The Burrowing Duke's Welbeck Abbey is now ...

the Harley Gallery, where a touring interactive art & craft show is on at the moment... Taking Time: Craft and the Slow Revolution -they have two blogs Taking Time  and "Making a Slow Revolution". One beautiful exhibit, made by people who visit it, is about the way knitting and textile creation can interact with lives and their passage... another shows how folkdancing and weaving & knitting use similar moves, loops, stages, steps, to reach a finished performance piece... on the left is a section of the Garlands dance/weaving/knitting piece, and right is a 'comment' by one of the contributors that links to my Retirement Project... interesting for me that I started out as a textile arts teacher, became a dancer, and did a Life Course Perspective Masters...I wonder if I tried to link the three in the passage of my life reflection, what would emerge...

The "Burrowing Duke" is the 5th Duke of Portland (1800-1879) who dug tunnels underneath his estate and was the subject of Mick Jackson's novel The Underground Man... a fictional account of the Duke's motives for the tunnels, and a fascinating story. The real story is just as odd, and there apparently is an underground Ballroom too! We were up in the area (for a Blowzabella dance weekend at Thoresby) and I realised the estate was nearby so we went on a hunt... what Treasure I found!

Call My Bluff....

Clumber Park Walled Kitchen Garden Museum

Is this real? What size is it? 

Is it more of a useful tool that this Ladies' Daisy Grubber?

Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, a huge National Trust estate full of people, children, geese, dogs, scones & cream teas, a lovely lake, a Greek temple, coachparties, nationaltrust-tat in the shops, and a marvellous 4 acre restored walled vegetable garden where local and organic food for NT café lunches is grown from seed... including asparagus in April!

This means you...

Do you think people read these notices at all? The Green sticker has been on my door for a long time, but is still legible. I have decided to be a bit more pointed about it. 
Even the Greens have pushed papers through my door, and I am now getting daily wastepaper that I am determined to stop. I'll keep you posted!
Also I have had one of the 250,000 'targeted mailings' that's been in the news recently, bespoke with my name on, from the national Labour Party and the local branch. Is it because I was once a member, or because I fall into a certain category of person (age group, potential patient etc)? I put it into the envelope and sent it back. With no stamp on, of course!

Bank Holiday Monday

Fluffy "pussy-willow" pollen from the tree opposite my house, a sign that the Sun is up! 

Today, in my garden, I have planted garlic, rocket, spring onions, borage, spinach, lily bulbs in pots and gladioli. And some spuds went in yesterday, not on Good Friday, as it was raining. Both at the allotment of a friend, and in with my raspberries... I don't know if these are companion plants, but we'll have a go!

Poisson d'Avril

So you know the thing about April Fool's Day in the UK... it only lasts until 12 noon? In France, the "fish of april" joke is a full day affair... try to stick a paper fish onto the back of your chosen dupe, and see what happens! These are delightful cards from about 1906, a kinder way of wishing your friends a Happy April 1st. The one from the man was sent to Mademoiselle Renée Denis, 29 rue Mayet, Paris 6th. The one from the woman went to Monsieur Salace, Instituteur in Loigny-la-Bataille, and says "hello and good health to all the family"... neither is signed by its sender.

The photos above are of no. 29 Rue Mayet now (left, taken by Andy RA more of his Paris photos from his table at Chez Dumonet), and Mlle Denis's apartment is above the Pharmacie shop. This second shot uses Google Streetview, and you can look up and down the street, turn around to see Chez D, and even sit at the same table!

Loigny-la-Bataille is a little commune set in the flat fields of the Beauce, the 'breadbasket' of France... (that's my little April Fools blague). Near to Chartres, it has a museum of the 1870 Franco-Prussian war link. I haven't found school teacher M. Salace yet!