Southover Grange

Ah, I have said it before and I will say it again- I do love Lewes!! Lots of interesting nooks and crannies down wonky side streets. These pictures come from Southover Grange, a house and garden nestled away in a corner of the town. It is really pretty and much loved by residents as it is always open and available for picnicking in.

 

Lots of areas are much loved by the Lewes residents, especially the pubs which are on nearly every street corner!!

There are many pretty churches with beautifully carved doorways, and walls belonging to the priory or built from the robbed out remains.

Plus quirky little tunnels with rail tracks running across the top. This one is very sweet as it is short and stout.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Thursday is stoolball day and I arrived very early, having spent a lot of time on the bus. Happily, I happened to have some wool and a crochet hook so spent my time productively, playing around with some flowery ideas.

This is what I came up with!! The actual design is only the two bottom layers- the top flower is the pattern I devised for my summer hat (pattern for that can be found here!). The flower (bottom two layers) is based on the flowers I came up with for my secret project which I am doing a tutorial for as we speak! I am going to call them waggon wheel flowers as they kind of have spoke-y centres, and because I love you all dearly, I have photographed my way through making one of the above flowers so will do you a tutorial for that too!!! I think I will call them....double waggon wheel flowers!! =P

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Edit to add: Both of the flower patterns mentioned in this post have now been written up and are available for you to have a go yourself!! Click here for the waggon wheel flower, and here for the double waggon wheel flower- or look under tutorials in my sidebar. I would love to see what you create with these patterns!!

Lewes Priory

 Thursday is stoolball evening and today was no different- except that the weather was glorious (usually we have threatening clouds that gather at about 3pm on Thursday evenings) and I ended up in Lewes about 2 and a half hours earlier than I needed to be. I intended to potter around the town, but instead found myself wandering through Lewes Priory- a really beautiful and peaceful place that's right next to the stoolball field.

A few years ago it was refurbished (as much as a ruin can be) and now is much more visitor friendly rather than a ramshackle collection of random stones- there are signs that tell you where abouts in the Priory you are standing with historical facts, descriptions of the usage of rooms and drawings to help you visualise yourself as a monk.

 

There are still some lovely features, like beautiful windows or stairs that lead to nowhere...

I like to try and imagine what it might have been like before the random acts of graffiti. How were the roofs positioned, what were the floors like, was there furniture, tapestries, paintings, flaming torches....? There are lots of filled in arches, did they once lead somewhere or are the shapes in the stone just for decoration? How did the rooms connect, how many floors where there? So many questions!! If only time travel was possible....

(Apparently the big green space in the above photo used to be the monk's toilets- there were up to 50 cubicles in there so that they wouldn't have to queue for the loo in between sermons or prayer time.)

A little round the corner there is this big helmet like structure which has always been a source of fascination for me. The carvings around the top are so intricate and detailed (and a bit grisly).

 

There is also a little section, tucked away in a sunny spot against an elderly flint wall, for a herb garden- which contains plants that would have been grown in the priory's own herb garden. It's very pretty in there!

 



A perfect place for quiet contemplation and reflection.

 

If you are in the Lewes or East Sussex area, do go and check it out, it really is a lovely little place to visit.

White Chocolate & Raspberry Cookies

Last night was my first stoolball game of the year- not the first stoolball game of the year however as I missed a few whilst at uni. The first one is always the most scary though as irrational fears creep in like; do I remember how to play? Have I lost all semblance of technique? Will I be absolutely terrible? etc. The worst part is the dreaded morning after- paying the price for not doing any exercise over the winter. I can barely move without the majority of my muscles protesting!!! It was very pretty playing in a field covered in daisies though, almost makes up for it!!

This morning I started my almost ritualistic summer baking routine- sometimes you just have to bake!! Today's endeavours are rather rustic looking oaty raspberry and white chocolate cookies which are disappearing from the plate rather rapidly!!

The recipe I used was translated from all kinds of Americanisms and originally had cranberries in it (which sounds very nice actually- maybe for the next batch?), so for us Brits, here is my translation!!

Ingredients:

150g Butter
120g Brown Sugar
225g Oats
225g Plain Flour
130g Chocolate Chips
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
Fruit of your choice and as much as you want to put in!! I just chucked in a small punnet of raspberries.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Mix together the sugar and butter, slowly add in the eggs. In a separate bowl, mix the oats, flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry mix slowly to the wet. When combined, add in the chocolate chips then lastly the fruit.
Line baking trays with paper and dollop the mix onto the tray, gently pushing down the top of the dollop to slightly flatten the cookie. You can be as precise or as carefree as you like.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges are turning a more golden brown.
Let them cool and then watch as they magically begin to disappear!!

Whilst I have your attention caught by my lovely cookies- I have been in full production mode and, rather unusually for me, made lots of ATCs for one swap--early!!! Well I say early, the deadline is the end of the month so only just within the time. Still pretty impressive for my deadline skills. These continue the colour theme swaps and are quite obviously pInK!!!

Extra Curricular Activities

Afternoon All! I was hoping this post would be written on my own laptop (rather than my lovely Dad's) which was sent away to be given a stern talking to by a generous computer technician that my Mother knows. However, even though it has had everything but the bare essentials stripped from it in an attempt to rectify whatever was wrong with it....the Internet still doesn't work!!! So if anybody knows why, when it says that it has connected to the Internet (both plugged in and wirelessly), it refuses to work anything that has a basis in Internet then please let me know!! It's sooooo vexing!!

 

 

Anyhow- moving on!! I can't remember if I told you lovely readers that I was a Guide Leader? Did I tell you? I have been a Leader for quite a while now, although disappointingly haven't been able to attend many meetings recently due to university and stoolball (more on that later).  If you aren't involved then you should seriously consider it! I can't tell you what joy it brings to be able to teach the girls something or discover something with them. Of course some are right pains and very annoying, but every girl has something endearing about her (usually) and I really enjoy being a part of this organisation. I was a Brownie, a Guide and a Young Leader (part of the Senior Section, also known as Rangers) so I have been taking part in this for quite a few years now!!! I think Brownies start age 7 so that is, oooo, 12 years????? Crikey.

One part of being a Brownie/Guide is to work on special projects, and earn badges or Go For It cards, and I have to admit, there is something rather special in being presented with a fabric badge that you can sew onto your uniform or camp blanket and wear with pride. I really really love these badges, and have started collecting them wherever I go- not all related to Guides, some are places I've visited- and sewing them onto my camp blanket. The ones in the image above are those I've collected so far- I do have many more from the Brownie/Guide days, but they are sewn onto my uniforms and Mum won't let me take them off (she's also hidden the uniforms somewhere as keepsakes so I can't even find them!!).

I was wandering around the Girl Guiding website shop the other week and came across loads of fabric badges- they are gloriously inexpensive so naturally I ended up with 10 different badges. 5 of them came in a special Centenary pack (it was our Centenary year last year) with 3 fabric badges and 2 metal ones, and the other ones are just lovely to have.

They have now all been sewn onto my camp blanket ready for the camp I am going on in August- very exciting!! I hope the weather's OK!!!
But as I said, I haven't been able to do much this year with my Guide pack- in winter I am at university, and during the summer I play stoolball- this wouldn't normally affect my going as my town used to have two Guide groups meeting on different days, but due to lack of Leaders we had to put the two groups together so I can't be around much any more.
Now, according to my Northern university friends, they have no idea what Stoolball is, so I feel that I have to explain to you lot just in case. It is a Sussex game (which would explain why non-Sussex people have no idea what I'm talking about!) and may be the inspiration for cricket, in that there are two wickets, a boundary, batsmen, umpire, fielders, bowlers etc. The wickets are very different however, as they are made of white squares on poles....let me see if I can find a picture for you...

 

Yes, here we go! So you see what I mean? The ball is different to cricket too, it is about half the size and white, and the bats are rounded at the end.
Last night was stoolball night, and when arriving at the field we play on, it looked like this...

Gloriously sunny!! But a quarter of a way into the game, it looked more like this...

Still, after a short pause we carried on, in torrential rain and practically hurricane winds- we are either hardy Brits or completely bonkers (I vote for the latter!!). My team won (hurrah!) and then it was down to the pub for tea and a drink (still dripping wet), and then home on the bus (slightly dried off but still damp) and into a gloriously warm bath!

Hmm, this is a very wordy post, I do apologise! Hopefully the next few posts will be more crafty- I do have several projects on the go, including the hexes. No, no! I'm not going to tell you what they are just yet. Oh go on then, a few sneak previews. What do you think these could be??

 

Ta Ta for now chums!

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Edit to add: The clever Mother has managed to get the Internet going on my laptop!! Clever, lovely Mummy!! =D