Picture perfect - Sunday afternoon

Great day today - good (by our current dismal standards!) weather, about 16 degrees C but dry and sunny on and off.

It is good just to be about the Gallery and garden on days like this - not like working at all!

Some pictures:

sunny Sunday - sunflowers

Crocosmiae Lucifer - living up to it's name

the largest daisy flower I've ever seen

Agyranthemum - my favourite

new flower bed and water tank bed - plus Furby on the prowl!

looking to the Mountains

up to Slievenaboley

from the picnic lawn

the Gallery behind the sunflowers

the Sun Terrace - really warm today

the fireplace and dresser

up the street

looking across to the fruit garden

Bernagh with sunflower

Jewellery by Frances White in the Gallery

welcome!

Renovation Reflections

the roof of the dwelling house - a sorry sight

I have just put down some of our thoughts  for the website on what we're about up here. 


It kind of sharpens the focus and objectives to take a step back now and again, take stock, and re-prioritise.


Now that the gallery is open, and we are getting a steady flow of people, it really feels like the old place is coming back to life, albeit in a different incarnation. 

It's heartening to see the old newspapers, plans, pictures and artefacts from the house being poured over, sparking conversations about other times and places. 


It feels good.

Felt pens at the ready!

Today we had another felt workshop with 5 delightful creators. Lots of craic and enormous amount of work produced, despite the laughter and the food!

mad felt pens!

fantastic designs on our sample pieces

full of good cheer - and carrot & coriander soup!

look what we made!

bags to carry everything home!

 More Felt Workshop dates to come, check out the website www.turniphouse.com Or book your own with three or four friends at a time to suit you!

Home Sweet Home

been putting together pictures for the website, which I am determined to keep more 'alive' these days, and thought that they'd look good here too:

the turnip house and outbuildings, taken from the fruit garden - now more or less clear of nettles

 a long shot across the picnic lawn to the south west end of the gallery - with terrace seating, the greenhouse an ancient wheelbarrow full of sunflowers - and our satellite dish!

 the turnip house from the flowerbed, lovely colours really set this off

 Charlie on the lawn 

daisies and hollyhocks

just another gentle summer's evening

It's raining cats and dogs, the sun is shining, and we're having a barbecue... It's OK though, there is also a rainbow!


The scene tonight about an hour ago: after a great day in the gallery; new and old friends in happy conversation, we decided that rain or not, we would have barbecued lamb koftahs, salad and pitta bread, WHATEVER the weather.


these are the resultant images!

It's OK, the sun is shining!

still, its lovely and green isn't it?

smoke - or steam?

lamb koftahs - they were magnificent (eaten inside though!)

heavy with rain

a stunning rainbow

the view form the barbecue - so what's really to complain about?

A Happy Anniversary

It's our 3st Wedding Anniversary today, and as ever, we count our lucky stars!


We celebrated last night, in Newcastle having a great Indian meal with Helen (it was her birthday, so much cheer).


Today, at home, we continued the festivities by:


1. Having bacon butties and fried potato bread for brunch - yum!


2. Mowing the lawn:

the picnic lawn, looking great

3. Digging up an enormous stone that had grown overnight in the vegetable plot:

really no idea how that got there, but it wasn't for moving!

4. Laying another ton of stones and 7 more paving slabs to complete the wheelchair- friendly entrance to the gallery:

a smooth slope

Here's more pictures taken this evening - it has been a great day

the 'Bingham Arch' - a work in progress

Ron's (Elaine's Dad) Sculpture takes pride of place at the entrance

the railway sleeper bench, now in place

Great cloud formations this evening

We are now self sufficient in flowers for the tea room tables - these are sweet peas growing along the Green Lane

candidate for most-taken-picture: today's setting sun illuminating the Mourne wall at the Hare's gap

Just a regular day at the Turnip house really!

Turnip House website

Our new website is up, please take a look:

As ever, it's a work in progress, so all comments welcome!


Celtic Knitwear from Ireland:


'via Blog this'

A Tantalising Clue

Whilst building walls (yes, yet more) we were looking for gate brackets to hold the little iron gates beside the composting toilet. We're moving them so that visitors don't have to open and close gates to get to the toilet, and so that there is a clearer delineation of public and private space in that area.


So, we needed two heavy duty pieces of metal with holes in them to hold the gates, and found this in the salvage yard: Not sure what function it had, or where it was found, but it looked a likely candidate. 

 On closer inspection, the two bars hanging down looked familiar:

They were two pieces of the same item - a 'crane' from traditional fireplace:

Here are a couple in situ, in our old fireplace at Trassey:

It's possible that this piece of ironwork came from another place, but more likely that this is part of an original fireplace on the site.


Could it be possible that underneath the closed in fire in the kitchen:

 there is a fireplace like this? Time will tell!