Wednesday 23 May 2018

Up to the meadows


 Hebden Bridge is at it's most luscious and green right now. The leaves are fresh and young, the bluebells are blooming and the meadows have their first dusting of buttercups. 


This is the time we conveniently forget about the long harsh winter we just had and remember what we love the most about living here. 


This morning I had a 'before work' walk up to the fields above Nutclough woods to see how the meadows were doing. There are many ways to get to these woods but this time I took the snicket called Bankside to the left of Stubbings School (you can see the school above St George's Square in the centre of town).


Bankside is steep and cobbled and it is a quick way of getting up to Birchcliffe Road. 


I love it because it cuts up between a terrace of Hebden houses and their gardens and these gardens are particularly beautiful. I didn't take photo's but I loved having an appreciative peep. Hebden Bridge hasn't got many gardens as there are so many houses stacked on top of each other so it's lovely to see the lucky ones take good care of them.


 The path brings you out at the post box on Birchcliffe road. Turn right and walk a little way up the steep road and take the first left up Sandy Gate.


 Sandy Gate was lined with Welsh Poppies.



These ones gifted me their poppy seed heads. I featured these in my Tiny Treasure's book so they are close to my heart.


I was very excited to see some of my window film on my friends beautiful yellow door. It's lovely  to find it here because this is the way to the meadows that inspired the design! 


 Sandy Gate is also good for allotment inspiration.


They are looking full of promise. 


You can get into Nutclough woods by following a little path just at the end of the beautiful terrace after the allotments. It will take you into the woods and over a bridge. The clough is so beautiful with it's deep gorge and flowing stream. It looks here like its covered in Autumn leaves but it is actually lots of sticky brown beech blossom!


We stopped to listen to the sound of the waterfall and the birds singing heartily.


Just after the bridge on the right hand side look out for a yellow arrow marker post near the graffiti'd shed. This is the path that will take you up to to the meadows. It's hot work getting up this steep path on a summers day but it's worth it for the views!


At the top of the path is a stile over to the meadows. Hooray! We made it!


They were looking good today with a mixture of grasses, bistort, plantain, pignuts, sorrel, clover, dandelion clocks and LOTS of buttercups.


They are going to get much taller in the coming weeks.


This cow still managed to hide in the grass.


We followed the path to the left of the stile and then walked through three fields with Old Town Mill up on the right and then took the first footpath on the left, down past the lovely garage with a grass roof and onto Hurst Road.


We turned right down this road for a little bit and then took the little path on the left which goes down the side of the terrace with the red roofs and drops into the woods.  

This is a steep path down and can be a bit slippy but its really nice in these little woods.


I loved the mix of yellow poppy and the blue of the bluebells.


Follow the path back down to Keighley road and then you can wander back down the hill into town.

 This is the beauty of living around here. The centre of town is so close an abundance of nature. It doesn't matter that we haven't all got garden of our own because we have all of this on our doorstep 

Thursday 17 May 2018

Full moon in the Highlands


We watched the full moon rise into a cloudless sky.


It woke me in the early morning shining through the slats in our Venetian blind and I got up to find the house illuminated by moonlight and a thick band of mist in the valley bottom.


I had to go out.


I crunched down the gravel driveway praying I wouldn't wake the three big dogs that lived in the next house. 


Nobody stirred. This horse was already awake munching the frosty grass.


 It was so still and quiet.


The moon was setting on one side of me 

   
 and the sun was rising on the other. 


It made some beautiful silhouettes.

 


and it lit up the frosty cobwebs and grasses.


I woke all the sheep on the way back up the lane. I think they thought I was the farmer bringing their breakfast. These tiny lambs had very big voices!


With the moon nearly gone behind the hill I went back to our cosy cottage and snuggled back into bed all full of magic.


Thursday 10 May 2018

91 Magazine Home Tour


Last month my home was featured on the 91 Magazine blog. There has been lots going on this last few weeks and I haven't had an opportunity to blog about it but the whole process was lovely so I do want to write about it.


 It all came about because of our friend Nicolette from Archie and the Rug who is a blogger and writer and all round creative and she pitched to the magazine to write a story about my house. 


I don't want to share ALL the photos because I'd love you to go and look at them on the 91 magazine blog but there are a few nice ones that didn't make the feature so I thought I'd share a mixture here.


I had such a lovely time with photographer Kathryn Taylor who was commissioned to do the shoot. As you can see it was a gorgeous sunny day and we were both in a bright mood and enjoying getting the job done whilst getting to know each other.

 She managed to catch the light and bright feel of the flat beautifully.


Then I had another gorgeous morning sitting in my window chairs eating breakfast with Nicolette  (which she brought with her) while she interviewed me and she wrote such a lovely piece about my home and my work.


   
We visited the studio and Kathryn took some lovely photos there too.




Please go and visit the gorgeous 91 Magazine blog and see the feature and read Nicolette's piece. Kathryn has a really lovely Instagram feed too which I have been enjoying ever since.

Thanks to 91 Magazine for the feature and to Kathryn and Nicolette. What a great team!


Featured in Elle Deco


 I have been drooling over the pages of Elle Decoration magazine for years so you can imagine my excitement when I heard I was going to be in it!


It's all thanks to Abigail Edwards and her new Quiet Pattern book which I wrote about a couple of posts back. 

Elle Deco have featured all the British designers which are in the book so you can read about Abigail and the inspiration behind the book, Mineheart (I met them at the book launch and they are SO lovely)


and Daniel Heath who screen prints his wallpapers so skilfully.

The beautiful photographs are by Alun Callender.

It's in the June issue on the shelves now.


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