Batemans & Standen

I've mentioned Monday Club before - it's a little weekly outing that my Parents, Toddler F, myself and my little nephew, Toddler Z have been doing for a couple of month's now on a Monday morning. Dad has been working up to retirement and had a lot of holiday days to use up before his official leaving date so he took off every Monday to go through it, which meant that we were then free to all go out somewhere exciting. 

It was always fairly local and Toddler F and I would usually hop on the bus in the morning, get off nearer to the parents' house and we'd all pile into the car - The Mother squeezed in the back between two child seats - and head off to somewhere. 

We've also enjoyed some really lovely weather this Spring so, although it wasn't always the warmest, there were lots of beautiful sunny moments. 

Quite often we've headed to fairly local National Trust spots as we are all members and it gives the boys somewhere to rush around and explore, throw sticks into rivers and examine worms and ants in great detail. For the grown ups there was guaranteed delicious cakes and coffees so it was a definite win-win. 

This particular National Trust spot is Batemans, somewhere we've been to lots of times before and has appeared on this blog before (in 2015 for definite). It was the family home of Rudyard Kipling, the chap who wrote the Jungle Book, and it has been preserved pretty much in the way he left it, as if he'd just walked outside for a bit. 

The gardens aren't that big (in comparison to other National Trust sites, not in comparison to the average person's garden! Especially considering that my garden consists of a balcony with a few pots) but they are always beautifully manicured and planted, with different sections to it. 

There are a few walled gardens, and you walk in from the carpark and ticket office just at the top of the vegetable patch with pleached fruit trees and a little orchard and all sorts of things growing. 

Another section of the walled garden leads to more apple trees (which the boys found great fun in autumn, collecting the apples into little piles) and the back of the cafe. 

There are more ornamental type gardens, a very controlled rose garden around a fish pond, but then, through a little archway is a much wilder planted area with a stream, beautiful wild flowers and a dirt path which takes you to the flour mill at the end of the garden. This is the bit the boys like most, you can play Pooh sticks and there are some children's things to do in the mill, or you can spend hours watching water filter through little grates in the millpond and trying to spot newts. 

Another of our little adventures took us to Standen, with a couple of extra family members this time. It had its Easter finery on so there were lots of different activities to play with as you walk round. 

This has definitely appeared several times on my blog before and, if you click through to this post in April 2017, you'll see what we had expected to see this time around - but wasn't there....tulips!

It turned out that we actually knew one of the gardeners there who came up to say hello, and we asked her about the lack of tulips as it's a well known part of the Standen calendar. Apparently they had planted them all as usual but everything had been afflicted with Tulip Fire, a fungal disease which makes the plants look like they've been scorched in a fire, and they had to be dug up which is such a shame. 

They still had some very pretty areas of planting, although slightly barer than usual perhaps, and there was a lot of work going on in the garden, it was teaming with gardeners and wheelbarrows. There isn't such a lot of ornate garden planting here, it's much wilder or looser with lawns surrounded by shrubs and trees rather than boxy flowerbeds.

We did do a very whistlestop tour around the house, but with three boys under the age of 5, their interest in comfy chairs and William Morris wallpaper wasn't held for long. We stayed longest in the room where a volunteer was playing the piano as they wanted to dance to the music, or in the conservatory with all of the Easter cacti and succulents but mainly it's easier to just let them be small boys out in the wilds of the garden. 

The house is full of Arts and Crafts workmanship, and Morris & Co wallpapers and textiles - the servants corridors are completely papered in Morris Trellis, and there is now an exhibition about Morris in some of those rooms. 

It's another house where you have lots of vaguely tamed but not orderly areas. Follow this little path, trip up some wide steps and suddenly you pop out into a little wooded clearing with a funny little shack and a balcony area looking down over the house and entrance road. 

There's a wooded walk with the trees mostly on one side, and the other side there is this view! 

As part of the Easter trail there were lots more little activities in the woods and a big marquee with some games in to play. It changes up here every now and then; sometimes there's a planted maze, or a stack of rocks to climb on but it's just a fun place to be free. 

I would really recommend that if you have smalls and live near to National Trust properties that you sign up. We aren't affiliated with them at all but sometimes being able to go out (and obviously the more you visit the more viable it is to expense the membership fee) to these places, park for free and wander round these fantastic gardens is such a godsend - especially as we don't have a garden ourselves. Having a rambunctious toddler in the house can be quite overwhelming sometimes but, release them into a wide open garden or field and let them explore and dig and play in a wide open space doesn't feel quite so much like you are trapped. And they are beautiful to boot. 

Wakehurst Place

For Mother’s Day this year I was treated to beautiful blue sky and sunshine (obviously organised by Toddler F), and a trip out to Wakehurst Place - part of Kew Botanical Gardens and also National Trust. It seems to be more Kew than NT these days as the shop doesn’t resemble a usual National Trust shop (no badges for my camp blanket) and, to be quite honest, the food from the restaurant was expensive and not all that nice. 

We used to come here fairly often as a family when I was a kid but rarely come here now so seeing the gardens again was a bit of a treat. Especially with the time of year matching up with their Magnolias being in bloom. That was always my favourite part. 

We actually had four mothers on the trip out, myself and my sister, our mum and Reece’s mum, plus the various men and boys in our lives. 

It’s nice just to get out somewhere where the kids can run and be free, dance under falling petals, watch giant fish in still ponds and slide down weather (and other bottoms) worn grooves in giant rocks. 

The house itself isn’t open, when it is open there isn’t anything in it really, it’s not furnished with items from the period or anything like that and I think it’s mostly used for functions or educational visits. 

It is a huge place, with wide and manicured lawns, ornamental ponds, rock gardens, woodland areas, a valley walk with amazing Rhododendron trees and a stream at the bottom leading to more ponds and lakes. It is quite a steep walk to follow if you do go into the valley toward the bottom lakes, we had a buggy with us which was an effort to push back up so that bit isn’t entirely accessible for things on wheels but we managed it so it was ok. 

Around the side of the house there’s also a garden full of grasses and those fiery red stemmed plants interspersed with Silver Birch trees for contrast, a walled garden, a vegetable plot and a mud kitchen which we hadn’t noticed before and the small boys absolutely loved. Clearly some people had come prepared for the mud kitchen and their children were dressed in waders and wellies. 

I can recommend the ice cream truck that was sitting outside next to the restaurant though. We had absolutely delicious salted caramel and triple chocolate ice cream cones which had big chunks of yummy goodness inside. 

There is also the seed bank which you can visit but the boys don’t find that particularly interesting so we didn’t go down that way. We were all a bit worn out after our trek into the abyss so trundled our way back to the car - passing the most enormous queue of people waiting to come in! Timed our visit well I think.

Toddler F fell asleep on the way home (which we had anticipated) so I even had some quiet time to myself, sat in the sunshine in the car - with coffee! - working on my pond life ATCs. I don’t think I could ask for a better Mother’s Day. 

Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year friends! 

I hope that you have all had a wonderful festive period, however you choose to celebrate. Were you all up partying last night or were you like us and in bed at 10pm? I did stay awake until midnight to say hello to the new year but I was the only one conscious so it was a very quiet "Happy New Year" moment - apart from all of the snoring around me. 

I don't make resolutions as such but I do have some wishes that I would like to try to make happen in 2025; some new adventures, places to visit and routines to start. I'm also going to try and go a bit easier on myself. I wear many hats and have many plates to juggle and I found myself getting a bit lost in it all last year, feeling a bit alone with everything that suddenly appeared on my to do lists, overwhelmed and frustrated. I think I hide it well and outwardly appear to have it all under control but it is bottled up inside, fizzing away until something gives and the thing giving way is usually me and my wants. My aim is to try and not take on as much - which I find difficult as I like to be involved in lovely things and find myself offering for roles or tasks almost by accident - or to ask more for help where I can. We shall see!

 

It's been a pretty quiet first day of 2025 for us. Usually we all meet up in a big family group and have a big lunch, almost like a repeat of Christmas but without the gift giving, but this year various family members were already promised to meet with others so my parents were just going to come to us for a roast dinner but now The Mother isn't very well so it's back to me, Reece, Baby F and the cat ringing in the new year by ourselves. 

These photos are from a couple of weeks ago when we took the smalls to one of our usual haunts, Sheffield Park. The weather was unexpectedly beautiful. Chilly but sunny with gorgeous blue sky and we took full advantage to get out as it's been so dismal and wet. As I type today it's pouring with rain, dark, and windy as we are finishing off a hurricane from somewhere. Not nice at all . 

Sheffield Park now has peacocks roaming the grounds as well which is rather exciting! They aren't as friendly as the ducks, who will eat out of your hand, but we might get some fun displays from the boys - or some pretty feathers to collect over the summer!

There was a winter trail based on The Snowman which we whizzed round as we'd gone rather late in the day. There were big snowmen cleverly painted on the themes of the 12 days of Christmas, little wooden snowmen of the one from The Snowman books and film, and then extra little fun bits for children to explore, and some of the trees had music coming from them! It is such a beautiful place and I feel really lucky to have it so close to us.

We didn't get time to come here during toadstool season to really look for the different varieties that pop up across the site - but I still managed to sniff out these beauties!

I took advantage of the period just before the Christmas days to catch up on my blog writing (a bit like I'm doing now). Cosied up inside with coffee and cake whilst Baby F was at his last nursery day. It has been very sweet to have our first few months of nursery experiences. He was Rudolph in his nativity and had a cute little costume. The children are 2-4 years old so it wasn't a performance so much as a sing-song with a quick overview of the nativity story read out. But Baby F danced in circles during each of the songs, he sat and stood when told and he smiled and did the actions. One of my best nursery experiences was giving a small token gift of homemade gingerbread stars to the lollipop lady who helps us cross the road each morning. She was over the moon and I was profusely thanked which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

It's been nice to have evenings where I'm not writing Christmas cards, wrapping presents, checking lists, getting last minute presents, cooking biscuits, finishing up end of term reports and business etc to sit and stitch! The cat enjoys these evenings too I think, just me and him on the sofa. Usually he's sleeping in strange positions but occasionally his kitten-ness comes out and he gets in trouble for chasing/stealing threads or trying to squeeze himself inside my project bag. 

I've been working on my Misty Shadows Stitchscape Swap cards and I will try and photograph them when the light is better. My camera is unfortunately still broken (thanks to the cat) so hopefully my phone camera will be able to do them justice. We are still waiting for cards to come in for the swap so it may be next week that I'm able to send them out to everyone. 

The themes and prompts for this year's Stitchscape swap is up and ready for you on my website, here. All are welcome to join in - even if you don't want to actually join in with the swapping you can still make your own little cards based on the themes and participate in the challenge of them in that way. 

I was given some amazing cosmic print fabrics for Christmas so yesterday I started a new little hoop to try and play with some of the patterns and colours. This will probably be my bus project for the next couple of months so we'll have to see where it ends up! 

Potentially there are some new events and opportunities coming up in 2025 - there is already quite a list on my website. I had an online meeting with a new gallery and workshop space about a series of workshops further in the year from Easter which I am waiting to here back about, there's possibly an exhibition that I've been talking about to have in collaboration with another textile artist, and I have today started sorting out some selling events and have applied to a couple of craft events so we'll see where that goes! Thank you to everyone who made 2024 such a great year for Dotty Textiles; invited me to workshops, came to workshops and listened at talks, sent me pictures of their pieces, purchased from Etsy or my website, left a lovely review, joined in the Stitchscape swap, passed on my details to a friend or followed me online. All of it is so appreciated!

Cheers to 2024, and hello to 2025!