The shifting sands of East Head

East Head is a sand dune spit at the entrance to Chichester Harbour and right at the eastern end of West Wittering beach. I first visited by boat in my twenties when we'd cadge a lift on whatever floating vessel we could come by, bringing with us ball games and disposable barbecues. I borrowed a sailing boat once, forgot to put the bungs in before we set sail and only noticed when I saw it had sunk in the shallow water where we'd moored it. We got it afloat and made it home just, bailing out all the way.

Later I cycled here, via the small ferry that crosses from Bosham to Itchenor, and had similar mishaps with a puncture and a passing stranger who stopped to help us.

These days we come by car with dogs and a small child and just as my life has changed, East Head is always evolving too, a constantly shifting spit of sand anchored to the mainland by the briefest of hinges. If you look at historical charts you can see how the whole land mass has moved around the clock face over the years, from 3 o'clock in the 1700s to 6 o'clock where it is now.

These places that we return to time and again become markers in our lives, ways to measure the changes while all around us the sands are shifting.

How's this for a classroom with a view?

I spent yesterday morning doing a textiles class organised by Chichester Harbour Conservancy. The classroom is right on the quay and has amazing views all round the harbour. It used to be a storage facility (what a waste!) but 15 years ago with the help of lottery money it was transformed into a learning facility for schools... and occasionally for grown-ups too.

It was high tide just after I arrived and the water was right up to the quay and the sun was reflecting off it and shimmering on the white ceiling of the classroom. A more inspiring place to work you'd be hard pushed to find!



The course was how to create a harbour scene using fabric and foundation piecing. I've paper pieced before lots of times and I foundation pieced onto temporary backing last month for Teresa's bee blocks, but I've never foundation pieced on to fabric, so it was lovely to be shown new things to do with existing skills.

And did I mention that the teaching, the view and an endless supply of tea and biscuits cost just £16?

My end result was ok, but far more importantly I'm starting to see how it would translate to a larger scale and how it could become a quilt. So that's another thing to add to the to do list! I have a fantasy of creating a really large scale wall quilt for the sitting room in the new house... A fantasy it shall probably remain, but at least I know the principles behind how to do it now.

There's a 2 hour course in February creating art from Flotsam & Jetsam in the same classroom and for £5. Better book a space quick before word gets out!
 

 

Waiting for the storm...

This weekend has not worked out like we planned.

Theo has a cold, the friend who was due to visit is ill, the village ploughing match was postponed and now this storm...

Tomorrow I'm supposed to be going to London to attend the Next Bloggers Workshop. It was going to be my first taste of blogging out there in the real world. I have had my train tickets booked for weeks and Jim has the day off work... but you've seen the forecast, right?

We've got trees down here already and the relentless battering winds have kept us indoors (save the dog walk) all weekend. It's driving me a little bit stir crazy if the truth be told!

But on the plus side, Jim has the day off. So if utter chaos does break loose tomorrow at least neither of us will really have to go anywhere (even if I will miss the bloomin' bloggers conference!)

So batten down the hatches folks and stay safe. We'll see you the other side....

Getting ready for Apple Day...

The weather held out for us this afternoon and our team of pickers collected the best part of a ton of apples from people's gardens for our Apple Day celebrations tomorrow. 

We'll have an early start tomorrow to erect gazebos, transport tables and wash and chop apples. Please keep your fingers crossed the rain holds off for us and we get a good turn out. The forecast looks different everywhere I look!

I'll report back after the weekend an I'm hoping they'll be a little film to share with you too!

The wonderful colours of October...

Gosh, autumn is beautiful round these parts!

When we lived in Canada the thing I really used to notice when we came back to the UK for visits, was how colourful winter was. I don't think you really notice it until you have lived abroad.

On the Albertan praire for six months of the year things were a bit monochromatic. First the snow and then a spring that took ages and ages to arrive.

In the UK there is (mostly) always green grass, lichen on trees, berries in hedgerows or nuts on the ground.

My graphic design course kicks off with a "visual awareness" module next week... I'm in practice already.

 

Autumn Gathering

We spent the afternoon today helping with maintenance work on our local community woodland. The weather was far warmer than anyone could have anticipated and the gazebo which had been arranged to provide shelter from autumn downpours instead gave volunteers a welcome break from the sunshine. Alongside the strimming, weeding and pruning there were impromptu games of cricket, tractor rides and homemade cakes.

We laboured away alongside people of different ages and different occupations all working happily together on a project that is important to the people here. New faces passed through the woodland as we worked and many stopped to chat and share a slice of cake. People were as keen to welcome new neighbours and build friendships as much as they were to reward hard work.

Theo mingled with the older kids and cast admiring glances at the vintage tractor whilst Jim and I helped with the work party and I thought about all the jobs in our own garden that always seem to get forgotten. It was a lovely way to pass the afternoon and it felt like an appropriate way to welcome the new season. I walk through this area most days but rarely notice the changes, today they were everywhere. Berries on bushes, leaves changing colour.  

As a family we are still relatively new to this place and I find myself using words like "remarkable" and "exceptional" to describe the people here, there seems to be cohesion and a common sense of purpose to the community. We are lucky I think.

Ambling through the fields

This morning I dropped Theo off for his first session at nursery and afterwards for the first time in two years, I walked the dogs on my own. 

We beat a rapid pulse-quickening path around the fields and made it back to the house in record time. The dogs looked tired and slightly bewildered, this is not how we normally do things!

But Theo shall be back with us tomorrow, so we shall be ambling again. Stopping to stare at planes in the sky, examining the ants on the ground and watching the tractors on the horizon...

 

A change of seasons...

Over the last few weeks we have been watching as the landscape around us has changed. The heavy farm machinery has arrived and harvested the wheat, rapeseed, barley and linseed in the fields that surround us. Then more tractors have turned over the soil and planted the seeds for next year's crop.

We have picked and eaten the last flourish of courgettes and beans from my mother's vegetable plot and we've watched as impromptu fruit stalls have sprung up at the side of the road and the hedgerows have grown heavy with seasonal gifts. Theo has delighted at walks accompanied by the fresh experience of blackberry picking and tractor spotting.

This afternoon the heat which has clung to the landscape for the last few weeks subsided and a stiff breeze picked up along the water's edge near our house, heralding the arrival of a new weather front. The season is changing. The warm heady days of summer are behind us, but I don't feel sad. Autumn brings its own delights. A change of wardrobe, a change of menu, a change of activities.

I feel the transition between seasons pass much more smoothly now we are in the country. It doesn't creep up on you as it does in towns. The signs are all around you and there is a comforting, affirming rhythm to the year. 

The beauty of old orchards...

I had forgotten how lovely orchards are at this time of year. All dappled sunlight and boughs heavy with fruit. We have never found pick your own farms in any other country we've lived in except the UK, and it is a joy to be back in Sussex to be able to visit them once again. 

Pick your own is such a simple, cheap entertainment to fill an hour on a bank holiday, and whilst everywhere else along the coast was packed with people, we only saw one other family at the farm we visited.

Theo, like most children his age, can't get enough of fruit, so was happy to accept the invitation to "try before you buy" sampling the different varieties of plums and apples like a connoisseur. We bagged about 4lbs of plums and got back in the car to hear Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi playing on the radio. 

"They took all the trees

And put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see 'em
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone.."

It was strangely apt because we're currently fighting to keep a 200 year-old orchard that's just yards from our house. I hope these places are still around when Theo grows up...