Decorative Living Fair

Been a busy-bee...bursting with things to tell you about and show you. 

First things first though, here is my long overdue report on the Decorative Living Fair. 

Organised by Caroline Zoob and held at the bucolic Eridge Park.

The setting is so spectacular it is well worth a visit simply to soak up Spring and gaze down the valley...

I took this photo in 2007, I suppose that makes me a regular!

I especially love Eridge as, over the years, many of the exhibitors have become chums and I am thrilled to see them and their stands. All of the exhibitors at this fair have beautifully curated exhibits and lovingly made items. I marvel at their reinvention and creative displays. Fancy a decko?

In my eyes Viv from Hens Teeth can do no wrong, everything she touches becomes a little treasure. I adored her quilt back drop with gorgeous pieces displayed over it. Bunny Love!

Gil Fox Hat Designs is another stall I find hard to resist, she styles her corsages, fascinators and hats so beautifully. I thought her corsages displayed on vintage Observer books was a beautiful touch.

These chaps were standing guard over Caroline Zoob's new book The Hand Stitched Home...I think they are whispering seccrets...

Now I do look forward to a yarn with the wonderful Lucy of Love Lane Vintage...she is a wonderful purveyor of Vintage treasures and regularly organises Village Vintage held over in Wisborough Green. (Find out more here.) She has turned her talented hand to creating bespoke linen pieces...they are so gorgeous...Magpie is sporting a delicious grey linen Garden Coat, she loves, thank you Lucy -x-

This brilliant army of dogs was a real crowd pleaser!

 I do like a pop of red and there was lots!

Sarah Moore Vintage looked sensational, she has the best vintage fabric collection brilliantly worked into fabulous chickens, cushions and so much more. Wonderful velvet pea-pods bursting with floral peas staged in a colander, so whimsical! Sarah's new book Vintage Home looks amazing too.

 

 The Flower House, Mayfield had a lovely stall too ~ sweet peas and stocks, enough said!
I really loved the Old Haberdashery too, spent so much time admiring and purchasing vintage silk saris I didn't manage a single photo!

My favourite? Home Sweet Home by Viv from Hen's Teeth

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 Awake with the larks, wandered around the garden in my dressing gown and wellies, accompanied by Boodle, nose twitching. Began snipping little sprigs and then posies began to emerge, took them to the fair in a trug and gave them to friends.

Cherry petticoats...Forsythia frills

This week the song is blackbird sweet.

Along the drive a rather unpromising row of trees, strangely misshapen by the wind, straggly. Most of the year they occupy their position with a quietly green understated shyness. But, just now they are starring in the Lane's annual blossom festival.

Like a row of ballerinas, the corps de ballet lined up in the wings. Straight slender legs topped with extravagant cherry petticoats. Through the trunks you can glimpse the glorious stage~all set for the glory of the main event...summer.

The house sits happily in its frilly frame.

Outside the back door the Sussex countryside that floats off beyond the gate is washed with the most delicate tint of spring green. Every morning a new wash is added and the colour strengthens.

An impromptu seating area ~ somewhere to breathe and take in breakfast (sun~feast). Fat fuzzy bumble bees drinking in the first nectar. The willow's newly grown mop head dancing and quivering..."love, love me do..."

And the blackbird sings a little louder.

I curtsey in front of the cherrys.

I nod to the forsythia

"Nice to see you...to see you, nice!"

 -x-

...Happily Ever After...

We’re often wrong at predicting who or what will transform us. Encountering certain people, books, music, places or ideas… at just the right time can immediately make our lives happier, richer, more beautiful, resonant or meaningful. When it happens, we feel a kind of instant love for them that is both deep and abiding. Now and then it can be something as trifling as a children’s book, a returned telephone call, or a night at a seaside bar in Antigua...

Jonathan Carroll

Ok, I confess in the original text the bar is in Mykonos, in our case it was Antigua. The picture at the top of this post was taken 2 days after we met....who knew?

Happy "Ivory" Anniversary to my lovely boy...

my throat is tumbling full of all the words, I can only sing my song because of you...

-x-

May I thank you so much for being so kind in your good wishes ~ Claire, Lilac in May, Greenthumb, Jayne, Sheila, Lisa, Daisy J and Jen. 

-x-x-x-

Great Dixter

On a damp, soft, overcast day almost a year ago we visited Great Dixter. It was luminous in the heavily saturated air, the greens were greener and heavily laden with droplets...the flowers were singing their colours...from their nests and bowers the birds chimed in...like an orchestra in full triumphant flow.

-x-

Pots of charm at Perch Hill

You could be forgiven for thinking that on a rather bleak April day there would be nothing to see at Perch Hill. But a useful nudge, courtesy of  F.B,was all it took to get me Down the Lane and up a hill to visit Sarah Raven's cutting garden yesterday afternoon. Whilst we are definitely a good 6 weeks behind in terms of Spring, there was still much to enjoy. In actual fact, I rather appreciated seeing the architecture of the garden, the bones of it....support structures and evergreen muscles in the shape of box hedges.

There are brave artichokes making their first frond like forays and some purple sprouting broccoli that made my head swim with pasta possibilities...



Once inside the greenhouse the thrill of spring colour! And it is a thrill after this long winter and our abnormally naked landscape. Singing, glorious primroses with egg splotched centres and their friendly petal faces, luminous in the weak sunlight.All in generous groups made sensible by Sarah's lovely colour combinations.In a way, these early Spring flowers are heralds...we keep the faith that Spring will be along and they both cheer us and trumpet what's to come.




My very favourite still life of the day was this...delicate lilac lined shells in a beautiful glass container paired with a purple glass vase tumbling with green and mauve hellebores...delicious...oh, and the cacti...fuzzy, spiked perfection.

Perch Hill will be open again on April 27th, more details here. You can read more about my previous visits to Sarah's garden here.

Reports of a fine and warm weekend to come!

Along the drive way, towards the Cowshed, the cherry trees are heavy with bud and longing to burst open...the hawthorn hedge is finally tinged in the freshest of green...I think of this...

~~~

As the month draws on, there is a sudden rush of warmth and in a day or two the garden is a changed world, as in a fairy story where a spell has been suddenly lifted. Barely budding trees thicken with green, the spinnach is rampant, and the rhubarb, that a few days back was pale and stubbly, is like an enormous tropical plant. The cherry trees that should have been in bloom for Easter, now burst into festoons of hanging blossoms....

Extract from Four Hedges by Clare Leighton

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Here's to festoons all round!

-x-