Pashley Manor

 

For the last three years my family have 'staycationed'. Which effectively means that rather than going somewhere for a holiday, you stay at home and just visit interesting places around you. The challenge is to find places you wouldn't normally go to, or maybe costs a little too much so you are going as a special treat, and that you can reach there and back in a day. 

It started during the COVID lockdowns in 2020 where holidays abroad were incredibly risky and could lead to you being stranded in a foreign country for an unknown period of time, or holidays in England skyrocketed in price because suddenly everyone wanted to get out of their own four walls and stare at someone else's for a while! We decided it just wasn't worth it, plus there was still a lot of restriction about where you could go and mask wearing and places could be shut down at a moment's notice due to staffing issues. Holidays don't need that kind of stress!

This year it was decided that we just couldn't afford to hire somewhere. I am one of three siblings and with our three partners and two children between us, plus the parents - we need a fairly large place and none of us currently have any money to spare as we are all moving house or feeding small mouths, which are surprisingly expensive considering their size! 

We kick started the week with some crazy golf in Eastbourne and a trip to Lewes castle and also ended up at Pashley Manor again on the Wednesday. This featured in our very first staycation, although later in the year (September time) and we all loved it so went back again this year. They do a tulip festival earlier in the year which I am dying to see! Maybe next year. 

The gardens are just glorious, and I love their collection of dahlias. Pretty much everywhere we went the grass had given up the ghost - it's just been too dry, I can't remember when we last had rain - but the flowers were looking stunning. 

It is only the gardens that are open, although they come with a cafe and gift shop, but the house is a lovely backdrop covered in wisteria. There's a rather grand outdoor swimming pool, kitchen garden, several ponds, bridges, woodland walks, orchard, lawns , flower borders and dedicated flower gardens. 

There are sculptures all over the place, I think most are for sale, providing view points and interesting talking points. They could be like this lovely lady guarding the ha-ha a the end of a long view from the house out to fields, or they could be carved wood nymphs with funny names pinned to trees in the Bluebell walk. 

The smell, as you walk into the different sections, is lovely. There's a particular garden edged in box hedges which is full of lilies and roses and, of course, more dahlias, which just smells fantastic! Even though some of these blooms look slightly frazzled around the edges due to the heat we've been experiencing, they still put on an amazing display and fantastic scent!

If you are a garden lover, I would recommend you visiting this place as it has something for everyone - whether it's rows of plants in terracotta plant pots, a dry garden planted in an old water trough, or an ornate tiered border. The garden changes throughout the seasons as well but, as it's privately owned we don't visit as much as I would like due to the cost. (We are dedicated repeat National Trust members and frequent the same places multiple times a year.)

Summer Meadow July ATC Swap

 

I think that this swap may possibly be the prettiest of them yet, and it's interesting that you could almost split the group into three types of scene/landscape/composition created. There's the pink and white flower close up collection, a blue and red flower meadow collection and then more of a poppy/wheatfield collection. Do you see what I mean? There are a couple which don't really fit into these categories, but they are beautiful nonetheless - what is fascinating is that most of these cards aren't shared before being made so all of the designs are unique and yet still similar. Perhaps there is some subconscious universal representation of summer meadows...? I may be rambling, it's been a long day and it's now quite late at night as I type this!

The textures in these are lovely, scraps of fabric have been used as bunched up flower buds (like the frayed silk stem in the top of the above photo), cut shapes stitched down with a knot or tacking stitch, or as textured backgrounds. One of the scenes is embroidered directly onto painted card and paint has been further used to enhance some of the fabrics; felt has been used in some for a thicker texture (mine included) and the stitching itself, across the whole board, is exquisite! Lots of lovely lazy daisies/detached chain stitch, french knots and satin stitches to create the flowers and even some beautiful bees.

We also had a new participant join this month which is super exciting - I love that people can just jump in whenever they like, you don't have to sign up for the whole year and can skip a month or two if you need to. I'm really hopeful that we could maybe continue this swap next year with some new themes - I have a list of ideas ready to go!

The end of July felt really rushed for some reason - possibly because we were 'staycationing' with my family and were out every day to various places so we left early and didn't get back until fairly late. It was possibly more exhausting than an actual holiday as at least you would spend time in the holiday home and not keep rushing out everywhere. 

I photographed, swapped, spreadsheeted and posted these around the hectic holiday schedule so I don't feel like I was able to truly sit and appreciate them like I usually do so it's nice to have the photos to sit and look back on for inspiration. 

I always seem to end up photographing one card upside down as well! Which I only notice when I'm checking through the photos at the end, meaning I have to go back and set everything up again. This is the second month in a row that I've done that!! I wonder whether you can guess which card ended up upside down (I've corrected it in these photos). 

Here are some close ups of the gorgeous creations and, as always, you can see the full year's collection on my website!