One of the world’s great sheds

I know it’s very ‘bloke’, but I love sheds.

This is possibly too solid to be properly described as a shed, but it isn’t a workshop or a house, so I’ve designated it ‘shed’ and have certainly got Shed Envy for whoever owns it. It also has a heart on the door. But imagine having a shed with a chimney…

I have two sheds. Strictly speaking, they’re not just mine, and Vick may indeed say that one of them is hers, but I tidy them and fix bits when they break, so I’ve designated these sheds ‘mine’.

One of my sheds is a retired beach hut and lives at our allotment. It leans forwards where the wind at Studland, where it once stood, pushed it from behind. It’s turquoise and full of tools, though I tidied it this weekend and put some reclaimed cladding on the wall as part of my ongoing attempt to make it Pleasant To Sit In.

My other shed is, rather excitingly, underground. Our house is on a hill, and beneath our back yard is a stone shed with a door at the level of the road that runs up the hill behind. It’s dank, dark and cave-like and full of bikes and junk, but one day it will be beautiful.

The shed in this photograph is at Chapman’s Pool. It’s a ridiculously lovely place, but don’t tell anyone as it’s also tucked away from the crowds. And there are even nicer sheds right by the water’s edge, but they don’t have chimneys, so this is probably my favourite.

love | landscape

Three Steps to Devon

I hadn’t been to Dartmouth before the Easter weekend and it really is lovely.  I’m sure millions of people know that already, but there’s no harm in a truth being repeated. We enjoyed relaxing away from housework and the work-work, the gentle English ambience of the town and the cottage we stayed in and the boys enjoyed the castle, the pirates, the beaches nearby and the ice creams. And a very nice lady in a very nice gallery called Baxters has taken my Alphabet Coast work too, so it was a doubly good trip.

In a bizarrely small-world way I also bumped into our next-door neighbour from here in Swanage. We were both browsing the condiments aisle in Marks & Spencer… and were both amazed that a tiny seaside town has a Marks & Spencer!

The heart above I photographed twice, but the other set of photos are still on Sunny’s camera. He has a better zoom than me, but that’s OK, he’s eight, he needs a better zoom than his photographer dad. I’m pleased with this, though in my usual way I’ve managed to make a pretty stone wall in a lovely seaside town look like a dingy bit of a rundown inner city.

I do like this stickering though – there were three dayglo hearts on three signs nearby. Two stop signs and a one way – there’s probably something to be read into that about the nature of love, but I’ll leave that to somebody who has the time.

If you read my last post I mentioned that the heart on the stop sign in Totnes was also on Google Street View… well so are the ones in Dartmouth! Double spooky-dooky!

love | landscape

Stop:Love / Love:Stop

I took this in Totnes in 2007 and have only just put it together. I’m in a bit of a muddle, having a huge backlog of photographs of hearts and stuff nearby dating back several years. Trouble is, I mean to catch up and then I go somewhere and take a load more and then of course I want to put those together first… only I don’t get them finished before I go somewhere else again, and so on.

I like Totnes. It suits my hippy side. Vegan is normal, CND membership is a requirement. Eco-activism is second nature to everyone and it’s a Transition Town, so the move towards a better, more sustainable world is not just a dream, it’s official. On the other hand, I prefer to be a rarity, it makes me stand out more. So I’d rather live somewhere not quite so far down the path to knitted yoghurt - that suits my cynical side.

This weekend I’m off to Dartmouth, hoping to relax over the Easter break. Hopefully a bucket-load of hearts too to stop me catching up with the ones I took three years ago in Devon…

Totnes heart was here. In fact, look at the Google street view – it’s still there! How spooky is that…

love | landscape

The Good, The Bad and the Love Heart

This is sad. An old(er) couple in Swanage have been voluntarily restoring all the old stone signs around town, starting up at Durlston Country Park and working their way down towards the centre. They are doing it out of sheer generosity and are doing a lovely job too.

They clean each stone first, removing lichen, dirt and graffiti, then outline the letters, then fill them in. It’s a painstaking job, especially as a lot of the stones were laid low in the walls, some at ground level.

Sunshine Walk is on our route to school. It’s also lovingly known as Poo Alley, thanks to the few lovely dog owners who don’t seem to notice that their dog poops as well as eats. On a bright day, if the poo is thin on the ground, it’s a pleasant walk. The old(er) couple cleaned the signs down here a few weeks back, but the cold weather seems to have held up the painting. A couple of weeks ago, they found the time to outline the letters on this stone, the last to be completed. Unfortunately, it looks as though last week the old(er) chap painted in the ‘S’ and it got rained on. And at the weekend some kind soul sprayed a loveheart across the whole thing.

Now, obviously, I love finding lovehearts. But it does make me sad when the symbol of love is used to pointlessly vandalise something good.

The name Joe is sprayed nearby. So if you know somebody in Swanage called Joe who was hanging around Sunshine Walk with a can of green spray-paint on Saturday night, can you print a copy of this out for him, roll it up and shove it up his Poo Alley?

love | landscape

Happy Mother’s Day

This is dedicated to all mums, everywhere. You’re all amazing.

This post is short but sweet – just like my lovely mum!

[found on Swanage beach, October 2009]

love | landscape

One I Got & One That Got Away

I was in London at the weekend, staying close to Kew Gardens. There’s an Eco Village there, on the corner of Kew Bridge and some-road-or-other. Personally, if I wanted to live in an eco village I think I’d pick somewhere quieter and where the air doesn’t taste of diesel fumes, but it’s a squatters encampment and good use of what will some day become several million pounds worth of luxury apartments, so best of luck to the squatters. There’s a facebook page here and a YouTube video here. Great use of global new media to promote a true grass-roots movement.

I walked past the Eco Village a few times and as always I kept my eyes open for hearts, but amongst the various graffiti nearby there were none. AND THEN. Driving away on Sunday morning there were two brand new bits of graffiti – a huge ‘Long Live the Eco Village’ and a lovely heart on the gate…. and me sitting in the passenger seat of a car belching diesel, stuck in traffic, about to hit the M3 back to the fresh air and quiet of Dorset.

So can I ask you a favour? If you live near or in the Kew Eco Village, can you take a peek on the gate and see if the heart is still there? Maybe take a picture… and then when you want a new place to set up an eco-village, how about the old Grammar School site in Swanage?

What I do have to show you is this: a heart from the shore at Osmington Mills. And look at that sandstone! What I love about sandstone is the fact that you can see sand dunes from millions of years ago, touch them, rub them and free sand that’s been trapped for millennia. It’s like being God. In a very small way.

And the Smugglers Inn at Osmington is one of the loveliest pubs I know, so that’s a plus. The rock this was on is precisely here.

love | landscape

happy valentines day

Every day of the year should afford the opportunity to tell somebody how much you love them, but that isn’t always the way it works. Today is important because it provides the opportunity to make a romantic and possibly foolish gesture, safe in the knowledge that if it goes horribly wrong all will be forgiven because that’s just what crazy, love-struck fools do on Valentine’s Day.

What’s odd is when you are snug and safe within a relationship and yet still you’re expected to make that additional gesture just because it’s The Most Romantic Day of the Year. I spend my life making pictures with hearts in them, to the point where Vicki should have lost interest in the universal symbol of romance. Last year we agreed a few days before not to get each other anything for Valentine’s Day. Come the morning, I found a card and a gift on my pillow when I brought in the coffee. I felt mean and unromantic and thoroughly caught out.  “And what did Swanage’s Most Romantic Man get his lovely wife for Valentine’s Day?” a friend asked a couple of days later. I explained. “You didn’t fall for that one?” he said in astonishment, amazed that I could be so foolish.

So if you think you may find yourself in a similar pickle in future years, I hereby give you permission to bookmark this site ready to rush to your PC, pick a heart from here to print out and make into a hasty card. It might help, it might not, but it’s just a suggestion and it’ll look as though you were planning a cool and artsy hand-made card for ages…

[the picture above was taken on a lovely autumn day in 2009 on Swanage Beach. The big red thing is on the end of a groyne down there. I didn’t Google ‘red thing on the end of a groyne’ just in case, but I assume that they mark the end of the groyne should the sea be particularly high and hiding the structure from boats coming into shore. A probable sounding factoid for you there.]

love | landscape