Another new post at the new location for TheMichaelmasBlog

I have just posted on the subject of simple living, ethical fashion etc - you can read the post at www.TheMichaelmasBlog.wordpress.com, which is the new location for this blog.  To continue to be notified of future posts, go to www.TheMichaelmasBlog.wordpress.com and enter your email address in Follow Blog Via Email.

Two new posts for you at the new location for TheMichaelmasBlog

Just a quick reminder that this blog has now moved to Wordpress, you can find it at www.TheMichaelmasBlog.wordpress.com and in the last few days I have posted two new articles.  One is a (possibly controversial) response to recent weather-related disasters in the UK farming sector, the other is a piece about a visit earlier this week to a farm in North Devon which has diversified in the most imaginative way - into vintage gypsy caravans!

This blog is moving to Wordpress!

For over two years I have been blogging intermittently at www.TheMichaelmasBlog.blogspot.com - this was my first attempt at blogging, and became my 'domestic' blog as I also developed the art blog, and subsequently two other blogs (of which more in due course).  However, I have been finding Blogger increasingly clunky, and as all my other blogs are now on Wordpress, and as I have been spoiled by the flexibility which Wordpress provides, I have decided to move The Michaelmas Blog over to Wordpress as well.  If you have been receiving emails to tell you when I have posted something new, I'm afraid you will need to follow the new blog in order to be notified of new posts - I may post in parallel for a few weeks, but after that I will only be posting on Wordpress.  Apologies for the inconvenience, but hopefully the increased ease of use will result in more posts for you!

My new blog is at www.TheMichaelmasBlog.wordpress.com
See you there!

Further musings on pastures new

Firstly – we seem to be spending a lot less.  Food is especially much cheaper.  Having been brainwashed for years that supermarkets are what keeps the average Briton from starvation as we would never be able to afford to feed ourselves from independent retailers, I have been shocked to find that my meat bill at the local village butcher (who specialises in locally-grown, outdoor-reared pig meat but seems to sell everything you could imagine including smoked chicken breasts and quails eggs!) is between half and two-thirds of what it was when I did my weekly shop in the supermarket.  My village Co-Op sells many basics at pretty much supermarket prices.  Two farm shops within a short drive provide almost everything else I need, often at startlingly low prices.  For a few treats I go to Waitrose in a nearby small town, and in over our first two months I went to the out-of-town supermarket three times (for things which I have since found I can buy locally for comparable or cheaper prices).  I am not planning to go again any time soon.

My food miles have shrunk.  Firstly because a large proportion of what we eat now is grown and purchased within a few miles of where we live, and partly because much of my shopping is done on foot, or just a short drive away, rather than going on an expedition to the supermarket.  I drove a total of 14.5 miles for all the shopping for Christmas and New Year, as against probably well over 30 last year.  And apart from the Christmas pudding all of my Christmas dinner was grown/raised/shot/made within 20 miles (the pudding was from the Co-Op which is literally round the corner).

I have not managed to get out walking much.  There’s just too much mud.  Despite my statistically-backed assertion in a previous post that the average rainfall in Somerset was half that of Wales, we had hardly unpacked before the region was plunged into floods of biblical proportions.  Serious consideration was given to building an ark on the lawn, or at least trading in one of the cars for an inflatable dinghy.  Fortunately, we did not flood here, although many of the fields we can see from the house were underwater, and the only direct impact on us was the wholesale road closures during the worst of the flooding, and the disruption to the Paddington to Penzance train line, which made travelling to London for meetings a little challenging.  However, we are not complacent – the ground is now so saturated that only a few hours of rain is enough to create giant puddles on most of the roads, making them impassable in places, and to send the brook back up over its banks and into the field next door, to the consternation of the resident flock of Suffolk sheep.

My fears that friends would think that rural Somerset is too remote to visit have not been borne out.  The diary is filling up nicely!  It would be even better if it stopped raining long enough to be able to show them around the area...

I seem to be relishing domesticity.  No doubt as part of the nesting phenomenon associated with a new home, I have been baking at least once a week, made my first ever chutney (having made improbable quantities of apple sauce and Dorset apple cake, I had to find something else to make with my glut of apples!  Actually, it’s turned out well – I used a recipe from Clivenden from a National Trust recipe book, and it went very well with cheese and cold meat at Christmas) and indulging in afternoon tea with home-baked cake most days (curiously, I have also lost half a stone...).  Since I finished work I have caught up with two years’ worth of outstanding mending and dressmaking projects (so I now have enough clothes to wear, for once!), and am only a few hems away from finishing shortening all the curtains.  I even decorated a wreath for the front door – bought a plain evergreen one from a local nursery and then decorated it with pine cones, bundles of cinnamon sticks, and toadstool ornaments (a traditional Dutch Christmas decoration from my youth).  Despite stout gloves my hands were shredded by the holly, but it was worth it!  Move over Kirstie Allsopp...

I have been making gentle forays into village life, including a round of craft fairs before Christmas, and going carol-singing, which I haven’t done for 25 years.  I was much impressed by the generosity of the people we sang for, both in terms of donations to the Children’s Hospice and in the lavish quantities of alcohol and nibbles we were provided with!  Touchingly, one family of Polish heritage invited us in for their children to sing Polish carols to us in return.  Lovely.

Although I have not yet got around to setting up the bird-feeders (if we get really cold weather this will become a priority), there has been a steady stream of avian visitors to the garden and surrounding fields – so far, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, jay, jackdaw, blackbird, mistle thrush, robin, miscellaneous species of tits, goldfinch, heron, pheasant (a very fine cock bird and his harem of three).  The pond attracts birds who walk across the vegetation to drink and bathe – one robin last week was in there for about ten minutes, having a very thorough splash around!  I am assured that there are also green woodpeckers and kingfishers nearby, and I have heard tawny owls.  Circling buzzards are a regular sight from the upstairs windows – very much a signature bird of the Quantocks.

Although (not entirely surprisingly under the circs) I am feeling fairly exhausted by the events of the last few months, I think this has been a good move.  I have found a home with the local Quaker Meeting, which has given me time and space to find some equilibrium in what has been in some ways a somewhat disorientating experience, and helps to keep me focussed on the idea of simplicity and being attentive to the essential.  I am meeting some very interesting people and making contacts which could result in exciting possibilities for art and life.  And above all I am making some time and space for myself, to re-connect with what makes me tick, which is at this point what I need more than anything else.

New life, new year

My lengthy absence from this blog has been due to something of an upheaval in the latter part of 2012. In the course of a few weeks we have moved house (from South Wales to Somerset), I have finished my job, been away on the first week of training for my new business venture, and survived Christmas.  We are very grateful not to have been flooded, as so much of Somerset has been underwater over the past few weeks, and every outbreak of rain on the saturated ground leads to another round of road closures and sandbags.

Moving house precipitated a new wave of decluttering, paring down, and addressing the issue of stuff versus simplicity, which has been a preoccupation in 2012.  Whilst I am not convinced that I managed quite to achieve my decluttering target in terms of volume, it was heartening to be able to unpack fully in less than a week (bearing in mind that we both work from home, so inevitably have considerably more stuff than if we only lived here), with pretty much everything having found a home.  The new house is larger, which means that it is easier to have demarcation of function in each room - no longer is my wool stashed in corners of the utility room, dining area, office and spare bedroom, but it is now all sorted and to hand in the studio.  Ongoing culling will continue, together with the implementation of a 'one in, one out' policy, but a great deal of progress has been made.

Simplification of other aspects of life is a little less straightforward.  I am currently juggling domesticity, art, learning a new trade (traditional upholstery and furniture renovation) and adapting to my new habitat, while sorting out what shape my paid work will take.  It all feels a little disorientating at the moment, but new opportunities and contacts are emerging on an almost daily basis, which is exciting.  Having a little breathing space is also proving fruitful creatively.  And Somerset is a very art-orientated area, which is stimulating.

For updates on the art and furniture aspects, please follow my blog at www.TheFabrikantBlog.wordpress.com.  I shall be back on this blog before too long with further musings...

Form and function - house and gardens at Llanerchaeron

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!

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.