Had a wonderful week in Amsterdam a couple of years ago, staying on an architect’s houseboat in the Jordaan. One of our favourite museums was the Jewish Historical Museum, arranged over four synagogues near the old Jewish quarter. In the first section, the various Jewish festivals are described. One of these is Purim, which celebrates the […]
The Peto pergola at West Dean gardens I love the gardens at West Dean, just north of Chichester, for which the Edwardian architect and landscape designer, Harold Peto, designed a stunning pergola for owner and philanthropist Edward James. I met my husband there in 1984, when the gardens were unkempt, the fruit trees overgrown […]
How I envy Lady Ottoline Morrell – well, perhaps not her features (Augustus John, who painted her, said she had a ‘prognathous jaw and bold baronial nose’ – not that these prevented her from having numerous lovers, including Roger Fry and Bertrand Russell), but her life. With funds and time and bold tastes she created […]
We have just returned from France, where Mr Z was participating in Music at Albignac, a series of piano summer schools run by pianist and author Paul Roberts and his partner, arts journalist and fabulous cook, Jenny Gilbert. Mr Z knew them at York University but they had lost touch, only to discover recently that […]
Last year I started buying antique documents and experimenting with paper collage and a little mixed media. One document was so exquisite I had it printed across a width of linen and made a bolster, embroidering a little in the margins – my first attempt at machine embroidery (I have been doing a lot more […]
I have been to Sissinghurst many times, but it is always more fun to go back with someone for whom it is a first visit. My friend Jane shares my passion for plants. I have been with friends who like gardens, who stop and admire the larger view, but this was the first time I […]
The annual Decorative Living Fair at Eridge Park, a beautiful country estate on the borders of Kent and Sussex, has been run over the past ten years by textile designer Caroline Zoob and antiques dealer Henrietta ‘Hetty’ Purbrick. Over the years they have discovered wonderful dealers selling a wide variety of antique, vintage and decorative […]
The Decorative Living Fair is returning to London! Chelsea Old Town Hall will be full of wonderful decorative antiques, vintage and antique textiles and products made by designers and artisans, many of whom are exhibiting in London for the first time. We are giving away 10 pairs […]
Those who visit my stand at fairs will know that I like to include vintage bottles in my displays. I like the shapes, the uneven, cloudy glass and the different colours and textures (vivid greens and blues with a ridged edge for poisons). Most of all, I like the chemists’ dispensing bottles with their intriguing […]
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Bleached wood, worn stone, pebbles polished by the changing tides, feathers, shells, pine cones and even lichen covered twigs can all be displayed to great effect, particularly on the broken surfaces of marble and original paint.
All right, this is not about home – other than to express my gratitude for having one as another midnight passes into Christmas Day. My favourite carol is “It came upon a midnight clear”, unique among carols of its time in that it does not mention the birth of Jesus. Indeed it was written as […]
I have been working at home this week and feeling keenly the lack of light, the days getting shorter and darker. Having unpacked and sorted out my unit after the Midwinter Fair last week I decided to take a couple of my large glass lanterns home. I put two of the white pillar candles I […]
My car is filled to the roof with over 200 glorious hydrangea heads, their stems stripped of leaves, ready to take to the Country Living Fair this week. This afternoon my husband pruned the Virginia creeper so that I can take the stems to the fair and twist them into a wreath base for my […]
