Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the glorious weather and do something we have been meaning to do for ages, namely to visit Llanerchaeron in Cardiganshire (see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/llanerchaeron). Llanerchaeron is a 1790s reworking by John Nash of an older country house, elements of which can still be seen internally. It has all the characteristics of the 'form over function' approach of Nash and his contemporaries - the handsome symmetry of the exterior of the house is achieved only because of the fake windows, which do not actually exist in the rooms inside. The proportions of the Nash rooms are very pleasing, and a contrast to the rooms in the older part of the house, which are smaller and less imposing - but at least here the fireplaces worked properly and they were able to keep warm! Again, function was sacrificed for the sake of the aesthetic. It was, of course, exactly this kind of thing which Pugin, Ruskin etc were rebelling against half a century later when they were insisting that form should follow function in architecture, even if that meant asymmetry and sticky-out bits on houses.
Despite - perhaps because of - smiling wryly at the contrivance of the architecture, I really liked the house - the relatively small scale of the building means that it still manages to be intimate and domestic - one could imagine living there, in the grand manner but without feeling as if one was rattling about in a stately home. The upstairs bedrooms and boudoir, although cunningly oval shaped (even with curved doors!), are modestly sized and furnished. Also, the National Trust has decided to offer a more informal visitor experience, with little in the way of formal routes, and the guides tend to leave you alone unless you engage them in conversation.
There are also two collections of interest - the P.M.Ward collection of decorated household objects which occupies the housekeeper's and maid's bedrooms upstairs, and the Geler Jones collection of agricultural, domestic, mechanical and craft items. The latter is at the far end of the farm yard, and is only open on Fridays, so we timed our visit well - as well as a traction engine and a couple of threshing machines, there are horse-drawn carts and carriages, and even a hearse! Also tractors, literally thousands of pieces of engineering (mostly agricultural) and a saddlery and clog-making shop. I tried on a pair of ladies' clogs, complete with metal tipping on the wooden soles, and although a size too large (should have worn my hand-knitted socks!) they were surprisingly comfortable. Coming straight from the house to the Geler Jones collection, I was struck by the contrast - many of the things here were undoubtedly beautiful, but that was ancillary to their principal purpose of being functional, which dictated their form.
And then we explored the walled garden, which I think brings form and function together - the walled garden is beautiful, but most of what it grows (apart from a few beds, and the Knot Garden) is edible - fruit trees, herbs in raised beds surrounded by gravel walks, soft fruit, serried ranks of beans filling beds surrounded by clipped hedges, brassicas in rows, rainbow chard the main feature in another bed. The edible blocks of planting, within the formal symmetrical structure of clipped hedge and gravel walk, and punctuated with ornamental ponds (complete with waterlillies, pondskaters and a wonderful green glittering dragonfly) seemed to me to create the near-perfect garden. I think if ever I had the chance to create a garden from scratch, this would be my inspiration.
The estate aimed to be self-sufficient, complete with livestock and all the bottling, preserving, brewing, smoking, salting, curing, cheesemaking etc activities which you might expect, along with the inevitable laundry, in the complex of outbuildings attached to the farmyard. Nice little detail - I'd not appreciated before that the sides of the large zinc buckets (in which the laundry was pummelled by a dolly) were ridged, presumably to provide more friction - like having a built-in washboard. Clever.
I'd highly recommend Llanerchaeron if you are at all interested in social history, slightly quirky gardens, architecture beyond the usual stately 'ome, or indeed just walking in lovely surroundings - beyond the walled garden there's more grounds, with a lake, whilst on the other side of the tearooms there is a footbridge taking you to a network of woodland walks. Oh, and the tearoom's not bad either - assorted cakes etc and also light lunches. I gather from a regular visitor that the Cawl (Welsh lamb soup/stew) is rather good, and they even had gluten free cakes which made me happy.
But for me, it's the dialogue between form and function which I shall take away from my visit - and continue to muse upon!
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Pastures new - moving towards greater simplicity?
Here we go again - the fifth house move in 11 years beckons. Somehow it never gets any easier or less stressful! This move goes hand in hand with some life-changing refocussing for me - going freelance after years of employment, starting to train as a traditional upholsterer and furniture restorer, which will take me through 2013 and out the other end with a certificate from AMUSF and hopefully the start of a business, and with a bit of luck a lot more time for art.
Also a move back to the country, with everything that involves - fortunately the village we are moving to has quite a few shops left, so this time I won't have to drive 7 miles for a pint of milk, which was the case last time we lived in the country! The garden is beautiful (the first time we have ever moved into a house with a garden which didn't need loads of depressing work doing to it before it was habitable) and has a vegetable patch which is going to have its retaining wall built up to make a raised bed which my back may be able to cope with. It's even got a pond. And apple trees. And multiple places to sit out. And as the rainfall in that part of Somerset is roughly half what it is here in the South Wales Valleys, I might even get the chance to sit out and enjoy it occasionally!
Things I am worried about? The cost of getting anywhere when I may have no income in the first few months and the price of petrol is going back up. My friends deciding that rural Somerset is even more remote than Wales and not coming to see me. Not being allowed to be myself - I'm getting to the age when I am weary of having to act the part that's expected of me to avoid criticism or worse. Especially as the Dutch part of my personality seems to be gaining the upper hand the older I get, and I am getting more stroppy, assertive and unwilling to be conformist! I'm also worried I might love it so much I never want to leave...
Things I am looking forward to? Not being hemmed in by thousands of houses for miles in every direction. The birdsong being louder than the traffic noise. Being able to go walking on the spur of the moment, without having to organise an expedition and first drive to the start point. Feeling safe enough to walk through the village to the shops by myself (I am under no illusions about rural crime - but I know from preliminary visits that the atmosphere on the street is very different and less threatening). Being surrounded by working countryside, with farms and businesses. Being able to buy from the farm or farm shop, and reduce our food miles, shop locally and sustain local producers. Having my own studio space - a beautifully large, light room with views over the garden, and even a sink! Radically reducing the number of interactions I have with people, which, as a fairly extreme introvert, I have found particularly exhausting about my current job with its constant round of meetings and especially training sessions which often leave me 'all peopled out' and needing to go and hide in a darkened room, exhausted. Above all, having some 'me-time' and, just occasionally, to be able to sit down and read a book for the sheer interest of it without feeling guilty or piling up a backlog of work I should be doing instead.
The decluttering has been moderately successful - I think I've achieved something like a 25% reduction in my 'stuff', which is not quite the one third to one half I was aiming for - but the plan is to do a further 'layer' when things come out of the boxes after the move, and have to convince me that they are worth giving house room to. The new place is quite substantially bigger, but I want to keep the SPACE, not fill it up with STUFF! Altogether, I think this move is well timed to aid my striving for a simpler life in every way - actually having a significant drop in income will help to give an 'excuse' for reducing consumption, and a new home environment which is so lovely that I want to keep it that way, and a radical change of lifestyle, could all contribute to the overall simplification. Hope so.
Also a move back to the country, with everything that involves - fortunately the village we are moving to has quite a few shops left, so this time I won't have to drive 7 miles for a pint of milk, which was the case last time we lived in the country! The garden is beautiful (the first time we have ever moved into a house with a garden which didn't need loads of depressing work doing to it before it was habitable) and has a vegetable patch which is going to have its retaining wall built up to make a raised bed which my back may be able to cope with. It's even got a pond. And apple trees. And multiple places to sit out. And as the rainfall in that part of Somerset is roughly half what it is here in the South Wales Valleys, I might even get the chance to sit out and enjoy it occasionally!
Things I am worried about? The cost of getting anywhere when I may have no income in the first few months and the price of petrol is going back up. My friends deciding that rural Somerset is even more remote than Wales and not coming to see me. Not being allowed to be myself - I'm getting to the age when I am weary of having to act the part that's expected of me to avoid criticism or worse. Especially as the Dutch part of my personality seems to be gaining the upper hand the older I get, and I am getting more stroppy, assertive and unwilling to be conformist! I'm also worried I might love it so much I never want to leave...
Things I am looking forward to? Not being hemmed in by thousands of houses for miles in every direction. The birdsong being louder than the traffic noise. Being able to go walking on the spur of the moment, without having to organise an expedition and first drive to the start point. Feeling safe enough to walk through the village to the shops by myself (I am under no illusions about rural crime - but I know from preliminary visits that the atmosphere on the street is very different and less threatening). Being surrounded by working countryside, with farms and businesses. Being able to buy from the farm or farm shop, and reduce our food miles, shop locally and sustain local producers. Having my own studio space - a beautifully large, light room with views over the garden, and even a sink! Radically reducing the number of interactions I have with people, which, as a fairly extreme introvert, I have found particularly exhausting about my current job with its constant round of meetings and especially training sessions which often leave me 'all peopled out' and needing to go and hide in a darkened room, exhausted. Above all, having some 'me-time' and, just occasionally, to be able to sit down and read a book for the sheer interest of it without feeling guilty or piling up a backlog of work I should be doing instead.
The decluttering has been moderately successful - I think I've achieved something like a 25% reduction in my 'stuff', which is not quite the one third to one half I was aiming for - but the plan is to do a further 'layer' when things come out of the boxes after the move, and have to convince me that they are worth giving house room to. The new place is quite substantially bigger, but I want to keep the SPACE, not fill it up with STUFF! Altogether, I think this move is well timed to aid my striving for a simpler life in every way - actually having a significant drop in income will help to give an 'excuse' for reducing consumption, and a new home environment which is so lovely that I want to keep it that way, and a radical change of lifestyle, could all contribute to the overall simplification. Hope so.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Decluttering update (and asparagus)
Nearly four months on and I'm not sure I have made a whole lot of concrete progress in the great decluttering and simplification project, apart from in my head, which has moved on a lot!
On the plus side, I have got rid of 4 giant binbags of stuff, and 3 binbags and two boxes to charity shops. I have also been reading a lot about minimalism, and have even begun to sell the concept to my partner, who is something of a hoarder and has a serious paperwork habit which tends to spread out of his study and all over the house, much to my annoyance and frustration.
On the downside, I have not yet satisfactorily decluttered any one room. I have made inroads into the bathroom, the kitchen, our bedroom, the guest room, and my office, but there is just so much to do that I run out of steam before anything is completed, which is very discouraging.
However - I have greatly reduced the amount of clutter coming into the house (being ruthless with the junkmail, for example) and have been actually binning stuff and getting it out of the house once it's been designated as rubbish, rather than agonising about finding specialist recycling facilities for every last thing (which tends to mean it just stays in the garage/hall/utility indefinitely - some things have even moved house with us!).
Also, mentally I am moving on in my thinking, and all sorts of things are coming together. Earlier in the spring I finally decided to make a career change - to move from the 'knowledge work' I inevitably drifted into because of being academically able as a child, towards the very practically creative side of me which has being trying to get out ever since. I have decided to leave my job at some point in the next year (exact timings yet to be decided, and partly dependent on other factors) and train as a traditional upholsterer and furniture renovator, setting up my own business in due course (specialising in chairs) alongside the textile art. This is hugely scary, but also feels as if I am finally doing what I should have done years ago - accepting that I am happiest when making things, when being creative, and that I have always been the kind of person who can fix things, do things up, and give them a new lease of life when everyone else has given up on them. Given what makes me tick, making/renovating things which I 'know to be useful or believe to be beautiful' has got to be a more satisfactory way for me to make a living than pursuing nebulous ideas, targets and agendas, with outcomes which are impossible to measure. All this also seems to chime with the zeitgeist of craftsmanship etc which is the subject of so much discussion at the moment - another example of a lot of things seeming to come together just now.
I have also started attending Quaker meetings, which is something I have been trying to pluck up the courage to do for about 8 years. I think all this thinking about simplifying life and paring it down to the essentials has brought me to the point where I can no longer put off exploring Quakerism, with its ethos of living simply. Being amongst people who are accepting of diversity, and whose values and way of life I am increasingly sharing since my mid-life crisis of the past few months, is something I am valuing greatly. In many ways it feels as if I have come home.
On a practical note, my partner has agreed to put 'decluttering dates' in our diaries over the summer to ensure that the shared areas get attended to. We are starting in the garage, on the principle that this will give us space to store the 'recycling' and 'charity shop' bags and boxes temporarily while we are doing the rest of the house! If we are to reach the target of third to a half reduction in 'stuff', then we are going to need a lot of temporary storage...
And the asparagus is coming up! Another week or two and we should be cutting our first crop - yay!
On the plus side, I have got rid of 4 giant binbags of stuff, and 3 binbags and two boxes to charity shops. I have also been reading a lot about minimalism, and have even begun to sell the concept to my partner, who is something of a hoarder and has a serious paperwork habit which tends to spread out of his study and all over the house, much to my annoyance and frustration.
On the downside, I have not yet satisfactorily decluttered any one room. I have made inroads into the bathroom, the kitchen, our bedroom, the guest room, and my office, but there is just so much to do that I run out of steam before anything is completed, which is very discouraging.
However - I have greatly reduced the amount of clutter coming into the house (being ruthless with the junkmail, for example) and have been actually binning stuff and getting it out of the house once it's been designated as rubbish, rather than agonising about finding specialist recycling facilities for every last thing (which tends to mean it just stays in the garage/hall/utility indefinitely - some things have even moved house with us!).
Also, mentally I am moving on in my thinking, and all sorts of things are coming together. Earlier in the spring I finally decided to make a career change - to move from the 'knowledge work' I inevitably drifted into because of being academically able as a child, towards the very practically creative side of me which has being trying to get out ever since. I have decided to leave my job at some point in the next year (exact timings yet to be decided, and partly dependent on other factors) and train as a traditional upholsterer and furniture renovator, setting up my own business in due course (specialising in chairs) alongside the textile art. This is hugely scary, but also feels as if I am finally doing what I should have done years ago - accepting that I am happiest when making things, when being creative, and that I have always been the kind of person who can fix things, do things up, and give them a new lease of life when everyone else has given up on them. Given what makes me tick, making/renovating things which I 'know to be useful or believe to be beautiful' has got to be a more satisfactory way for me to make a living than pursuing nebulous ideas, targets and agendas, with outcomes which are impossible to measure. All this also seems to chime with the zeitgeist of craftsmanship etc which is the subject of so much discussion at the moment - another example of a lot of things seeming to come together just now.
I have also started attending Quaker meetings, which is something I have been trying to pluck up the courage to do for about 8 years. I think all this thinking about simplifying life and paring it down to the essentials has brought me to the point where I can no longer put off exploring Quakerism, with its ethos of living simply. Being amongst people who are accepting of diversity, and whose values and way of life I am increasingly sharing since my mid-life crisis of the past few months, is something I am valuing greatly. In many ways it feels as if I have come home.
On a practical note, my partner has agreed to put 'decluttering dates' in our diaries over the summer to ensure that the shared areas get attended to. We are starting in the garage, on the principle that this will give us space to store the 'recycling' and 'charity shop' bags and boxes temporarily while we are doing the rest of the house! If we are to reach the target of third to a half reduction in 'stuff', then we are going to need a lot of temporary storage...
And the asparagus is coming up! Another week or two and we should be cutting our first crop - yay!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)