Scavenger Photo Hunt - July

Joining in once again with the Scavenger Photo Hunt organised by Kate at 'I live, I love, I craft, I am me' blog. 

July's word prompts are:- Door, 11a.m., texture, shadows, view, my choice

Door - the carved slate plaque by this door said we must use the other door which we were quite happy to do as it led inside the Oriel Brondanw at Plas Brondanw the former home of Clough Williams-Ellis the architect who created nearby Portmeirion village.
We have visited the garden many times as when we visit this part of Wales the place we stay is only a couple of miles away.  We had gone into the house and gallery to see an exhibition called 'Fragile Landscape' organised by members of The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales.

11a.m. - The Millennium Clock in the centre of Ashbourne in Derbyshire told us it was eleven o'clock precisely, time for coffee before a wander around the shops.

Texture - I loved the texture in these leaves against the sky.  Photo taken at Trentham Gardens on the Lakeside Walk as we sat on a seat where we were sheltered for a while from the heat of the sun.

Shadow/s - Shadows of the shrubs across the lavender and shadows of the lavender on the path.  Taken at Sugnall Walled Garden, near Eccleshall in Staffordshire.  The scent of the lavender and the loud constant hum of the bees enjoying it lingered as we sat under the awning with coffee and scones with home-made jam.

View - my favourite view from last week's short break in Wales, if you read my last post you'll have already seen the photo.  It was taken from the Coastal Path along which we had walked from Borth-y-Gest near Porthmadog in Gwynedd.  The beach is called Morfa Bychan and the white house at the end is called The Powder House or Y Cwt Pwdr. Built in the 18th century it is now a private residence. It was once used for the storing of gunpowder that had been unloaded from ships.  It was then transported for use in the local slate mines. 

My choice - Another view this time from the window of Clough Williams-Ellis's bedroom at Plas Brondanw- his favourite view across his garden to Snowdon in the distance.

Click on the link below to find other bloggers who are joining in this month.

To See the Sea

 Hello, I'm back

Caerau Gardens, Caerau Uchat, Sarnau, Bala, Gwynedd

I've been away.  

Morfa Bychan, Borth-y-Gest, Porthmadog,Gwynedd

Just for a few days.  

Porthdinllaen, Llyn Peninsula, Gwynedd

We needed a break.  

Porthdinllaen, Morfa Nefyn, Llyn Peninsula, Gwynedd

It was lovely.

Sun, rain, walking, relaxing - just what was needed.

I'll catch up with you all over the weekend.

Monday Miscellany

It seems that it's a good year for sweet peas.

We've been watering the garden with watering cans each evening and sometimes in the morning too. Now the water butts are empty.  Lots of plants are suffering, the buddleia, rose of sharon and hydrangeas in particular and the grass is a yellow wheat colour turning to brown in places. At the moment we are watering next door's garden too so it has been hard work trying to keep their pots and hanging baskets alive as well as our own pots and beds.

I've been cutting the sweet pea flowers for the house and taking off the seed pods to encourage more growth and it seems to be working.

 Inside their beautiful fragrance drifts through the house.

Thank goodness today is a little cooler, gentle breezes rustle the blinds at the open windows. After the inescapable and sometimes overpowering heat of the weekend the temperature seems slightly easier to cope with today.

 Above a few more photos taken around the garden over the weekend.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Part Two

Continuing with details of our visit to the Yorkshire Sculpture park from my last post about Mister Finch. It has taken me a while to get around to writing this second part as the heat is getting to me, I can't seem to find a cool spot and my brain seems unable to grasp the simplest things.  It has taken me three days in the cooler hours of the early morning to finish it so here goes......

After a quick lunch we set off to see the other exhibitions.  We've visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park a couple of times before and had seen most of the permanent sculptures which are dotted around the parkland so we concentrated on the temporary exhibitions.

In the Georgian chapel was what I thought was a wonderful exhibition -

Beyond Time by Chiharu Shiota.  The installation was made expecially for this space.

It is made from two thousand balls of woollen thread and seems to weave its way quite magically across the extent of the chapel floor and up into the ceiling.

Most of the threads come from the bare piano structure which is set slightly off centre.  I hope the visitor doesn't mind being in my photo which I took from up in the balcony.   I thought she added scale and her face is hidden by the pretty sun hat and she is completely absorbed by what she can see.

Shiota was inspired to use the piano as part of the structure as there wasn't a musical instrument of any kind in the chapel.  She also took her inspiration from a childhood memory of seeing the skeletal remains a neighbour's piano after a house fire.

The sheets of music trapped and woven into the woollen threads represent the scores of all the music that is recorded as having been played or sung in the chapel over the years and also an historic bell ringing score.

We left the chapel and wandered over the parched grass to find the next exhibition.

The Coffin Jump by Katrina Palmer is one of the WWI centenary art commissions by 14-18 Now.

It was inspired by the history of an extraordinary group of women who became the first all female First Aid Nursing Yeomanry which was founded in 1907.   The exhibit is sometimes accompanied by both sound and performance which is activated by a horse and rider jumping over but when we saw it it was quite still in its peaceful surroundings.

The nurses would rescue men straight from the battlefield thus making a direct link between the front line with the field hospitals.  In spite of the nurses' undoubted courage the British army would not support them as they didn't like to be associated with what they saw as  'liberated' women.  The nurses concentrated their efforts and skills in helping the French and Belgian armies by running hospitals and driving ambulances.

The words on the jump are taken from the diaries and other sources of members including nurse Muriel Thompson.  Phrases like 'Woman saves Man' 'Cut to Pieces' and 'Nothing Much Happened' highlight the heroism of these women.

We returned to the main galleries and had a quick look around the exhibition 'A Tree in the Wood' by Giuseppe Penone.  Central to the exhibition is Matrice a 30 metres long fir tree which has been cut in half and dissected along one of its growth rings.  I would have liked more time to explore the outside parts of this exhibition but we had to leave and get on our way home.

 I've put links to all three exhibits in each part if you want to follow up and find out more.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park - Part One

As promised in a previous post a few more photos and details about the exhibitions we saw on our visit to the YSP.  We travelled up through Buxton and Glossop and as we drove by the reservoirs to join the main Sheffield to Manchester road we could see the smoke from the fire on Saddleworth Moor which had started the night before.  We drove over Holme Moss by the transmitting station and down into Holmfirth to join the road towards Wakefield.

The first exhibition we saw was the one we had specifically gone to see -
The Wish Post by Mister Finch 

The accompanying leaflet says 'Welcome to the eccentric and fantastical world of The Wish Post - an intricately hand-sewn and constructed menagerie'.

'More than seventy-five individual soft sculptures showcase Mister Finch's masterful combination  of up-cycled and new materials'

The story of the exhibition centres around the magical kingdom where woodland animals collect and sort the wishes of other creatures which are breathed into envelopes and posted into toadstool postboxes.

For one night each year the woodland animals have the chance to have their wishes and dreams to be whisked away on the breeze and for them to come true.  The creatures gather together to prepare the wishes for the wind ahead of The Wish Post Festival.

It's a fascinating exhibition.  The lady on the reception desk said 'It's out of this world' and she was right.  The animals are quite magical and wonderfully sculptured and created.  I was enchanted by them.

In the exhibition you can find badgers with coats full of badges,  bell ringing hedgehogs, thimble tailed rats, rabbits with toadstools, elegant swans and dapper moles.

When we visited on Monday the exhibition had been open for two days and every one of the sculptures had been sold. How wonderful for Mister Finch.

I loved the badgers and the moles.  Fox and ratty were there too.  I was reminded of one of my very favourite childhood books The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham.

We wandered around the exhibition for ages taking it all in and marvelling at each new little intricacy we found.  It was time for a quick lunch in the cafe before moving on to another two exhibits which I'll show you in part two.