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Back to school..

I had my interview for THE northern College Of Art - formerly known as Cleveland College of Art and Design.  It went really well, they offered me a direct entry place to continue with my Textiles degree in September.  I had to showcase my portfolio from the two years I did at Newcastle, and it seemed to go down really well and then we had a tour of the facilities, brand new purpose built, and it all looks great - I bumped into three of my previous student cohort who were encouraging and enthusiastic about the studies they were involved in.  The standard of work was excellent, there was a real diversity of style and media it looked so brilliant- so I'm very excited that I'm going to be part of that come the end of the year. 

We came home and sat in the garden being grown up and drinking G&T's to celebrate.  we hung out at home all weekend enjoying this completely unprecedented glorious sunshine on a bank holiday!!, We only left the house for a couple of afternoon pints with some good friends in the ORB a great little pub serving seriously good ale in Darlo.  Over the weekend I  planted up quite a large number of pots, our new garden is largely paved and will lend itself really nicely to a courtyard garden.  We have lovely stone walls all the way round and the side of the house is crying out for an espalier fruit tree. I spent a happy afternoon drawing up garden plan ideas which included staggered planted to give height and possibly a garden pond - nothing too grand but a little water feature always enhances an outdoor space. 


The best thing about this garden is it is an almost completely private space - overlooked only by next doors upstairs window and fields where there may be stray farmer but as we are the end of the lane there is no access or exit.    This is proving to be a godsend as it seems we may not be quite on the same wave length as our nearest neighbors and I can't see there being a sunflower growing competition in this hamlet this year!!! C'est la vie and we will just have to get on with enjoying our house without the benefits of neighborly input, this is disappointing as we had such a fabulous  community in our last home, our friends and family were openly welcomed - the sunshine may warm up some attitudes - time will tell.


In the meantime I'm happy pottering around, Dr Fred has been out with his crack ho - yes you might well ask... takes the grass out of the cracks, so our patio is weedless, our pots are brimming with petunias and the sun room floor is a hive of propagating seedlings in various stages of growth.

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