Extreme Knitting Redhead: Pashley Manor adventure

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Pashley Manor adventure

Nearly forgot this little gem! We try to visit beautiful Pashley Manor once a year and for the last few years we've been at a time to coincide with the Sussex Craft Guild exhibition & sale. The gardens are glorious in both Spring and autumn and it's just a lovely place to wander around on a sunny day.

There is a permanent exhibition of sculpture, for sale, throughout the gardens and some of them are absolutely stunning. I'll let Mike show off the scale of some of them:

Doesn't she look stunning against the backdrop of the beautiful house

I think she was entitled 'Stepping Out'. She towered over Mike!

Gabrielli's Apprentice with husband posing!

They were enormous and really striking. I could imagine them sited on top of a cliff, looking out to sea. Look at the little girl with the sheep too - awwh!

After we'd had a wander around the craft stalls we refuelled with coffee and cake then went for a walk around the gardens and grounds to find even more wonderful sculptures. Some of them were predictably twee but most of them were really interesting and their placement really enhanced their surroundings.

The gold outline on her hat really adds to the grace of this seated lady.

They always place a special sculpture at the end of this avenue next to the ha-ha (a sunken wall, invisible from the house, which forms a ditch to keep out livestock whilst retaining an unbroken view).

She was named 'Windswept'

The beautiful yellow squashes looked perfectly at home around the pots

I know I'm in a minority but I'm not a lover of mono-cultural rose gardens as I prefer roses mixed in with other things.

The swimming pool looked very inviting on such a hot day

I always get greenhouse envy when I see this beautiful glasshouse full of tender and very interesting plants.

Foliage begonias are one of my favourites and I grow loads of them at home

Be still my beating heart, what a beautiful leaf!

I need to track this one down for sure!

A lovely bench fashioned from old slabs and stone pillars

'Mind your own business' (Soleirolia soleirolii) creeping along the steps

Beautiful chimneys at the side of the house

The walkway from the cafe down to one of the lakes

Interesting figures rising out of the water

A tiny mouse going about his business

The ivy made its own sculpture around this tree trunk

We were just watching the fish when we we spotted by this beautiful black swan

She followed us along the bank just in case we had any food for her!

I loved the placement of this sculpture of canoeists

A living sculpture

You had to be alert and look everywhere or you'd miss them

We saw people walk past this one without noticing it!

That was such a happy day ahead of what turned out to be a horrid hospital visit the very next day - yin/yang, bitter/sweet and all that. Carpe diem!

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.