Wealie x

Inside the Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Firery Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Yellow Drop Blooms - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Macro pale pink and yellow lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Red Poppy - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Pink Lilies Emerging - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Hydranga - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Tiny Pinks - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Light red blooms - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Lovely Lily - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Orange Poppies - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Heale Gardens Iron Gate - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Here’s the first in my Wealie Nice Places To Visit series of
articles.  The aim of these articles is to give you a feel for
the places I visit in words and images, a bit of the history and the pros and cons of visiting as I see them.  I hope you will be inspired to visit one or two of those places after reading my articles.  Anyway, let’s get on with talking about Heale Gardens.

With the two long weekends of 4 days a piece in April I had lots of opportunities to get out and about during the Easter and May Day weekend. One of the places I chose to go was Heale Gardens.  Heale is a lovely late 16th century private house and gardens situated in the Woodford Valley near Salisbury, Wiltshire.

A Magnolia's Secret - Copyright R.Weal 2011

What people visit Heale for most is its gardens; many generations of the still resident Rasch family have created and developed the gardens we see today.  The house is also famous for having been one of the places where Charles the II took refuge on his flight from the country.  Charles II spent 6 nights at Heale on his way to Shoreham and then onto France in October 1651.

On entering the garden you walk through a beautiful meadow full of gorgeous wild flowers and grasses. The managed orchards are full with beautiful fruit-bearing trees, grown to form lush archways where shade loving blooms can thrive.

Ferns on the River Bank - Copyright R.Weal 2011

To your right the river Avon flows through the bottom of the garden splitting into a number of tributaries to make an amazing riverbank landscape through the woodland garden, with it’s abundance of ferns and Spanish bells.  Beautiful wisterias climb the walls and archways and intricate ironwork decorates the gates that break up the different elements of the gardens.

Heale House Wisteria - Copyright R.Weal 2011

It takes approximately an hour to walk round the gardens at a leisurely pace, but there’s no time limit to how long you may spend in the gardens.  Many people come with a picnic blanket and a good book to absorb the wonderful sense of peace, tranquillity and relaxation that the gardens are bound to inspire in you.

The crumbling stonework and ornate rusting iron gates exude a sense of dignified decay, lending an indefinable air of ‘times gone by’ to the gardens.  It’s not hard to imagine the quintessentially English corseted ladies and proper English gentlemen living a lifestyle most of us would never have been able to experience except through great BBC period dramas!

Stone Pot Detail - Copyright R.Weal 2011

In terms of amenities there’s a lovely coffee shop with indoor and outdoor seating to accommodate the moody British weather.  In the coffee shop you will receive a very warm welcome and reasonably priced and exceptionally well presented home made food that is in my opinion is to die for!  Whether it’s a full lunch, a lite bite or just a cup of tea and a slice of cake (I heartily recommend the warm scones!) there will be something to whet your appetite.

Green and white drops - Copyright R.Weal 2011

As well as food, the coffee shop also has an array of home produce, gifts, gardening items, knick knacks and greeting cards for sale that are fun to browse through and again reasonably priced.  On top of the coffee shop there’s also a small nursery where you can buy some of the beautiful blooms and shrubs you see in the gardens at prices that are great for the size and quality of the plants you buy – some of which are now gracing my own garden.

Buttercups close up - Copyright R.Weal 2011

The house itself is not open to the public and as the family is in residence there are areas of the garden where the public are not allowed to enter to protect the privacy of the Rasch family home.  Unfortunately the gardens are not particularly suitable for wheelchair access or individuals with severe mobility impairment, however you can experience much of the garden’s beauty by just sitting out in the coffee shop garden area, as long as you watch out for the crafty Robin with designs on your cake crumbs!

Iron Gate Close Up - Copyright R.Weal 2011

From February and October the gardens are open to the public between 10 am and 5 pm, Wednesday to Sunday (not Monday or Tuesday, except Bank Holidays).  Entrance is reasonably priced at £4.50 for adults and £2.50 for kids.  All in all Heale Gardens is a lovely place to spend some relaxation time, whether you are walking round the gardens or just popping to the coffee shop for a cream tea and a mosey round the nursery.  It’s well worth a visit if you are in the area and a great place to while away a morning or afternoon.

Below are some of my favourite pictures from my afternoon at Heale and you can see the rest in my flickr photo set Heale Gardens.

Happy visiting!

Wealie x

Cherry Blossom - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Seed Pods - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Thistle Bud - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Fern Dancing - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Lone White Heart - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Wilton House Corner View - Copyright R.Weal 2011

A few weekends back I finally got around to visiting
Wilton House after living just down the road from it for
over 6 years!  Unfortunately the house wasn’t yet open to the public, but there was more than enough to see and photograph on a lovely sunny April day in the extensive gardens.

In this post you’ll see some of my favourite pictures from my walk round the gardens, which include the beautiful flora and the architecture of the house.  To see all the pictures I took please view my Wilton House Gardens April 2011 set on flickr.

Wisteria Leaves - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Wilton House is the home of the Earl and Countess of Pembroke and has been the residency of their family since the grounds and buildings were granted to the family’s ancestor by Henry VIII back in 1544.  The main house is 460 years old with superb architecture and holds a wonderful art collection within.

The Wilton House estate has been used as a location in films such as Sense and Sensibility, The Madness of King George, Mrs Brown, Pride and Prejudice and The Young Victoria.

The Herald - Copyright R.Weal 2011

The house has undergone a great deal of restoration in recent years and the house and grounds are well worth a visit when they are open to the public between April and September.  There’s an adventure playground to keep the children occupied.

If you are interested in visiting or want to know a bit more about the estate see the Wilton House Website.

Below are some more of my favourite shots from the day, enjoy.

Wealie x

Wilton Bell Tower - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Ancient Cedar at Wilton House - Copyright R.Weal 2011

In the bridge - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Imperfect Clock - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Approach to the Bridge - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Softest Pink Blossom - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Bluebells and Daisies - Copyright R.Weal 2011

Delicate Yellow - Copyright R.Weal 2011

I’ve been slowly sorting through and editing all the pictures I took that day – To say I took a lot is putting it mildly, I’ve got macro shots, shots of Lizzie Gardens and The Cathedral and Cathedral Close.  I’ve almost finished all the editing, just got 5 or 6 shots left I want to work on.  However the set I named “Iced Rosemary“ is amongst my favourites and very much a standalone set in it’s own right. They were taken just down the road from where I live using my macro lens on the K7 Pentax DSLR.

The sun was just perfect and the brilliance of the snow and the glow of the reflections in the ice droplets had me totally enthralled for quite sometime.  I’m sure I got a few weird looks as people passed me by on the street, but what price the perfect capture?

I have edited and uploaded the best of the iced rosemary shots to flickr and they can be viewed in the set conveniently named “Iced Rosemary“. However, here are a few of my absolute favourites and a little explanation as to why.

Ice drop - Copyright R.Weal 2010

I was fascinated by the way the iced droplet distorted the reflection in this capture.  I also liked the contrasting textures of the wood, leaves and ice.

Winter reflected - Copyright R.Weal 2010

One of the many droplets that were starting to melt under the winter sun allowing me to capture a perfect reflection of the garden in which the rosemary resides.  It took a few attempts to get a shot in focus with the right amount of light, but it was well worth the effort.

Frozen Drips - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Part of me toyed with the idea of calling this one “reptilian rosemary” due to the pronounced textures of the rosemary sprig through the magnification of the ice.  In the end I decided not to call it that, hoping that people would see the texture and make up their own minds about it.

Ice Drop on Rosemary - Copyright R.Weal 2010

I really liked the overall tone and composition of this shot.  The blurred snow in the background and the detail of the individual ice crystals within the snow in the foreground.  The smoothness of the rosemary sprigs, the roughness of the wood and the frosted glass effect of the ice droplet.  It all added up to a beautiful shot in my eyes.

Wealie x

Wealie x

Drain My Colour, But You Will Not Steal My Beauty - Copyright R.Weal 2008

YOU WILL NOT STEAL MY BEAUTY

Drain my colour, but you will not steal my beauty
Pierce my heart, but you will not take my love
Take my freedom, but you will not break my will
Steal my breath, but you will not capture my heart

Ruth Weal
15 May 2008 10.54 pm
Copyright R.Weal 2008 ©

wasp for tea - copyright R.Weal 2010

I kept waking up from very vivid nightmares in the middle of the night petrified that my panda “Sarah” was going to be taken away from me when the burgerlers came to burgerlerise us – yes I said it that way too!

Luckily I had a very inventive dad – he told me that I didn’t need to worry about the burglars as he kept his smelly socks at the end of the bed.  Now everyone knows burglars can’t stand the smell of Dads’ socks and my Dad’s were some of the worst you could find! Then there was Dad’s very loud and very scary snoring and best of all Boris the spider would protect me and Sarah the panda.

For those who were not in the know, Boris the spider lived behind the picture over the downstairs hallway door and apparently if a burglar ever tried to get in Boris would jump out from the picture onto their shoulders and frighten them off, so they wouldn’t even make it up the stairs, let alone to my bedroom.

Well as bizarre as that may sound, it did the trick and I never had the burglar nightmares again.  I grew up feeling all warm and fuzzy about Boris who was our watch spider living behind the picture over the hallway door.  The warm and fuzzies for Boris turned into a general respect and soft spot for Boris’s eight legged family.  So here’s a few pics of some outdoor Boris’s!

Next time you feel an attack of spider heebie jeebies remember they’re a lot smaller than you and they do a good job of keeping nasty flies and wasps in check, not to mention potential burgerler frightening, so please don’t just squish them!

Come into my parlour, said the Wealie to her readers x

]]> http://wealie.co.uk/my-art/itsy-bitsy-spider/feed/ 0 http://wealie.co.uk/my-art/autumnal-blooms/ http://wealie.co.uk/my-art/autumnal-blooms/#comments Mon, 11 Oct 2010 23:21:29 +0000 Ruth Weal http://wealie.co.uk/?p=1028 Continue reading →]]> I’ve heard a number of people lament the lack of blooms in the UK after September.  Well I went out for a quick photography trip this afternoon as it was a lovely sunny evening and guess what…..I found loads of flowers still in bloom!

I’ve uploaded them to flickr in the set Autumnal Blooming in Salisbury.  Here are a few of my favourites, as you can see I had trouble choosing!

I hope my blooms bring a little bit of joy to you.

Wealie x

Red Reaching - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Dahlia dreaming - Copyright R.Weal 2010

petals no more - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Peach Perfection - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Spiney - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Multicoloured - Copyright R.Weal 2010

Today is the 10th of October 2010, or as it appears in the two digit date format 10/10/10! As humans we are always looking for special meaning and significance in dates like these.  Many people are drawn to mark these dates in some way, assigning significance and meaning where perhaps there would not have been any.

For me though, today was a pretty normal Sunday. I slept in, took a nice hot leisurely bath, finished the book I’d been reading, did a very little bit of tidying up, sorted a bit of washing and then decided to sit down and watch a classic flick from my childhood whilst Ben was out.

Glowingly Colourful Vine - Copyright R.Weal 2010

After the film finished, I settled down to think of today’s blog topic and soon realised that it was 10/10/10 whilst checking out some flickr buddies latest photographic uploads.

There are a few flickr groups that have been set up dedicated to pictures and videos taken today on 10/10/10.  The pictures are of a wide variety of subjects and it’s interesting to take a look through the group photo pools to see what inspired other people all over the world on 10/10/10.

For me I decided this was a good opportunity to go out an photograph the vine on the front wall of the alley that leads down to my house.  Luckily it’s been a lovely sunny autumn afternoon and the vine is now a lovely mixture of reds, golds and green.

I noticed how the vine had changed from it’s verdant green to a rainbow of red, gold yellow and green yesterday and thought then that I really should get out and photograph it before the spectacular display was over.

If you have taken a picture or video today why not upload it to one or all of the flickr groups?

If you’ve never seen it or want to remember, below is a clip of my favourite song -”The Beautiful Briny Sea”, from the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  I hope you enjoy it and that it brings the same smile to your lips today that it did mine.

Here’s hoping you had a great 10/10/10. This is Wealie signing off, just “bobbing along, singing a song, on the bottom of the beautiful briny, shimmery shiny, beautiful briny sea!”

x

Webbed Berries - Copyright R.Weal 2009

It’s official, Autumn is back in the UK, with last Tuesday, 21 September being the official first day of Autumn.  To celebrate the changing of the natural colours from a green Britain to one of reds and golds I decided to finally edit some pictures I took last year at around this time.

The set is called Autumn 2009 and there are a couple of my favourite shots from the set in this post.  I’ve also put a poem in that I wrote in response to one of the great pictures of my flickr contact Brentjp99, the poem is called “Stolen Summer Sun” and it was inspired by the photo Senescence.  If you get a chance, take a moment to check out Brent’s photostream, you will not be disappointed.

Yellow Buds - Copyright R.Weal 2009

I hope you enjoy the pictures and my poem.  Make sure you take a moment to get out into nature this autumn.  It doesn’t last long and as the winter months draw in, the colours in the landscape will be few and far between until the spring arrives.

If you do get out and about, don’t forget to take your camera and capture nature changing right before your eyes.  And if you get a chance publish your pics to flickr and I’ll drop by and have a look see!

Enjoy the autumn!

Wealie

STOLEN SUMMER SUN

Autumn’s come and someone has stolen the summer sun
Who are then, these canny thieves?
None other than the conniving deciduous tree leaves
Fat and green from the boon of the spring rain
These crafty leaves plot and whisper their latest criminal campaign
Softly caressing, swishing and pressing, a perfectly crafted tease
A plaintive calling as the sun was falling, so effortlessly pleased
Throughout long summer months
Devouring the sun’s rays in little bite sized chunks
Like lovers lips locked stealing the other’s breath
Calling on the Autumn’s birth and the Summer’s death
Green leaves no more, but crisp gilded golden tones
They laud their treasure over the Evergreens’ disgruntled groans
Basking in their stolen sunlit glow
They think not of tomorrow, just go with the flow
But as they frolic, sing and dance
They do not understand how much they’ve really chanced
For in the end crime cannot pay
Especially when lady Winter, is on her way…..

Ruth Weal – 10 July 2007 6.30 pm
Inspired by the picture “Senescence” by Brentjp99

Copyright R.Weal 2007 ©

Bee on Thistle - New Forest - Copyright July 2008

When I got my macro lens, my photography went to a whole new level!  This is one of the macro shots that I’m most proud of.

I took this on a lovely sunny July day in 2008 in the New Forest, Hampshire, UK.  The thistle is a very beautiful bloom and highly prevalent in the New Forest.

Bees are a regular visitor to the thistles and this little visitor was very obliging, allowing me to take a number of shots which can be found in my flickr set New Forest July 2008.

You’ll also find a number of other fauna in the set including a beetle, hoverfly and a herd of deer.  It was definitely a good day for photography.