September days

This week we have celebrated our daughter's 25th birthday with a visit and walk on Dartmoor that ended with a delicious pub lunch. We had a wander around the woods and lanes of Lustleigh, which we have never visited before. It was so picturesque and peaceful.

. I

We discovered a Community Orchard, sheep were grazing under the apple trees and a school nursery group were outside enjoying the sunshine.

We came upon this very unusual granite stone, girls names were carved in the rock and it took us a few moments to work out that the chair on top was a throne for the May Queen. May Day celebrations are important part of the village calendar. Prior to 1954 the crowning on the May Queen used to happen in an remote woodland outside the village.

We passed some wonderful thatched cottages on our walk. I particularly liked the fresh flowers displayed on this ancient door and the matching pink watering can!

Back home, September has been a mixture of sunshine and rain and high winds, it must be terrifying to be caught up in those dreadful hurricanes and after it has passed by, to discover that everything is destroyed or unrecognizable, my thoughts are with those who are suffering.

We have also been picking blackberries. It's always good to try a new recipe when you have a glut of produce, these blackberry crumble muffins made a delicious alternative to apple and blackberry crumble.

What do you like best about September?

Sarah x

Inspired by the sea

During the summer two huts appeared on the cliffs nearby.......

They don't look like normal wooden buildings but I instantly recognised them as they have been appearing on National Trust land over the last few years and I have seen articles about them in magazines. The Observatory is a sculptural installation, an intervention, a space, a platform, a shelter, a look-out where artists can explore the landscape. The shape of the building seems to draw people towards them as can be seen by this video of the cliffs above Burton Bradstock,

The shapes, shadows and textures encourage you to look at the landscape and things around you in a different way.

It even encouraged me to play around with my shadow!

When we reached the beach it inspired me to take different views including the boat trail left on the sand as the pulley pulled it up the beach.

Today marks the end of the our Open Studios fortnight when artists invite people into see their work. We visited two artists who have studios in West Bay and it was lovely to see their work which is inspired by the sea and rocks of this part of the coast. It will be interesting to see how the residents artists at the Observatory have been influenced by the landscape too.

Has a picture, or words ever inspired you to look at the landscape in a different way?

Captured moments

There has been lots going on around here lately so apologies for abundance of images, capturing some special moments....

Spider crab and fishing boat in West Bay

The fields have been ablaze with the colour of wild flowers. Following other bloggers we decided to discover which wild flowers were growing in this meadow and were surprised at how many different varieties we found.

 The weather has been mixed but when the sun does break through it can be spectacular looking out to sea.

On the 75th Anniversary of the Raid of Dieppe a memorial plaque and noticeboard were dedicated to remember those who never returned and their story will now never be forgotten here.

Our annual agriculture show was held and we enjoyed looking at the animals and admiring all the displays. It was a long sunny and tiring day!

A chance encounter with a tourist lead us to Burton Bradstock beach to share in the celebrations of 26th birthday of Hive Beach Cafe. It was a gorgeous evening and a good way to watch the sun go down. There was even a passing visit from one of the gig boats that operates out of West Bay. (Historically Pilot Gigs would race out to win the business from visiting tall ships and pilot them into harbour; they were also used as lifeboats with hardy gig crews often being the only assistance available to stricken shipping.)

 We had a day trip up to Bristol to join in the celebrations for the 7th Birthday of the indie record label Art is Hard Records ,which is run by our son and his friend in their spare time. It was a great event with 23 bands playing in two venues, one of which was the boat below. We are so proud of what they have both achieved - the original idea of promoting bands along the South coast of England expanded to bands all over the world including New Zealand and America. We thought they were mad when they initially released one of their first groups on a record format many years ago, it's amazing how popular records have become again, they knew what they were doing!

Another view of Bristol harbour including it's newest addition this tree house built in one of the Cranes (above and below) which has been available to rent over the summer. The interior is stunning do look inside.

Lastly it was Bridport Hat Festival this weekend, it's a wonderful unique event celebrating hats. Most people come into town wearing hats and there is lots of themed things to do around hats including keep fit wearing hats and a Jungle Hat disco!. It is always a fun day and there are some amazing creations. I was busy selling raffle tickets so didn't manage to capture too many of the wonderful hats.

Have a great week, thank as always for stopping by.

Sarah x