Time and Familiar Places

Familiar places are wonderful aren't they. I have been coming here to this spot in the Marlborough Sounds since I was nine years old and it never loses it's magic. When I was " all grown up" I used to bring my babies here and now my children are bringing their babies here too. I LOVE the continuity of all of that and consider it to be incredibly precious and powerful.

Here I was today , yes that is the William Morris cross stitch and a cup of tea.

Earlier in the morning I was pulling weeds in the garden and I have a resident friend who always
comes to say" hello". He or she, is a very big shiny blackbird. He literally took a worm from the top of my shoe and had it in a gulp, then looked up at me as if to say" hmm, that was very tasty, yum ". I would have loved to have shown you a photo but I didn't want to spoil the moment, he probably would have flown away. There has always been a very friendly blackbird here...forty years or so of familiar blackbirds !It must be a generational thing.

Anyway, I have been thinking about family places and generations of families all living in the same spot and it reminded me of a beautiful house we went to visit in Sussex.It is called Standen

It was a country home built for a very wealthy family, James and Margaret Beale and their seven children. I think it was completely designed by Philip Webb. William Morris and his friends from the Arts and Crafts Movement furnished it throughout and put in all the special little extras of that period ( even the cute light fittings ). The original William Morris wallpaper was there and some reproductions of the original textiles. This was a family home that the women of that home had much say over. The mother and her daughters made many embroideries and tapestries and they spun wool and knitted too. There is an amazing oil painting of the mother looking quite austere, but her back is ramrod straight and she is knitting something very fine.

I am sorry about the quality of these photos, I took them from inside the book I bought there.