Author: SpinningStreak

Old buildings, loved – and not.

 

Twenty five years ago we were contemplating buying this one. But we couldn’t really justify it and it turned out the owner had no interest in selling anyway. Now it is far too late. Someone clearly did love it once (you can just see the hand stencilled trefoils below  the roof and round the windows – unusual decoration for a modest locaterie) Nothing has been done to preserve it, though a few years back the vegetation (jungle) was cleared from the front and I got excited thinking maybe it would be rescued…I make a point of walking past it several times a year but I fear the structure doesn’t have much longer.  And it is by no means alone round this area. There are several abandoned farm buildings, casualties of the rural exodus, which even now nobody seems to want. Such a pity.

This building, though, is in great shape – literally!  It is part of what was a medieval Guild Hall in Suffolk. It apparently became a Free Grammar School in 1577 and has now morphed into a holiday cottage where we stayed for a peaceful week in September. I spent several days trying to fathom out the original architecture – very confusing and I’m sure I failed but the exposed wood is very exciting – lots of detail, carefully preserved. One of my daughters is in Canada for a year, so I’ll make sure I send her pictures of the timber framed houses we saw all over Suffolk – it seems so weird to me to be in a country where you just can’t see any!

 

 

Indigo summer in France – sneak peek

Such fun! Lots of it, too. Still deciding what to do with it all – the lace weight I’ll probably make up as a shawl, the chunky as hats, then I expect I’ll list the sock yarn in SpinningStreak’s Etsy shop. Maybe it’s time for people to start knitting for Christmas…I’ll let you know!

Both Victorian, both still in service.

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The first one – my local in Brighton – is a rough workhorse of a box, scuffed and much painted over. The second is in Tunbridge Wells (sorry, ROYAL Tunbridge Wells) – very pretty design, beautifully maintained and, it has to be said, with just a whiff of tourist about it….

They are both listed – the unsophisticated one as curtilage, not in its own right. I know which one I prefer though!

The Colour of Memory – Pierre Bonnard (plus some stormy blues…)

I have mis-timed this post. It is rather irritating to hear of an inspiring exhibition (at Tate Modern) when it has already closed – so I decided a couple of weeks ago not to mention it. But it has stayed with me. Colour painted from memory – fleeting moments captured and reworked till they sing.

I am less moved by the much reproduced bath pictures – this one, for example, seems to me plain weird.

The colours are not always bright and bold. These two, possibly my favourites, are softer, subtle and beautifully balanced:

The almond tree was Bonnard’s last painting, finished in 1947. Apparently, when he was too weak to paint, he asked his nephew to change the patch of green in the bottom left corner to the gold we see now – still pondering colour right to the last.

Before we left the building we nipped up to the viewing gallery and were met with this:

Moody skies and swirling winds – quite exciting!

Plenty of ideas for the dye pots – I am busy winding base yarns as I hope to get several days in soon.

LYON: Centre d’histoire de la résistance et de la déportation

We timed an airport pick-up around this museum collection – and it was well worth it. Some stunning posters for anyone interested in ‘Work, Family, Fatherland’ in Vichy France – or indeed just in the history of propaganda as a weapon of war.

Some sobering, some inspiring:

Angeli was a local administrator condemned at the Liberation for having co-operated too enthusiastically with the Nazi regime. Gerlier was Archbishop of Lyon at this period. He seems to have been fearless in speaking out against Laval’s plans to deport Jews to the death camps – and, in particular, he urged Catholic priests to take the children into hiding.

There is evidence that a number of primary school teachers also took great risks to conceal their pupils. I would like to think I could have done the same – but with 5 children of my own to protect I’m not so sure….

I am certainly grateful not to have been tested in this way.