Open Studio

The value of old fashioned publicity: the printed leaflet.

I have just taken part in the first weekend of Saffron Walden Open Studios and had a marvellous time showing people round my studio and garden.    

Handmade cards of original acrylic sketches from my sketch book

The studio with cottage garden in front- a mix of vegetables, flowers and some sculpture thrown in the mix.

Some of the paintings on display in the studio

Looking through the wisteria, Acyrlic.  One of the pictures that sold this weekend.

As a recent (and enthusiasitc) convert to twitter, facebook and blogging I was surprised just how effective the old forms of publicity still are.  Taking out the people who are my longstanding supporters and friends the majority of footfall (and some buyers) came because they had picked up a good old fashioned printed leaflet which Saffron Walden Arts Trust had had printed so smartly.  So many of the people who arrived had obviously studied the leaflet and chosen their route and made the effort to find us, clearly with out the use of SATNAV or an iphone.  I thank them even though I am sure they will never read this it was a delight to meet them all.  So printers don't give up!

The well produced leaflets,

complete with handy map for those of us without an iphone!

Unfortunately I can not open next weekend but lots of the other studios are open again.  I do hope that the leaflets continue to attract visitors.  If you would like to visit my studio please visit my website and contact me through that.  Many thanks.

Waiting for the sun in my front garden

It is 8.30am and I have been out in the garden enjoying the morning sun and the birds singing.  Amongst the wood pigeons and the sparrows I heard, and then saw a cuckoo, which was a first for here.  Our unclipped front hedge is just so popular with the sparrows and obviously the pond has added to the attractions for birds (along with the un-netted fruit which we share with them).

Painting furiously over the past few days in preparation for Saffron Walden Open Studios but thought I would get this done quickly whilst waiting for the sun to come round on to the irises by the pond.

The other thing I am still trying to finish which doesn't get the sun until the midday is the wisteria and I am up against time as the lovely warm weather means they are opening up right down the cascades of flowers and appear to change by the hour or quicker!  Needless to say all very impressionistic, in fact I have in a book some lovely vague Monet  paintings of wisteria which inspired me to have a go at a whole  wall of wisteria...as you can see an impression.

My wisteria is Pink Ice, initially I was so disappointed it wasn't the purple variety but I have grown to like it and it does have a really glorious scent.  This is a close up small study I have last week.

This painting along with some others you can find at the Darryl Nantais Gallery, Linton, Cambridge

Yes I finally plucked up courage to go into a gallery and hey presto the first one I went into said yes please we love your paintings.  What a boost in what has been challenging year so far.

Obtaining a diagnosis for a developmentally delayed child

Obtaining a Diagnosis for a child

I have just listened to bbc r4 women's hour and heard the lady who had struggled to get a diagnosis have difficulty in talking about it.  I really felt for her as I am sure many others who have been ignored and belittled by doctors did too.
The positive is that there are some fabulous doctors out there who have learnt a rigorous diagnostic approach and apply it!  Lucky parents of developmentally delayed children who meet them first time.

This is my experience.

My son was a jolly baby as long as he was being held and had attention of at least one adult.  Well, quite  like lots of children you might say and in my female dominated extended family, everyone's reaction was "well he is a boy".  He was late to walk and talk but did get there, and he was generally happy, loved nursery and although hard work we managed.  He was referred to paediatrician at the age of 3, I think (I have to confess I have burnt all records predating his eventual correct diagnosis)  and after a few awful appointments in which he completely freaked out and behaved as I have never seen before they proposed to me that he was on the autistic spectrum and had global developmental delay.  Read, he was a bit weird and did not want to conform to their stereotypes and was behind on speech and understanding.  Notice this is not a diagnosis just a label for what they noticed about him in the  sessions when they saw him.  I could not accept this as my son was so empathetic and loving and so happy when at home, it just did not fit.

I avoided the problem by ignoring it but then he developed epilepsy and so hospital appointments became a necessity.   Whilst the hospital went on listing his symptoms we asked (prompted by a neighbour who suggested it) if he might have Fragile X syndrome.  Blood was taken and he was "tested".  We now know that the consultant, who never listened to me, did not carry out the correct gene sequencing test but just looked at chromosomes and pronounced that his genes were "normal".  Luckily for other reasons I asked to be referred to another hospital and we saw a group at Guys and St Thomas's, amongst whom was a paediatric neurologist called Tammy Hedderely, who we still see today.  She was a listener and she asked if she could do genetic tests and of course her instincts were right my son had Fragile X Syndrome a fault on the x chromosome which prevents him from making a vital protein normally present in the brain, controlling the communication between nerves.  The behaviour that looked like autistic spectrum to the doctors was due to extreme anxiety (bought on by hospital appointments, anxiety he did not experience in everyday life as a preschooler) which is the result of the Fragile X syndrome.

Strangely at the same time that the local hospital were not bothering to do proper gene tests on my son they were pouring money and time at my baby daughter who was not putting on weight and being sick all the time.   The consultant in this case was really nice and I trusted him completely, unfortunately nice is nice but not following simple procedures to diagnose what turned out to be a very simple fault in her stomach muscle cost the NHS a lot of money and my family a lot of stress.  In the end she was diagnosed by a GP in New Zealand over the phone with little more than the weights and measurements from red book read out to her and the doctor talking to me about my daughter and listening.  It came back to that again.  Many doctors take what they see as the only evidence (even to the extent in my daughters case of ignoring what her GP had said).  Clearly a parent will have seen a fuller picture of the child than a doctor who sees them for 30 mins a couple of times.

10 years on from that dreadful summer of 2003 I have two lovely children, one completely cured and one helped immensely by a proper diagnosis and so an understanding of what will help him to achieve the best out of life.  It is obviously anecdotal but might I can't help feeling it is relevant: both doctors who listened to me were female, the ones that did not were male.

I wanted to put a picture and just to show I am not against all male help here is Dash our male cocker spaniel, a better listener, companion, mood booster, incentive to exercise it would be hard to find.....he gets the children up in the morning too!

Bad hair day?

I found this poem by Pablo Neruda poem about 2 weeks ago and I have been reading and re-reading it ever since.  I am trying to stop myself getting into unnecessary and draining arguments with my children about clothes, hair brushing and washing.  If anything will help you move the goal posts about appearance this will!


TO WASH A CHILD

by Pablo Neruda

Only the most ancient love on earth

will wash and comb the statue of the children,

straighten the feet and knees.

The water rises, the soap slithers,

and the pure body comes up to breathe

the air of flowers and motherhood.

Oh, the sharp watchfulness,

the sweet deception,

the lukewarm struggle!

Now the hair is a tangled

pelt crisscrossed by charcoal,

by sawdust and oil,

soot, wiring, crabs,

until love, in its patience,

sets up buckets and sponges,

combs and towels,

and, out of scrubbing and combing, amber,

primal scrupulousness, jasmines

has emerged the child, newer still,

running from the mother's arms

to clamber again on its cyclone,

go looking for mud, oil, urine and ink,

hurt itself, roll about on the stones.

Thus, newly washed, the child springs into life,

for later, it will have time for nothing more

than keeping clean, but with the life lacking.


This is what we have found in the woods in the last week: a badger set (and saw badger one evening but no photo), a poor little weasel who had curled up and died, a rabbit saved unharmed but shocked from soft mouth of our dog, our dog in one of the many old hedgerows we are lucky to have around here and a field full of dandelions,  in a meadow like this they are spectacular.  Finally the glorious bluebells.

The fact is that the issue was never around  messy clothes for painting, walking, exploring etc, on that we all agree.   When it is time to go to theatre, out to lunch etc, that is when the   arguments start.  Post Pablo Neruda's advice though I have been allowing anything, however ripped and worn out as long as it has been washed... I wonder how long I will be able to keep this going?

Birthday presents that cost nothing but time!

I am an occasional watcher of gardner's world and have often dreamed of having an army of helpers to prepare my soil like Monty Don clearly has.  Now I can't afford that, so this year as my birthday approached and I got the usual queries "what would you like?" I said to family, please please instead of presents could you all come and help in my garden.  Some members said oh we still want to give you something and I replied no, what  you don't realise is I do really want you to work not just sit around chatting.

So the day dawned on Saturday not with the best weather forecast but not complete disaster.

First get the children sorted:  they chose the patio  weeding, with extra incentive of barbeque sausages in the evening.  What a    fab result!  (sorry no "before" photos I took all of these the next day on saturday too busy working)

They did extra work (without any prompting) of cutting a path out of the back of the garden to the fields behind our garden.

My youngest sister, who had rashly put a "head gardner" voucher in her birthday card to me, was given the job (needless to say no one else applied) and she headed the group working on vegetable garden at the  front of the house.  Now, not completely weed free but that is not really my style.    The paths are a bit of a nightmare, when we moved here 10years ago we brought with us a stash of old bricks (it is a long story which i will not bore you with) with which I got same sister's partner to layout this garden.  At the time I had romantic visions of creeping thyme between the bricks and so shunned idea of concrete inbetween the bricks.  Oh how I have cursed that, as repeatedly scrapping dandelions, bindweed, shepherds purse etc out of the spaces between the bricks.  The creeping thyme I had tried to establish long since taken off to more hospitable parts of garden.

Last year this plum tree had grown so much and was so laden with fruit that due to lack of any support it broke and half was lost to my lack of organisation.  Following Saturday it has a network that it will be lucky to reach in ten years (but if it goes on raining like this it might get to the top sooner).  Other wires were put up and repaired in various places so now do need to do the tying in.

Do I have the coldest garden in east anglia? the very first asparagus shoots coming up on 10th May benefited from the head gardener's sort out of compost bins.

This might not look that great but it shields the plastic oil tank and can be decorated in time and cost nothing being two old garage doors that had been salvaged.

The only problem being that the rain came pouring down so sausages had to be cooked in kitchen.  After a festive supper we braved the rain to go an look for  badger which we have been saying we would do for the last two years.  Despite the doom of my mother- the badgers will never come out in this etc, it turned out one of them was as mad as us.  No photo as would have needed under water camera to take shot.  The badger had clearly decided that it was too wet and was making a dash for warm burrow.  Fabulous end to a lovely day.

The 4th May in my garden

Like most people spring is such a special time for me, both out on walks and in my garden.  The reassurance I derive from the  spring flowers that come out so faithfully every year is very important to me.

One of those I look forward the most is the Amelanchier.  This year it is glorious.  The five petalled flowers are just loving this warm dry weather that we are enjoying now.  It is a mighty shrub but hard to photograph in its entirety, so here is a close up.  As I am sitting here I can not see the plant but the petals are floating past on the wind.

I painted a small sketch last year, below, now sold.

This year I have painted it at my bed room window in the early morning ( if you have read the previous posts you probably recognise the Winifred Nicholson window theme...).

The viburnum is another favourite is out and I can see it from the window by the computer but to appreciate the scent better to be right by it!

A very quick sketch of the viburnum a couple of weeks ago:

On the subject of scent I got a lovely surprise today when (finally) trimming back last years flower stalks from my old english lavender (large, late flowering, pale lavender variety).  The scent was overwhelming.

I am now sitting typing this imbibing the gorgeous aroma of the clippings and re reading a fabulous poem by Pablo_Neruda‎  which came to mind.  It is about the scent of a Peumo Tree, do go to this link for a charming website about Chilean plants.  As usual with his poems, I don't really understand this but the feeling evoked by a the scent of a plant is something I can relate to.


Peumo Tree
Pablo Neruda

I broke a glossy woodland leaf: a sweet
aroma of cut edges
brushed me like a deep wing that flew
from the earth, from afar, from never.
Peumo, then I saw your foliage, your minute,
curly verdure, cover its earthly trunk
and your fragrant breadth with its impulses.
I thought how you're my entire land: my flag
must have a peumo's aroma when it unfurls,
a smell of frontiers that suddenly
enter you with the entire country in their current.
Pure peumo, fragrance of years and hair
in the wind, in the rain, beneath the mountain's
curvature with the sound of water running
down to our roots, O love, O wild time
whose perfume can be born, issuing
from a leaf and filling us until we flood
the earth, like old buried pitchers!

Wildlife pond in garden.

  Wildlife Pond

A year and four months ago my daughter decided she wanted a pond (with frogs and newts of course) for her Christmas present.  Now I have to admit although I am normally saying haven't you got enough playmobil / cuddly toys etc, I was thinking "that sounds like a lot of hard work".  Oh how  wrong I was.  This was easy compared to dog/ cat/ piles of toys clogging up house, and it can be left at the weekends without need for expensive kennels...

Online I discovered that you either pay for a butyl liner or you have to keep re making your pond.  I quickly found a supplier of butyl liners http://www.butylproducts.co.uk  This website allows you to calculate the amount of liner you need and you can buy the underliner and we put in the same  felty stuff inside too and it has been a bonus for wildlife as it creates warmer pockets around the edge.

I ordered a metre cube of sand from Ridgeons and  her grandmothers, overjoyed for something that was not plastic nor computer based paid for the lot (less than £200 in total).

Boxing day  was spent working off the Christmas lunch digging and shifting the sand that had been helpfully left about 20 metres from the pond.  Still it meant everyone in extended family kept busy all day not just valiant one in the bottom of pond.  By the end of the day we were filling it up with water.  By the start February 2012 we were beginning to put in plants given to us by friends and family, but the algae were taking an upper hand and the surrounding black was prominent.  Unhelpful comments from husband were heard like "why do you let her do things like this" etc.

Granny and various pond owning friends of hers to the rescue: tadpoles galore!  they gobbled up all the algae and the warmth meant our oxygenating plants took off and a combination of all of this created a crystal clear pond.  Even the irises I had planted flowered in their first year. (yes they did cost something but I painted them and sold the painting so...)

Skip forward to April 2013

The work has been minimal, additional expenditure 0 (yes compare that to dog or cat)

, but the excitement this year has been unstoppable:

First a smooth male newt was spotted:

Then the king cups came out:

Damselfly nymph - an amazing creature with three tail like gills

 Pond dipping from dawn to dusk

We have our very own disabled frog named HOP

 Frog spawn and more and more.  This year we have been able to give away frog spawn.

 Water boatmen

 Then there were three.. the male newt has two females

 A frog by the kingcups

And loads and loads more but NO FISH! apparently they don't work in small wildlife ponds.

And if you are wondering where all this info came from- the Oxfam book shop in Saffron Walden, simply the most amazing charity book shop I have ever been to.http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/local-shops/oxfam-bookshop-saffron-walden

The Pond by Gerald Thompson and Jennifer Coldrey, but I am sure there are many other equally informative books on the subject (oh yes and there is always the internet)