some pictures, some words

Just as you feel sunk into winter gloom along comes a day of perfect cloudless beauty. Sunday the 6th of November 2011 deserves to be commemorated here, whatever it may have been like elsewhere. Mushrooming on Offa’s Dyke under a moon just off the full, then walking back with the space station crawling across the sky and disappearing behind the Whimble – even the dog was happy.

Offa's Dyke

The Black Mixen

A couple of particularly entertaining shoots have also helped to brighten this dark end of the year. One was at Levens Hall in Cumbria – two days in the most haunted house in Britain. No spooks, but fantastic interiors and lovely light.

The other was more local at a bizarre museum in Shropshire called the Land of Lost Content. A collection of all (and I do mean all) those trivial items we’ve forgotten but that once were the unacknowledged background to our lives. If ever you’re passing through Craven Arms, something most people do as quickly as possible, take the time to see it. Highly recommended.

Shameless self-promotion warning: Please vote here for Helena Attlee’s Great Gardens of Britain in the Horticultural Channel Awards. You’ll find it under the resounding title of ‘best non-practical gardening book of 2011′. (Click ‘submit survey’ when you’ve voted).

Finally, did I mention that Sunday was a cloudless day? One cloud did darken it a little; returning home to find some thieving toerag had just slipped out of the kitchen with a laptop under his arm. Not a disaster by any means, but a nuisance, and unexpected in this town. “Don’t often get a chance to do this in Presteigne, sir” said the scene-of-crime officer as he dusted down the kitchen for fingerprints. Long may that be true.