Its also a brilliant chance to have a close look at the embroidery

Once each panel has been removed, we polish the glass inside and out, finger prints on the outside (you can judge the age of the owner by the height up the glass!) and mysterious smears (that we can never work out how they appear) on the inside. The silica gets replaced, to keep any moisture in the air away from the embroideries.  Then Sally our textile conservator takes over.

She checks over each piece literally with a fine tooth comb, or should I say fine tooth tweezers.

 All pieces of fluff are gently removed, and the whole panel looked over for damage. 

 So far none have been found, phew!

Well that's all done for another year and

 we were all very grateful for the buttered gauche that Jo brought in. 

 Hope all our visitors appreciate our hard work!

A cozy corner

A long time ago, when I was a sixth former, our hang out was the Cosy Corner Pub, many great memories involving vodka and singing to Lily the Pink (still know all the words), Happy days!!!

Its now grown up and is called the Albion but what I wanted to mention is the fact its in the

 Guinness Book of Records.  

If you look at the photo below the pub is on the left (there has been one on this site since 1780) and the building on the right is the Town Church (which dates from the 1400 though parts may be older). 

 But its the gargoyle we are interested in, they are an ornate form of guttering, designed to project the rain water away from the side of the building. 

 And its this gargoyle that makes the pub the closes to a church in the British Isles.

Actually I think that gargoyle looks like he would like a drink, make his a pint of Breda!!!

see I am not the only mad one in this family!!!!

I am opening the Tapestry Gallery for the Summer Season on Monday, and that means I will be working most Saturdays.  So as the fog had at last gone, Chris and I decided to make the most of this and headed over to the island of Herm for the morning

Coffee on board Travel Trident, with loads of Lycra clad cyclists and Annette Henry heading over to take a Hen Party on a guided tour, now if those two meet it could be interesting!!!!

Now seeing bikes heading to Herm is rare as hens teeth, as they are not normally allowed, but this group had been given special permission to have a race round the island before the main tourist season starts in April.

Wanted to show you this boat 'Little Herm'  its owned by the island and if the weather is too rough for Trident and the children cant get home at the weekend (from school) this little work horse will go and get them.

quick pit stop for a cup of tea, we always come prepared, just wait and see!

Next stop was to whip up a gorgeous breakfast

Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon!!!!! Hope you are impressed, I was!

kept getting over taken by cyclist powering past us, felt abit lazy.....

Seals!!!!!

Or so we first thought, but they didn't move just bobbed up and down, came to the conclusion that they were 95% flotsam.....

Now for some arty shots, above is L'etacq at the south end of Sark, and below is Puffin Bay

At the north end of Puffin Bay is a small islet accessible only at low tide, its abit of a hairy climb down, and I didnt feel brave, so enjoyed watching Chris climb down and up it.

Then after his climb he wandered along the beach....

Then the next think I know he's stripped off

And joined me in becoming a March swimmer!

Then once Chris had got his fix off icy water and dried with the smallest towel known to man (literally the size of a flannel!) we set off again round the cliffs

past the beautiful Belvoir Bay, though very empty because it lost the lower part of its steps in the steps in the storms, so you cant get down and so has been closed, hope they get them fixed soon.

And on to Shell Beach and a very very low tide, later discovered it was an ormering tide, so there will be loads of islanders out in their waders foraging under rocks, up to their waists in seawater looking for delicious molluscs, yum!

Made it back to Rosaire Steps in time for the Trident, along with all the Lycra clad racers!

ooh so very very V.V!!!

I lived and worked in London in the late 90's, and my last job there was setting up and opening the second branch of V.V.Rouleaux in Marylebone High Street with my friend Cat.

Marylebone Lane, from V.V.Rouleaux website

This shop is an amazing ribbon grotto, there are literally thousands to choose from.

from V.V,Rouleaux website

I loved working there, we met some amazing people, made some pretty fantastic things, but must admit hated stock take, all those rolls of ribbon have to be unrolled and measured.......

from V.V.Rouleaux website

But when I left to move to Sussex, I brought loads of 5cm samples, thinking that one day I would need them as reference.  Not quite sure what?  But its always good to be prepared!

Roll forwards 15 odd years (ouch) and all those samples are still kicking around.

 and it was about time I did some thing with them,

 So ta dah, ribbon cards, little samples of V.V.Rouleaux

now just need to get them all packaged up,

And then deliver them to Lovely Pops in Mill Street.

I did it! Cold but exhillerating!

My friend Olcay is one of the Polar Bear swimmers,

 the mad group of people who swim every day of the year.  

And yesterday I found myself suggesting that I joined her this morning, now I must add that yesterday it was beautiful and sunny, and this morning it was cloudy and windy.  

But if I can go in now then I can go in any time!

 Got down there for 9, and there were about ten swimmers, all smiley and chatty. 

 They have their little changing rooms well stocked with microwave, kettle and fridge. Perfect for making that restorative cup of tea!

Well here goes, its now or never.

And crumbs it was icy, but I got in, and swam a very quick circle, 

Olcay was very impressive and did two lengths

But I am so glad I went in, was glowing afterwards, its a brilliant way to start the day.  Everyone down there seemed to think that the more I do it, the longer I will be able to stay in, at the moment I am thinking about going down twice a week, so I will let you know if that happens!!!

and poor Fermain

Beautiful day today, spring really is nearly here.

So walked round to Fermain Bay for lunch with my friend Lenka.

And wanted to show you that its not just the west coast that has badly battered.

This happened to the Fermain sea wall in January,

But because so many of our sea defences have been badly damaged, 

our States are having to prioritise which to fix first.

And I expect that because there is no road or houses near this hole its further down the list.

But because there have been alot more storms since then, the hole in the cliff is growing fast.

They did fill the hole temporarily with cages filled with rocks, but this is all that is left.

I do understand, Vazon is meant to cost £500,000 to fix, but its sad.

poor Vazon

Well we have all been rather battered by storms this winter, but this weekend just gone we got very battered by gales and high tides.  The sea front in town was under a foot of water, it usually floods a Spring tides, but not this much......

From Guernsey Weather Facebook site)

But this is what happened out on the west coast, a bloody big hole in the sea wall.

Went down this morning to have a look, and they are filling in the crater with massive granite boulders

Not the easiest job at high tide......

18 years on

Well I cant believe it, but its now been 18 years since I lost my Mum to the big C.

I know I don't usually do posts that deal with deep emotions, and I am not sure if I am comfortable with it, but I thought I would dip my toe in. 

Grief is a hard thing to describe to any one that is lucky enough not to have experienced it. So I thought I would try and put it into words.

• Time does heal but it doesn't cure, you will all ways have a part of you that is missing. An ache.
• You feel jealous, you see adults with their mothers and you feel jealous, that that was taken away from you before you had the chance to appreciate the gift that it is.
• People not appreciating their parents is not dealt with well.................
• It can sneak up on you totally unexpected, books and films get totally vetted, but references still sneak in, or appear in the adverts and with out warning you feel a wave of grief swamp over you (thought those tend to be very short lived).
• Certain dates are painful, and you need to plan round them, protect your self from your self almost.
• But some times you can swan through Big Days, Anniversaries, Christmas etc, and other times you cant, not logic, no rhyme or reason. 

I view my grief for my Mother (died when I was 21) and my Father (died when I was 33) as files in a filing cabinet in my head, always with me, but filed right at the back. Ever so often they creep forward and have to be taken out and re-organised and then put back at the back.  A sort of M.O.T.

Most of all with my Mum, who was a bloody good artist, I miss the chance to get to know her as a Friend, two adults who could go an exhibition together and then for a glass of wine and a chat.  I wish I had that, I really really do