Two posts in one day?  I know, wonders never cease.  I just had to write another entry to recount my visit today to the ruins at Minster Lovell.  I surprised my husband with a lunchtime visit this afternoon as I was in the area after my visit to the art publisher.  He surprised me back by saying, "let's go somewhere - how about Minster Lovell?"  Well, OK!  It's a date! 

I appreciate Minster Lovell will mean nothing to the vast majority of my readers, so let me offer a tad bit of knowledge: Minster Lovell is a bucolic village, iconically English, and sits on the edge of the River Windrush - a fast-flowing, beautiful river.  Minster Lovell is old and while I can't tell you exactly how old (although I'm sure someone is reading this right now who can reel off the history from memory), it was thriving to some degree or another in at least the 12th century AD, when William Lovel held residence there.  The village church may have been dedicated to a Saxon minster, and the village later absorbed William's family name into its own, creating Minster Lovell.  (Apologies for such an elementary overview of the village history - I just crudely paraphrased what I skimmed on Wikipedia.  And now I can hear all of the academics gasp and then sigh.)

Alright then, now that we have that bit of overview out of the way, let me tell you about Minster Lovell Hall.  It's an truly beautiful site.  Originally home to Lord Lovell (Richard III's henchman), the Hall was built in the 15th century; Lord Lovell was incredibly wealthy and this Hall served as a great symbol of his wealth.  I can only imagine just how wealthy he was.  Because today when you stand in the midst of the ruins, it's an impressive site.  The majority of the walls have been knocked down, yet much of the foundation remains, offering great fuel for the imaginative juices and a fantastic insight into the magnitude of the place.  The best things about this place is that 1) it's free to see and 2) it's not fenced off at all - you can walk right up to and touch the walls. 

Dave and I sat there and had our lunch, enjoying the view of the river and the beautiful colors of autumn.  I so badly wanted to take a picture to share the serene sight with my readers, but I'd left my camera in the car.  I didn't have time to fetch it, bring it back, and snap away, because if I did I'd make my lovey late for work.  So I decided I'd drop him off and swing back through on my way home.  And that's just what I did.  I slowly made my way through the single lane track, taking in the beautiful vista which was interrupted by rays of light puring through the trees which were lined like gentle soldiers alongside the road.  I turned into the parking lot, grabbed my camera, and happily made my way toward the Hall.  Just as I was approaching the church which shares a plot with the ruins, I took my camera out and panic struck.  I had just remembered that earlier in the day (this morning in fact!) I'd taken the memory card from the camera and plugged it into my laptop so I could show off pictures of my new greeting card boxes.  I was really hoping I'd put it back.  I opened up the little slot where it lives and to my dismay it was empty!  Damn and all sorts of other swear words!  So now I'm forced to describe what I saw in words.  Can you imagine that?  Telling a story without pictures?  Utter sacrilege!  Ah well, what must be will be and without further delay, here's my illustration of how the ruins looked to me this afternoon. 

Today the Hall was an especially beautiful site - the sun was starting to peek out through a hazy sky and the trees provided the most colourful backdrop with its deep orange hue.  The ornate gothic window frame seemed to stand proud,  its details exaggerated in the glow.  The river was flowing at a rapid, but smooth pace - quietly offering a gentle sound now and again just to remind you of its existence.  Birds were calling to each other, speaking in their chirpy tongue.  The remaining walls of the Hall stood strong, almost proud for having escaped the fate of those that had fallen.  Triumphant.  The time-worn ancient graffiti looked elegant, its harsh edges softened.  Stairs started in mid-air and led to some mysterious place shrouded by stone cavities, protective in its old age.  Crisp leaves covered the ground like lace, tall spikes of grass fiercly (yet tenderly) shooting through the gaps as if it were spring.  As I tread across nature's carpet, I was reminded of the delicate crunch sound that escapes from leaves when they are disturbed.  Like a thousand tiny paper bags.  I walked away, leaving the ruins in their sweet and silent triumph.

The calendar tells me that we're already two weeks into November.  I'm not sure how that can be.  I think I must have fallen into some sort of time vortex that's sucked me into a dimension where time moves faster than the speed of light, kept me there in a dark, sensory deprivation vessel, and then spat me out right in front of my laptop at my dining room table.  How does that happen?  I think it must have happened when I was asleep - that's when all of the craziest things in my life happen.

Anyway, so here I sit down to write a blog after a tremendous long while.  It feels like such a luxury to have the time to type out my thoughts.  This morning my husband walked the dog before leaving for work at dark o'clock, leaving me with a quiet, empty house and a couple of hours to kill before I make my way out to Charlbury to see an art publishing company about my work.  They discovered me at the Art in Woodstock Festival, so whilst my inclusion in the Festival didn't result in copious amounts of sales (or any, for that matter), I did get noticed.  Which feels great.  I'm not exactly sure if they're trying to get me to buy their services, give me an opportunity to sell, or actually purchase any of my work - likely it will be a combination of all three options.  They want to see a little bit of everything, so that's a good sign.

With two full hours to blab on my blog, I'm at a complete loss of where to  start.  See, this is what happens when I don't walk the dog.  That's where I get  some of the best ideas.  OK, so it's probably best for me to start with what I've been  working on in the studio, which I think is really exciting.  I've started making boxes to house assorted sets of greeting cards using my designs.  The box is made from reclaimed materials, which is really cool.  They come from my husband's work place; they start out as sleeves covers for these expensive binders that are used to hold client itineraries.  They just throw the sleeves away.  Well, they recycle them, but they might as well be thrown away for the energy it takes to transform them into some other functional item.  Not to
mention they're in perfect shape, so it seems a waste of energy to put them
through that process.  So, my husband rescues these helpless little sleeves from
this fate and tucks them soundly into my studio.  I then strategically measure,
score, and cut then bend and glue and voila!  I have a box.  I'm really proud of
the little monkeys!

I've also been a crocheting maniac as of late.  The O3 Gallery in Oxford asked me to supply them with some of my tea, mug, and caretiere cozies for their Christmas sale - how very exciting!  So I've been crocheting and sewing away, making cute little items that are just begging for a new home.  I am feeling optimistic for them - how could anyone turn away something so cute?  It's been good practice for me to be doing production-style work on these little cozies, because it's forcing me to write down my steps.  You see, I don't work from patterns.  I suppose I could if I wanted to, but I find it so easy to be confused, especially when I'm trying to visualize written instructions.  It might be different if I had my Aunt Marlyin next to me to show me how to do it.  But since I can't afford to fly her out here to be my private crochet tutor, I approach the craft like just about everything else in my life: I figure it out for myself.  This is where walking the dog comes in handy.  I will picture in my mind what I want my finished product to look like.  Then I will sort of crochet with my brain.  Until I figure it out.  And then I go to the studio and make it.  And I find this works really well for crochet.  Not so much for knitting, which is why I stick to the former.  And usually it works out great - I problem-solve as I go along.  The drawback, however, is that I never write my steps down as I go, so each time I sit down to make one I remain idle for a long time, just trying to work out the steps in my head.  Thankfully, this only happened once yesterday.  The mug cozies, no problem.  Got those committed to memory.  The cafetiere cozies, however, that's a bit more complicated.  I inspected one I'd crocheted months ago for about an hour, trying to figure out how I actually did it!  In the end I just had to make it, screw it up, unravel it, do it again, screw it up, unravel it, and then repeat about four more times before I got it, then wasn't sure if that was right, so unraveled it, re-did it the wrong way, unraveled it again, and then repeated the correct step which I'd previously thought was the wrong step and took it to the finish line.  That one took a little while.  But, I wrote down the steps!  So next time, it should be much less of a painful experience.

Besides working in the studio, I've been trying to enjoy the English landscape as much as possible.  My husband and I have gone on some beautiful walks over the last few weeks (we're in severe austere budget mode at present as we're in the process of buying house - walking seems a good alternative to spending money at the pub or movies) and for our a second anniversary we went to the Roman Villa in Chedworth.  It's the second largest standing Villa in England and it's in incredible condition.  It was discovered during the Victoria era by a farmer whose dog got stuck when digging for rabbits.  When the farmer went to dig the dog out, he discovered a complex network of catacombs that weren't the handy work of a rabbit!  They continued to dig until they revealed this several thousand year old structure.  Imagine finding something like that?  I can't fathom it.  Turns out when the Romans abandoned the Villa in 400AD to go back to Rome to protect their home shores, the place fell into disrepair, as you can imagine it would.  And being situated in something of a valley, it was easy for nature to move in.  Then more nature moved in, until finally the whole place was covered by soil and grass - so much so that it just looked like any other rolling hill in England.  I find this just completely amazing and intriguing.  It makes me wonder what other structures are hiding beneath the surface?  In another life I would have been an archaeologist. 

Anyway, back to the story - so these farmers dug out the place and found that some of the walls still stood and a good portion of the mosaic floors were
intact.  They had the foresight to protect the mosaics and built simple lean-to sheds to protect them from the weather.  They lacked the foresight, however, to leave some things alone and either built on top of existing walls or capped them off.  Ah well, their intentions where in the right place.  Now the place belongs to the National Trust and they've just built this wonderful, state-of-the-art, humidity and temperature-controlled building to protect what had served as the main bath house and dining hall of the Villa.  I'm sure in another hundred years our ancestors will be scoffing at our lack of foresight.  So it goes.