Category Somerset

Walking in a Winter Wonderland – a walk down Glastonbury high street

LisaTulfer 1 Comment

In a normal year, the centre of Glastonbury would be bustling at this time of year, with shoppers visiting the many emporia of alternative retail culture in the town.  This year, it has been very different – because of social distancing rules, there has been no Frost Fayre, and far fewer visitors than usual for the Winter Solstice.  Nevertheless, the shopkeepers have done a wonderful job of decorating their windows, in defiantly bright contrast to a season which has seemed even darker than usual this year.  I would like to share with you a walk, in pictures, down the High Street to the Market Place and along Magdalene Street, after dark.  For me, the lit windows are like magic lanterns or stained glass, glowing with light and colour, with images and symbols which bring out different aspects of the seasonal festivals.

Let’s start on the High Street.  This is one of my favourite shops, with its Art Deco window panels and kaleidoscopic lanterns.  The big lump in the middle of the display is myrrh – one of the three gifts traditionally brought to the Christ child in the manger in Bethlehem, by the wise men who came from the east.  There is something of the souk about this shop, and the owner always keeps an incense burner alight outside the door, sending exotic fragrances out into the Somerset town.

Just across the road, I like the whimsy of a gift shop wrapped up like a present, picking up on the tradition of exchanging gifts which has been part of midwinter celebrations for millennia.  I don’t envy them fixing those lights up on the roof!  I know it’s a shop which sells lovely things, and it looks very inviting, but this evening I’m photographing, not shopping, so I keep walking.

This shop has been recently refurbished, and the gilding of the lettering catches the light (gold, frankincense, myrrh).  This shop sells mostly Indian items, and its window display is full of little lights, hinting at Diwali.  The top floor, which I must admit I have never noticed in daylight, has a rainbow of lanterns suspended from the ceiling.  I think they go very well with the municipal Christmas tree on the front of the shop.

The Green Man is a significant folkloric and pagan symbol, and at this season of evergreens he is everywhere in Glastonbury.  This is a particularly fine example, framed by greenery and bringing a touch of the wildwood to the high street.

More Green Men here too, who have been joined by Cernunnos, the Celtic horned god.  The interweaving of traditions and beliefs is a major feature of Glastonbury, and is reflected in the range of merchandise which shops offer to modern-day pilgrims and visitors.  It is said that over 70 religions and beliefs are represented in the town, making Glastonbury perhaps one of the most spiritually diverse places on earth.

But amid all the paraphernalia of spirituality, people’s physical needs are catered for too, and the baker’s shop has a cornucopia of seasonal goodies in the window.  The mince pies look delicious, and I don’t even like mince pies!  Let’s hope the Scandi-style elves in the display don’t eat them all…

Across the road, one of Glastonbury’s best-known shops covers all the bases for seasonal gift-buying – a witches’ calendar for 2021, a cushion showing moon phases, a Green Man apron, magic spell kits and oracle cards, and a book on the Winter Solstice.  There is a tree, with snow-filled baubles, and a wreath with greenery and berries, and also the Tree of Life.

The next window seems quite conventional, for Glastonbury – a Christmas tree and Santa Claus.  But if you look closely, you’ll see that it’s not exactly the Santa of popular culture – this chap is nearer to the old images of Father Christmas, looking rather as if he’s just come walking out of the forest with an armful of kindling for the Yule fire.

A couple of doors down, we have more trees and another Father Christmas – but again, he isn’t the scarlet-clad figure with the sleigh and the ho-ho-ho.  This one is dressed in brown, smiling benevolently amid frosty-white trees, lit with cool whites and blues and populated with cuddly woodland animals.  It looks like an illustration from a children’s book, and I’d love to read the whole story.

By way of contrast, the next window has nothing conventional about it at all – there may be a wreath of leaves, but they frame a seated figure of the Buddha, reflected to infinity in a circular mirror, and flanked by a pair of angles who look like they were crafted by Jacob Epstein.  Cascades of light and washes of colour create an ephemeral magic.

We have reached the bottom of the high street, and turn left into the Market Place.  Here, there’s a clothes line of colourful stockings, strung above a vast selection of crystals.  A decorated Christmas tree sits beside geodes and ammonites, which are echoed in the signage above the shop window.

In the toy shop next door, the stunning wooden fairy tale castle which is a permanent fixture has been joined for the season by a couple of Nutcracker figures and a very cute reindeer in a winter wonderland that is all sparkle and ice.  The nod to continental Christmas customs is continued in the Nordic bunting across the window.

And so, finally, we come to Magdalene Street, and the last of the lit shops.  In a building which is one of only three in Glastonbury to survive from the 15th century, a handsome reindeer follows a trail of shining stars, with the inky-black winter sky above.

Whichever of the midwinter festivals you celebrate, may I send you – despite the particular challenges of this year – peace, love and happiness.

I am committed to making this blog freely available, and not putting material behind a paywall. As a writer, I am doing what I love – but I still have to make a living. If you have enjoyed this post, and if you are able to do so, perhaps you would consider supporting my work by making a small contribution via the Buy Me A Coffee button. Thank you!

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Black and white image of a skeleton ornament and a Green Man carving.

Samhain in Glastonbury – Halloween in a pandemic year

LisaTulfer Leave a comment

This weekend it’s Halloween – or the pagan festival of Samhain, depending on your preference.  Here in Glastonbury it’s mostly the latter, and under normal circumstances it’s marked in a big way.  For this small town, it’s not just about trick or treat, or carved pumpkins.  The Samhain procession is one of the main events of the year, with dragons (dramatic), drummers (noisy) and Border Morris dancers (downright scary).   Never mind the mass-produced fancy dress costumes of skeletons, ghosts and monsters – here it’s just as likely to be swathes of black and green velvet, horned headdresses, and real witches’ hats.  Yes, it’s fun, but it’s also at least in part about serious beliefs.

The old Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced something like ‘Sow-en’ – sow as in female pig, rather than sow as in seeds) was characterised by feasting – the beasts which would not make it through the winter were slaughtered, and the harvest was in, so this was a time of plenty.  The spectre of death loomed, though – this was both the end of summer and the beginning of winter, with the leaves dying and the prospect of cold, hungry months ahead.  Many of those who feasted at Samhain would not make it through to feast again at Beltane, on the other side of the wheel of the year.

With the arrival of Christianity, 1 November became the feast of All Saints – All Hallows – where all the holy who had died were commemorated.  Until the Reformation, people were encouraged to pray for the souls of the dead, and especially their dead ancestors.   In much of Europe, this remains the time when families visit the graves of their loved ones to leave flowers.  Church services are held to remember those who have died.  It’s not clear whether the Celtic festival had these connotations of communing with the dead too, but certainly modern pagans speak of this being a time when the veil between the material world and the world of the spirits is at its thinnest, and it is possible to move between the two.  This links to folklore around Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve, the evening before the festival) when this is the night for ghostly apparitions, when the dead, witches and other supernatural beings walk abroad.  And whilst many people, quite understandably, deplore the recent advent of ‘trick or treat’, with its element of threat and licence to misbehave, the history of going from house to house, often in costume, begging for food and playing pranks dates back at least a couple of hundred years in the British Isles.  In some areas it even has the name ‘Mischief Night’.  Carved pumpkin lanterns may be a recent import from across the Atlantic too, but in various parts of the country – and especially here in Somerset – turnips or mangel wurzels were hollowed out and made into lanterns, the carved faces said to represent the dead and intended to frighten.

Black and white image of a skeleton ornament and a Green Man carving.

These characters live on the window sill in my study

Samhain in Glastonbury will be a rather tame affair this year – the rules preventing large groups gathering, intended to limit the spread of Covid 19, mean that no processions will take place.  The dark-clad Border Morris dancers will not leap, roar and whoop, whacking their sticks and running into the crowd.  The red and white dragons will not weave their way up the High Street, accompanied by drum beats as loud as fire-crackers.  The revellers, many of them robed, cloaked, masked or sporting headdresses with horns or greenery, will not process behind them, calling out to the spectators and encouraging them to join in.  The many visitors from all over the world who usually come to Glastonbury to celebrate Samhain will not be here, kept away by travel restrictions and quarantine regulations.

Death had become remote and sanitised in Western society, and the yearly round of festivals – Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mothers’ Day, Easter and so on – resolutely upbeat, with no acknowledgement of a corresponding darker side to life.  This year, the pandemic has meant that death has become part of public life again.  Perhaps this year, more than ever, we need to use this festival to come to terms with fear and death, and shake a defiant fist in the face of approaching winter and darkness.

I am committed to making this blog freely available, and not putting material behind a paywall. As a writer, I am doing what I love – but I still have to make a living. If you have enjoyed this post, and if you are able to do so, perhaps you would consider supporting my work by making a small contribution via the Buy Me A Coffee button. Thank you!

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Image of mural

Making people proud of where they live – the public art of the Glastonbury Mural Trail

LisaTulfer Leave a comment

A year ago this week the Glastonbury Mural Trail was launched as part of Somerset Art Weeks.  Murals have been part of Glastonbury life for decades – at least since the 1960s when Pat Leyshon decorated the front of Pat Li Shun, her business at the top of the High Street, with colourful flowers – and have always sparked controversy.  I have been visiting Glastonbury since the 1990s, and for years have been aware of various murals springing up around the town (and sometimes disappearing again by my next visit), but the Mural Trail took the concept to a whole new level.  When I came to live in Glastonbury this summer, one of the first things I did was to pick up a Trail leaflet at the Glastonbury Information Centre, grab my camera, and walk the Trail.

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Glastonbury mural by M.O.A. (John Mason, LUVM, SYM, DMK, SIKOH)

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Drapers – artist unknown

Following the Trail was great fun – the murals are not always in obvious places, or easy to find, and that’s part of the appeal, as it becomes a kind of artistic treasure hunt.  It was a great way to explore parts of the town I didn’t know, sparking many conversations as I enlisted the help of passers-by in searching for elusive murals.  The Glastonbury Mural Trail is also a showcase of serious artistic talent.  The variety of styles, subjects and scale means there must be something here for everyone, and I even came across a few that weren’t on the Trail Map (I was to find out why later).  There’s still one I haven’t found, because it’s in a pub garden and I just haven’t been organised enough to get there when the pub is open.

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Avalon Now, by SYM

Having enjoyed the Mural Trail so much, I wanted to know more about how it came to exist, and what the motivations behind it were, so I arranged to meet Kim von Coels, who facilitated the creation of the Trail for last year’s Somerset Arts Weeks.  Socially distanced in the garden of her Glastonbury home, Kim tells me that there had previously been a leaflet produced by Jim and Caroline at the Pilgrim Reception Centre, listing the then existing murals.  Kim – who, like me, loves maps – had produced a Glastonbury town map, and was approached by the Town Clerk, Gerard Tucker, to design a map of the murals.  She agreed, but only if the Town Council would give its blessing to the creation of new murals (subject to the necessary permissions).  The project was born.

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Goddess Hall, by Jon Minshull

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Our World, by Jon Minshull

A Facebook group was set up, and its members started researching the possibilities.  They found that, even in a conservation area, murals could be painted in most locations, with the permission of the wall owner, provided that the wall had been previously rendered or was of block construction, and that the subject matter was not offensive.

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Wildwood (detail) by M.O.A.

Next came callouts – for artists who wanted to paint murals, for owners of walls who wanted murals, and for businesses willing to cover the costs with sponsorship.  Between April and September of 2019 Kim operated a kind of matchmaking service, connecting artists, wall owners and sponsors, and getting the necessary permissions.  As an example, she tells the story of the mural in Bere Lane, where the owner of the wall was keen to have a Viking theme for their mural, which meant that she was able to get sponsorship from Wyrdraven, the Viking shop in town.

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Glastonbury Experience (detail) by Jon Minshull

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I think this may be my favourite!  By Sikoh

The involvement of local businesses was key, says Kim, and Jill Barker of the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism helped make this happen.  Nobody got paid – there were just a few small honorariums for artist who would not otherwise have been able to participate – but sponsorship ensured that no one was out of pocket.  Support was both financial, and in kind (for example from Thorndown Paints), with some firms sponsoring the project as a whole and others sponsoring specific walls (for details of all sponsors, see the Glastonbury Mural Trail leaflet).  All wanted it to be good and successful, and the Town Council paid for the Mural Trail to be part of Somerset Art Weeks in September 2019.  At the official opening at the skate park, hundreds of people turned up, and Kim admits to being “totally blown away” by the positive response.

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Avalon Marshes by Jon Minshull

What, I wondered, gives Kim most satisfaction about the project?  She has no hesitation in replying.  For her, the joy is that it’s free, it’s accessible to anyone, whenever you want – it’s public, it’s always open.  And it cheers people up and makes them happy.  It has, she admits, been a lot of hard work, but she wants there to be murals, to have people able to paint them, and people able to enjoy them.  She loves that people who normally don’t like graffiti are embracing the murals.  Kim feels it’s important that the subject matter of the mural is “universally pleasant – who doesn’t like nature, flowers, animals, landscapes?  It’s great when art creates a conversation but that’s not what the Mural Trail is for.”  Public art, says Kim, “makes people proud of where they live” and she’s keen to take the Mural Trail beyond the main thoroughfares into “the corners” of the town.

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Sugar Skull by Sophie Alexi/The Krumble Empire

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Winged Bug by Sophie Alexi/The Krumble Empire/Doodledubz

Kim has herself collaborated in the painting of four of the Trail’s murals – whichever way I walk from home to the High Street I pass one of her creations!  I ask her which is her own favourite, and she replies that she is very fond of the mural at the side of Abbey Park (number 25 on the current map) as it was painted by Oksana Gaidasheva from one of Kim’s photographs.

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Globe Inn mural by Oksana Gadaisheva

The Glastonbury Mural Trail continues to grow.  At the time of the launch there were 26 murals, and Kim estimates that there are another 7 or 8 now – she thinks the total will be up to 36 by the time she produces the revised Trail leaflet in a few weeks.  Some have just happened – especially during lockdown – and then she is told about them so that she can add them to the Trail.  In other cases, artists contact her – “find me a wall!” – although that’s getting ever harder as “there are only so many walls!”

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By DMK

Kim von Coels is an artist and photographer.  She also works at Heart of the Tribe, a new gallery in Glastonbury.  You can read more about the Glastonbury Mural Trail, and download a leaflet, here.  There is also a Glastonbury Mural Trail page on Facebook.  For more about colourful Glastonbury, take a look at this post on the Normal for Glastonbury blog.

Photograph of an Orthodox Christian icon of St Michael the Archangel

Looking forward to Autumn – why September is my favourite month

LisaTulfer Leave a comment

I always think that autumn (fall) gets a bit of a raw deal in the popularity stakes.  Spring has lots of fans, summer is everyone’s favourite, and even winter has its proponents (due in no small part, I suspect, to the midwinter festivals of December and their associated jollification – I should perhaps note here that I am writing from a northern hemisphere perspective).  But apart from the show of colour in the trees of New England, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, autumn gets a bit of a bad press.  It’s the season when the heating goes back on, the days shorten, the casual linen and cotton of summer gives way to woollies and coats, equinoctial storms batter western coasts, and summer holidays are well and truly over.

There is one thing I hate about September – wasps.  In the UK, September is peak season for wasps, timed to allow them to feast drunkenly on the apple harvest.  As I both have a phobia about wasps and also react very badly to their stings, this makes being outdoors – and especially eating outdoors – stressful.  But other than the wasps, not only is the autumn my favourite season, September is my favourite month.

For me, the year turns several weeks earlier – usually in early August, although in 2020 it was in mid-July.  One morning, you go outside and realise that the air feels different.  It’s not necessarily colder – just different.  There is a sense that it is the beginning of the end of summer, although often the hottest weather is still to come during August.  The swifts, which have been screeching around the summer skies, are ready for their epic migration to Africa, and suddenly, from one day to the next, they are gone.

The start of meteorological autumn in the northern hemisphere is 1 September.  This makes a lot of sense – historically, the grain harvest was pretty much all gathered in by the end of August (as evidenced by Lammas (Loaf Mass, or festival of the First Fruits) on or about 1 August, in thanksgiving for the harvest.  Before modern farming practices, the land would then rest until January, when ploughing would begin for the next year’s crop.  Geese fattened on the stubble would be eaten on the feast of St Michael and All Angels, on 29 September.  St Michael the archangel is probably my favourite saint – whilst I take a dim view of his persecution of dragons (I like dragons), I like that he is the saint associated with high places, and churches on hilltops in remote locations are often dedicated to him (for example, Mont Saint Michel in France, St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, St Michael’s Church on Brent Tor in Devon, and the tower on Glastonbury Tor, which is all that remains of St Michael’s Church, to name but a few).

Photograph of an Orthodox Christian icon of St Michael the Archangel

September’s weather often seems better than August (hot and humid) or October (wet and windy), and most years I choose to go on holiday then, to take advantage of the weather and also of the relative quiet once the children have gone back to school.  For September is a month of new starts, with the school year in England starting at the beginning of the month, and the university year at the end (in some universities, the autumn term is still called the Michaelmas Term).  It feels fresh, full of potential and possibilities, of projects begun in hopeful anticipation.  The days are still long – the curse of the end of British Summer Time doesn’t take effect till late October – temperatures are pleasant, and mornings start to be crisply or mistily autumnal.  The archetypal poem about autumn (John Keats’ Ode to Autumn) https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn has a melancholy tinge to its celebration of the season, but for me, September is more upbeat, full of promise and purpose rather than an elegy for the summer that is ended.  I feel energised, roll my sleeves up and get stuck into life and work.  Although it’s many years since the academic year governed my working calendar, I still find that this is the month when I gear up to start new work, find my mojo again, and start looking forward.

This September, I am back in Somerset, becoming re-acquainted with the landscape – coasts, hills and wetlands – ancient landmarks, and contemporary communities.  No doubt I shall be writing about some of them too.  Perhaps, especially if you are in the northern hemisphere and it’s the start of autumn where you are too, you might also like to go exploring during this month of September, watching out for the signs of the changing seasons.  Let’s enjoy it and make the most of it before the darkness of winter closes in.

Sunset over rooftops

The view from here – first impressions after relocation

LisaTulfer 1 Comment

Readers of my last post will be aware that I have just moved house, and will hopefully forgive the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks.  To begin with, of course, we weren’t able to engage with the town and surrounding area as much as we would have liked because of the tedious but necessary business of unpacking, spring cleaning the house for a nice fresh start, and generally getting very tired and achy!  However, the particular bonus of this house is the view from the study, which is on the top floor.  It has windows front and back, giving panoramic views of the town of Glastonbury and the surrounding countryside.

One way, the view includes the iconic Glastonbury Tor, with its medieval tower of St Michael (all that remains of the church which used to crown the hill).  A site of pilgrimage since at least medieval times, the Tor continues to draw modern day pilgrims and visitors, who climb it for a variety of reasons – spiritual, sightseeing or artistic.  Since we have been here, I have never seen the Tor without people on it.  Even at night, the lights of people’s torches (and, at Lammas, a fire spinning display) are visible, and when the Sturgeon Moon rose last week there were dozens of people on the Tor to witness the moonrise.

Photograph of Glastonbury Tor, with a road in the foreground and trees framing the view.

Country road leading to Glastonbury Tor – image copyright Robert Bruce 2020

Below and to the right of the Tor, the view takes in the rooftops of the town – mostly red pantiles – and the gardens of the townhouses, built on land which, a century or two ago, used to be orchards.  The tower of St John’s church rises above the rooflines, and at the moment a pair of peregrine falcons is raising a brood of chicks on the tower – the young’s raucous cries echo across the town when the parents arrive with food.  They are so loud, even at this distance, that for a couple of days I thought one of the neighbours had a particularly noisy parrot!  It’s such a privilege to see these amazing birds soaring above the town.

Further to the right again is Wearyall Hill, where Joseph of Arimathea is reputed to have planted his staff in the ground, which grew into the Holy Thorn, a thorn tree which bloomed twice a year – at Christmas and Easter – and whose successors still grow at various locations around Glastonbury.  Sadly the successor which grew on Wearyall Hill has now been removed due to persistent vandalism.

Beyond Wearyall Hill are the Polden Hills, where the modern A39 main road follows the ancient ridgeway to Avalon.  During the catastrophic floods in the winter of 2013/14, my usual commute across the Levels was under several feet of muddy water, so I drove along the A39 instead, looking out across floodwater as far as the eye could see, with only the odd tree or rooftop sticking up above the water.  It gave an insight into how these marshy lowlands might have looked before sea levels fell, and the land was ‘improved’ for farming.

From the other window, the sweep of the Mendip Hills runs east to west in the distance.  From this window, we can see dramatic sunsets – the skies in this part of Somerset are particularly striking, which I have always attributed to the conjunction of the open flatlands of the Levels and the way the light reflects off the Bristol Channel.

Sunset over rooftops

In between the unpacking and cleaning, though, we have managed to wander into town from time to time.  Glastonbury’s High Street is not typical of a small town in a rural county – for ‘normal’ shopping, you need to go a couple of miles down the road to Street, which as well as a ‘normal’ high street has the country’s first shopping village, built on the former Clarks shoe factory site.  Glastonbury’s retail offering is something else entirely – crystals, books on esoteric subjects, tie-dyed clothing, Buddha statues, candles in all the colours of the chakra rainbow, Goddess figurines, Green Man car stickers, herbs and incense.  Buskers can include dreadlocked drummers, haunting folk singers, or jazz saxophonists.  At the Tuesday market, you’ll find the fast food outlets selling not hot dogs but vegan falafels.  It’s lively, chaotic, a bit ‘lived in’, and there’s something unexpected around every corner.  I’ve been walking – and photographing – the Glastonbury Mural Trail, which I will be writing about in a future post, and it has taken me to parts of the town centre I never knew.  And of course when the current heatwave abates a little, we will climb the Tor again (and take binoculars to try to locate our window!).

Photo of colourful mural in Glastonbury

I mentioned Joseph of Arimathea and Avalon in passing above  – Glastonbury is full of history, legend and myth, and a huge amount has been written about the various themes associated with it (Avalon, King Arthur, Joseph of Arimathea, Gwyn ap Nudd, the Holy Grail, the Glastonbury Zodiac, the Goddess, Nolava, the Chalice Well, Bridget, and Glastonbury Abbey as a site of Christian pilgrimage, to name just a few).  This isn’t the place to add to that, although I’m sure I will be touching on aspects of it in this blog from time to time – it’s impossible to live in Glastonbury and not engage with the various strands of spirituality and legend which are the town’s raison d’être and, frankly, why would you not want to?!  Glastonbury is unique, crazy, enchanting, infuriating, but never boring.  If you would like to know more about Glastonbury* and its vibe, I recommend Vicki Steward’s excellent blog, Normal for Glastonbury.  She has recently produced a book, also called Normal for Glastonbury (available as an e-book and in print), which pulls together a selection of her blog posts – her portrayal of Glastonbury life is humorous and well-observed, and makes a very good read.  Again, highly recommended.  And no, I’m not on commission!

* When I talk about Glastonbury, I mean the town in Somerset – not the world-famous festival, which in fact takes place in a field a few miles away.  If you watch footage of the festival, you can see the Tor in the distance, behind the Pyramid Stage.

Photograph of colourful mural of Glastonbury Tor.

The next chapter – relocation and the art of moving house

LisaTulfer 1 Comment

I promised in my last post that I would let you know why I have been writing fewer blog posts recently.  Well, for the last few weeks I’ve been tackling practical jobs and to-do lists, while trying to get ahead with deadlines for commissioned articles in order to create a few weeks’ breathing space for myself.  The thing is, I’m moving house next week.  Not just moving house, but relocating to the other side of the country.

When I left Somerset some years ago to move in with my partner, I didn’t imagine I’d be going back any time soon – but life (and my partner) had other ideas, and earlier this year the decision was made that we would relocate.  We’ve always been great at timing – for example, we booked the Registry Office and only weeks later realised that we’d picked a Bank Holiday weekend, thereby condemning ourselves to a future of trying to book anniversary dinners and weekends away at peak holiday time.  In this instance, no sooner had we decided to start a long-distance house hunt than lockdown was announced.  However, despite all the obstacles and frustrations, and with a lot of help along the way from Robert at Robert Bruce Relocation, four months on we have found our new home and are preparing to move.

For a number of excellent reasons, I have moved house quite a few times since the turn of the millennium.  This is what I have learned about moving house:

  1. If you can avoid moving, do so. It’s expensive, stressful and time-consuming.  You need to be very convinced that the benefits of your new location are worth the upheaval.
  2. If you can’t avoid moving, it’s great if you can keep the move local.  Long distance moves are exponentially more stressful and fraught with complications.
  3. Ensure that you have the following items in your possession (not on the lorry):
    • toilet roll
    • emergency chocolate
    • a kettle and/or whatever you need to make and drink hot drinks of your choice, including at least one teaspoon
    • cleaning materials (your new home will never, ever, be as clean as you’d want it to be when you get there)
    • keys to your new home AND to your old home (you’ll need to lock it up after you!)
    • the keys to your car (sound obvious? Maybe, but a friend of ours managed to leave their car keys in the drawer of a dresser which was loaded onto the removal lorry…)
    • if you are as paranoid as we are, all important personal documents, your passport and driving licence
    • phone chargers
    • hand soap and a hand towel (to go in the bathroom when you arrive, together with the toilet roll)
    • a toolbox (there will always be something which needs tools in the first 48 hours, while your stuff is still in boxes)
    • a doormat (saves a lot of floor cleaning)
    • at least one bin bag
    • a meter key (you’ll need to take meter readings at both ends for the benefit of the utility companies)
    • hand luggage (a couple of changes of clothing, your daily toiletries, and a bath towel) to tide you over until you can start unpacking
    • Paracetamol
    • a mobile phone, for guiding the driver of the lorry when they get lost, photographing the meter readings, and using as a torch to find the stopcock in the back of the cupboard under the sink.
  1. Find out (ideally before you get there) where your nearest hardware shop or DIY store is. You will need at least 5 things in the first 48 hours.
  2. Find out where your nearest takeaway is. You’ll need it for several days.  Make sure you know where your plates and cutlery are (or add a picnic set to the list in point 3 above).  Eating egg fried rice out of the carton with your fingers is not recommended.  Trust me on this.
  3. You will need to leave your fridge and freezer to stand for a while to settle after their journey. Just make sure you remember to switch them on at some point BEFORE you do your first large food shop.
  4. Write your new address down somewhere or store it on your phone. You will go blank when asked for it.  For several weeks, possibly longer.
  5. There will always be at least one Really Important Contact whom you forget to notify of your change of address. Just make sure it’s not your bank.
  6. The spare light bulbs from your old home will never fit the light fittings in your new home.
  7. It is a universal law that the more you spend on curtains, the less likely they are to fit in your next home.

Despite all that, I am excited as well as apprehensive, and very much looking forward to being back in Somerset.  It’s the place where – notwithstanding a mixed heritage and a nomadic childhood which left me feeling rootless – I have felt most settled and at home.  Thanks in no small part to the decluttering process which I have written about in a previous blog post, this move isn’t as daunting as some have been.  Wish me luck – I’ll see you on the other side!

Photograph of colourful mural of Glastonbury Tor.

(Can you guess from the photograph where we are moving to?)

 

Where did the year go?! Sudden Autumn

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After a brief Indian Summer, I am suddenly very aware that Autumn is here – the depth of colour in the trees is becoming distracting as I drive along country roads.  It will not be long before I am sweeping fallen leaves out of my newly-constructed pond.  This is, and always has been, by favourite time of year.  Somewhere around early September, usually, I am aware that the year has turned, and that the torpor of summer (even a nasty cold wet one like we’ve had) is about to give way to the excitement of Autumn.  At the other end of the year, the same thing happens in February as it suddenly becomes Spring.  But Spring has lots of fans, and does not need enthusiasts for its beauty and vivaciousness.  Autumn seems to have fewer acolytes, but I am definitely one.

Curiously, I find Autumn invigorating.  Not only is it the new year for academic courses, which have, one way or another, been a major feature of much of my life, but there is a sense of nature getting ready.  The swallows and the martins head off for summer quarters.  There is the prospect of the murmurations of starlings on the Somerset Levels to look forward to.  The boughs are laden with fruit and berries like a giant open-plan larder.  It feels as if they year is gathering in its supplies for the winter to come.

I’ve bought logs for the wood-burning stove.  I joined my neighbours in a collective apple juice pressing day which resulted in unfeasible numbers of bottles of wonderful juice.  I have pureed apples and frozen the results, to liven up porridge on winter mornings.  I have picked raspberries from the garden.

The garden – ah, yes.  The garden was supposed to be like a scene from The Good Life by now, but sadly I got flu in the Spring and lost 6 weeks of gardening time at a crucial time, and then engaged two consecutive gardeners to help me deal with the resulting jungle, only to have them not get back to me for, literally, months.  By high summer it was a seriously daunting project and way beyond me, but fortunately my lovely neighbour put me in touch with the delightful Jan from http://www.blueshedflowers.co.uk/ who has been doing her magic over the past couple of months, and I am now optimistic of being able to get the veg patch up and running for next year.  This garden has all manner of hidden treasures, so the year has not been completely a lost cause as I have had the chance to see what is here already – moving in during Jan/Feb meant I hadn’t a clue what I’d inherited.

One garden success has been the pond – a tiny pre-formed liner, intended as a wildlife pond.  I have to mention in dispatches here the heroic J who dug and installed it for me (with remarkably little bad language) on a muggy summer’s day.  The tiny frog which has already taken up residence in it is very appreciative too!  All manner of other creepy-crawlies have moved in as well, so I shall be interested to see what develops.  I built a bench and got a table for the garden during the summer, so next year I can sit and watch pond life in comfort!  I’ve been consciously planting for wildlife, with lavenders and buddleia, as well as for my own consumption in the herb bed.  I look forward to sharing pics of the first pickings from the vegetable patch next year – I’m looking at growing broad and dwarf beans, chard, salad leaves, garlic, spring onions, possibly some carrots and potatoes, and whatever else takes my fancy when I peruse the seed catalogues.  Meanwhile, in the next few weeks I need to plant up the big pots of tulips for the back doorstep, and alliums and fritillaria in the garden.  I got a bit overexcited about buying bulbs this year…

 

The new old home

LisaTulfer 1 Comment

So – the move is done.  I have been in for a few days, the unpacking is almost completed, and I am (after many years of living in 1960s and 70s houses) reminding myself of the joys of living in a 150+ year old house, with not a straight line in it!  Almost every piece of furniture upstairs has had to be sured up with wedges to make it even vaguely level.  My miscellaneous vintage home wares and country furniture actually look like they belong here, rather than being an anachronism. The cat has moved in and seems to approve of her new abode.

What have I learned, as the detritus of my life has emerged out of boxes?

I have too many shoes.  No, really, I do.  Because I have never seen them all out at the same time in the same place, I never realised just how many pairs of very similar shoes I have.  I haven’t depressed myself further by counting them – I just know I have too many.  I understand why – I have difficult feet to find shoes for which are both stylish and comfortable, and therefore I tend to stockpile when I do find suitable ones, even if I don’t actually need shoes at the time.  But this is ridiculous.  I would have ample for most eventualities even if I gave half of them away.  Which is what I shall do.  The hospice shop at the top of my street is in for a surprise!  I have already sent half my handbag collection their way…

I have too much stuff relating to projects which I shall never finish.  Freecycle is helpful here – gifting my stash of fabric which I know I shall never make clothes from, and the things which were in job lots which I purchased for one or two pieces which I have used.  More challenging will be the process, which I must undertake, of getting rid of a proportion of of my yarn and fibre stash – realistically, much of it is in colours I now know I am unlikely to use.  I can make a couple of nice bundles and donate them to my local Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers for someone else to enjoy.

For the moment, I must set aside training as a traditional upholsterer. In this much smaller house, I do not have the room for the supplies, beyond my toolbox, or for pieces of furniture waiting to be worked on, and in a mid-terrace house it’s not realistic to do the amount of hammering involved, without seriously annoying the neighbours.  If I can find a workspace away from home, I can re-visit this, but for the moment I must leave it, and not beat myself up about it.

I have too many books.  I must admit this is a surprise – as I had already culled several boxes of books (to Oxfam) over the past few weeks, I didn’t expect this to be an area that would cause me problems.  But I have realised that as well as the books on the shelves, I had nearly as many again lurking in piles beside my favourite armchair, under the desk, under that pile of magazines that I never seem to get round to finishing, on the windowsill…I need to assess whether it is realistic that I will read them in 2015.  If not, it’s Oxfam again…

It really is possible to declutter, even things that have been around for years through umpteen housemoves, without feeling bad.  I have always had guilt about getting rid of things which were, long ago, gifts or which have some association with someone or some event.  I’ve been able to ask myself, as things emerge from the boxes, whether I am keeping something just through habit, or whether I am making an active decision to have it in my home.  Things (of no great value, but nice, and often recollected from my childhood) which I have inherited from my beloved grandparents, I have kept – a vase, a rug, the child size chair which they brought back for me from a holiday in Spain in 1973 and which now provides a suitable home for my very grown-up bear.  I have allowed myself, also, one small storage box of ‘nostalgia’ items.  Interestingly, it’s only half full.  The one area where I will have to put in some time is my office – I seem to have reams of paper and piles of files kept in case it ‘comes in useful’.  Going through several years’ worth of work output will be tedious, but should free up several shelves as I think it’s likely that very little of it will be relevant in the future (and most of that is probably on computer/backed up anyway).

Moving to a much smaller house has been a great discipline.  There simply is no argument with not having anywhere to put it!  The world really won’t come to an end because I only have a few tupperware food storage boxes rather than twenty.  If I can’t store it, I probably don’t need it.

I stockpile things as if I am expecting a siege.  The reasons for this, I know, go back to my childhood, but I must accept that in 21st century England it is unlikely that I need to stockpile groceries, ironmongery or toiletries.  At all costs I must avoid multibuys.  Any possible financial saving must be set against the costs in terms of my tranquility at home as I struggle to find houseroom for things I won’t need or use for ages.  What price turning my home into a warehouse for things I can buy any time I need them, just by walking up to the shops?  Is a few pence of saving really worth the aggravation of the item falling out every time I open the kitchen cupboard?!

Fitted kitchen cupboards hide a multitude of sins. Or, in this case, stuff.  My kitchen here has few cupboards – four small wall units, one base unit plus a corner unit with a carousel for pans.  But it does have three open shelves running the length of the kitchen, which I have used to display/store my crockery (including vintage tea things) and vintage enamel bowls and jugs.  I now know exactly what I have got.  Duplications have become apparent, and have been weeded out.  I can see that I have enough – plenty – and will not be tempted to acquire more.  The cupboards contain only consumables, and some cookware.  I only have what fits comfortably in the cupboards (less than half of what I had before).  So far I have managed to cook a range of meals without feeling the lack of any vital piece of kit.  My surfaces are largely clear, and the kitchen feels very tranquil.

At the end of the first week in my new home/olde worlde cottage, I am keen to pare down my possessions even more.  I want to have even more space around me, to reduce the visual noise of my stuff.  I realise that I only really tolerate the ornamental in my home if it also fulfills a function – my ceramics are bowls or tea cups, regularly used and not merely gratuitously ornamental.  Even the cat is a vermin-control operative!

All change – new year, new home, new start – the opportunities for simplicity

LisaTulfer 2 Comments

Regular visitors to this blog may have noticed the absence of new posts recently.  This reflects a time of upheaval in my life, both professionally and personally.

The cat and I have found a delightful character cottage in a small town in Somerset, near to the M5 and mainline railway, and at the heart of a thriving community with shops and services.  I wanted to find somewhere that would be a real home (rather than just somewhere to live) as I embark on this new life, so I was delighted to find somewhere which was not a soul-less new-build on an anonymous estate.

The cottage comes with a nearby garden, complete with potting shed, and there are already two big vegetable beds and scope to grow-my-own on a significant scale.  There is a wood-burning stove to supplement the gas central heating.  And a lock-up garage/wood store across the road.  I appear to be all set up for The Good Life…

I moved from a large house, and so I haven’t needed to get much in the way of furniture.  However, living in big houses for the last several years has inevitably resulted in Too Much Stuff, and this has been a wonderful opportunity to galvanise me into action – the biggest decluttering exercise of my life is underway!  Ebay, Gumtree, charity shops and the dump have all been involved in my campaign to reduce my Stuff by at least 30%, and preferably 50%.  Fortunately, the timing coincided with the Christmas and New Year break, which has given me time and space to do at least a couple of hours’ decluttering every day, and make significant inroads into my Stuff.

I have before me, therefore, a challenge and an opportunity.  I may not have actively chosen this whole ‘life begins at 45’ experience, but I am determined to embrace what it offers me, and the first thing it offers is choices.  What do I want in my new home?  How do I want to live my daily life?  I am being offered the chance to live much more simply, which (as readers of this blog will know) is something which has been exercising me for some time.  This is my chance to make a fresh start in the way I live.  I have often said that I aspire to William Morris’ maxim to ‘have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’, and now I have the opportunity to put it into practice.

The white goods do need to be bought new because I really need them to be under warranty.  The other bits and pieces I am consciously buying mostly vintage or second-hand.  I acquired a handsome day-bed on Gumtree, and a leather armchair on eBay.  My bedroom curtains are being re-purposed from a pair of 1950s Welsh wool blankets.  I am now the proud owner of a very beautiful Deco chest of drawers, which I expect will outlive me.  And I am being very disciplined about how much furniture, and how much Stuff, will fit into a small cottage and still allow me enough space and order to actually live in it.  And work in it – the second bedroom (with stunning views!) will be my studio and office.

So – over the next few months, I hope this blog will chronicle my first steps in my new life, and I hope you will accompany me as I make choices, face challenges, and work out how to live simply in my new home.

With my artist’s hat on – August exhibition at Minehead

LisaTulfer 2 Comments

From Mon 25 to Sun 31 August I will be taking part in the Exmoor Arts exhibition, in association with the St Loye’s Foundation, entitled Beyond Barriers.  This will be at the Old Tourist Information Centre (also known as the Old Vic) in Minehead.  It is on the seafront: from the West Somerset Railway station, walk in the direction of Butlins, and the TIC is at the end of the short row of shops and arcades.  16 artists and makers, including painters, textile artists, ceramicists and photographers will be exhibiting a selection of our work, which will be for sale.

Opening times are 10.00-4.00, except on the Bank Holiday Monday when we open at 11.00 and have a preview and press event from 12.00 to 2.00.  The exhibition will be staffed by participating artists – I shall be there on the Monday and Thursday, and possibly other days as well, so do come and introduce yourselves.