Folk Festival Fun for Warwick

This weekend Warwick hosted its annual Folk Festival. Folk dancers and singers were out in force together with a wide variety of creative stallholders and vendors, and everywhere we saw bright coloured clothes and gypsy-style skirts and hats decorated with flowers. In common with many others I love to watch to listen to folk songsContinue reading “Folk Festival Fun for Warwick”

Guys Cliffe House, Romantic Ruin in a Dreamlike State, Awaiting New Life

What could be more poignant than a formerly grand mansion, standing on a cliff, now partially demolished, abandoned and desolate? Gaping staircases you cannot climb; stone balconies you long to stand on to gaze at the view; empty windows you feel sure a shadowy figure should flit past. Just such a gaunt mansion is Guy’sContinue reading “Guys Cliffe House, Romantic Ruin in a Dreamlike State, Awaiting New Life”

A Golden Field, a Short Life That Touched Many Hearts, and a Poignant Moment in a Country Churchyard

This photo was taken on Milverton Hill, Leamington Spa  between St James’s Church Old Milverton and the Saxon Mill, Warwick. At about 4.30pm on Friday 7 June I walked with my two teenage  children through the churchyard to  reach this field. A late summer afternoon in the English countryside is such a quiet, luminous, poignant time. And it’s one of theContinue reading “A Golden Field, a Short Life That Touched Many Hearts, and a Poignant Moment in a Country Churchyard”

Places of Inspiration Part 6: The Saxon Mill, a Writer’s Delight by the Mill-Race on the River Avon Near Warwick

In each one of my places of inspiration I have found spirit of place : in India, at Ayers Rock/Uluru in Australia, in London, in the White Garden at Sissinghurst in Kent, and in Sydney Opera House.  But today, I return to a place very close to home – it’s the Saxon Mill on the River Avon, justContinue reading “Places of Inspiration Part 6: The Saxon Mill, a Writer’s Delight by the Mill-Race on the River Avon Near Warwick”