Month: January 2014

Happy Anniversary

On By janeIn Extras, Most Popular Posts8 Comments

Just a quick post –

Because it’s a year ago today that I started this blog and I couldn’t let it go by without acknowledging the fact.

It’s been quite a year. I’ve learnt how to do loads of stuff I couldn’t do before, been to Everest Base Camp, become an empty nester, and decided to embrace my grey hair. Along the way I’ve managed to write 76 posts. (There were a few more that I wrote for my Everest blog some of which I posted here as well.)

My posts have been viewed 4,954 times by people in 42 countries.

The most popular post (Where Would you be?) has been viewed a total of 571 times, with 306 views on one day.

I’m sure there are loads of blogs out there with more impressive statistics than mine. But this particular old dog is feeling pretty pleased with herself for sticking with it.

So Happy Anniversary to me….

Back at the Palace….

On By janeIn New tricks, The KLC Course4 Comments

So I’m back.

And you know what…. it feels great.

There I was on Wednesday morning. Panicking in traffic on the M25, crossing the Thames with the irregular outline of the palace against the sky to my right, parking the car, heaving bags and cases and presentation boards out of the boot, staggering through the security barrier. It was good to find that the old place hasn’t changed much while I’ve been away. But then it has been there for several centuries so I suppose it was unlikely to get up to much in a few months. The mellow brick, the clustered chimneys, the ring of the flagstones under my feet as I walk through the dim corridors, the smell of woodsmoke from the Tudor kitchen as it gears up for the day’s visitors, the way the light falls in the courtyards – all still the same, all still wonderful in the pinch me I can’t quite believe that I’m here way. I’m happy to be back again.

What is different is that, when I climb the stairs up to the KLC studio, the sign-in list by the door has got eight names on it rather than eighteen, and the faces when I go in are new and different. Annie is there for the Crane Park presentations, but no Humaira. Instead Juliet and Philippa and a new bunch of fellow students to get to know. It doesn’t take long though. We’re all in the same boat.

So at last I got to present the dreaded Crane Park Project and hand in the dreaded Construction File. And I’m so glad I did. Because they were both a huge amount of work – and I’ve been hard at it since Christmas finishing off what I started in the summer – so it would have been an awful waste of time not to hand them in and…. get them marked.

Hmmmm…. that’s the bit yet to come. Not looking forward to that bit quite so much. Still it’s done. And it’s a great feeling to have got the other side of both projects.

Because you know something…. I’m feeling really pleased with myself. Because in the course of doing these godammned, are you kidding me, you cannot be serious, this is a crazy amount of work, projects, I found out that I’m capable of an awful lot more than I ever thought. Which is what this course is all about.

So for starters there’s Vectorworks, the movie. Well not actually a movie, it’s a computer aided design package thing. Which when I started out was like trying to learn a foreign language, where nothing made sense, and when I did learn how to do even the most basic thing I had forgotten it by the following day. Well you know something – I did sixteen construction drawings with it. And used it in the Crane Park project to draw up an admittedly basic plan. And I discovered how great it is for doing planting plans. I didn’t do all the fancy stuff that some of the others did to such great effect. But hey I’m an old dog learning new tricks. What do you expect?

Then there’s Sketchup. Another computer design tool that had me a bit stumped. But hurrah for Sketchup for Dummies. So aptly named in my case. Because I used it to help me with my 3d perspective sketches. And it was a bloomin’ miracle. See….

Crane Park sketchup drawings colour version

This is a very basic rendering of my plan – which was based on the Shot Tower at Crane Park as the centre of an explosion with shock waves radiating out from it.

The other thing I did which I have never done before was make a model. This was the thing that finished me off in the summer. But luckily I took photos before I chucked the whole thing in the bin. So I was able to use it in my presentation this week.

IMG_1276Compared to the models that some of the others made – particularly Delphine’s which was a thing of absolute beauty – mine was…. well pathetic would be a fair description. But I did it and it kind of showed me something about the site and my idea. So not a complete waste of time.

And there were the watercolour illustrations of my concept.

Scan 2 And the sketches of my ideas for the burnt wood bridges and benches and fences throughout the site.

And then there was ‘The Dossier’. The leave behind folder to go with the presentation. I used Ipages to do it. That’s Ipages to the uninitiated. I hadn’t heard of it either. It’s a wonderful tool for pulling together images and words. And it allows you to put together a presentation which looks…. well see for yourself.

Screen Shot 2014-01-19 at 10.57.25

When I gave up work fifteen or so years ago we were still handwriting documents, giving them to our secretaries, who typed them up and gave them back to us. We corrected them, gave them back, and finally we had them in our sweaty little hands. But only words, no pictures. And no clever stuff like colour and different fonts and sizes and moving bits around the pages. So this is like magic to me….

So I’ve learnt a hell of a lot. And it all came together this week. And now we’ve got our next project. Which is an absolute peach. Because it’s at the palace. It’s the private garden outside the offices of the chief exec and other members of staff. How awesome is that.

So hurrah for garden design. And boo to the old me who wanted to give it all up. There’s life in the old dog yet….

Winter windup….

On By janeIn Extras, PeopleLeave a comment

Does anyone else agree with me about the weather?

I mean I know it’s been pretty miserable. The wind hasn’t stopped blowing and the rain hasn’t stopped raining. People have been without power for days over Christmas. They’ve been flooded out of their houses, there’s the possibility of more flooding to come. And lets not forget the cold weather coming over from America….

But has it really been as Armageddonly, world endingly, life will never be the same againasly, bad as the media is making out? I’m not sure it has. And I’m not sure how good it is for us to have this constant stream of bad news drip fed to us like Chinese water torture.

I began to feel uncomfortable when I heard someone on the news before Christmas saying that ‘hundreds’ of homes had been flooded. Now I know ‘hundreds’ is quite a lot of homes, and for the people who have had water pouring in through their front doors it must be an absolute nightmare. But when you think of the total number of houses in the entire country, then hundreds isn’t an awful lot. But from the way the news was being delivered in the hushed tone, prepare yourself for the most appalling news you’ve ever heard style that newsreaders these days seem to think is appropriate for everything from suicide bombings to lost dogs, you would have thought that the whole country was under water.

So then I heard that these were the worst conditions in TWO DECADES. Yes that’s right…. TWO DECADES. Now if they’d said TWO CENTURIES it seems to me that there would be good cause to feel a bit anxious. But TWO DECADES. That’s twenty years to us ordinary human beings. And twenty years doesn’t feel like that long to me. After all I’m coming up to three lots of twenty years old in a few years time. And lots of big stuff has happened weather wise in the years I’ve been around – the big storm of 1987, the winter in the early 60’s which I was very young for but can remember because we were snowed in for a very long time. And for people older than me, of which there are more than quite a few, there must be all sorts of major weather events that make what has happened these last few weeks seem…. well just in the grand scheme of things seem not quite as earth shatteringly life changing as the media would like us to believe.

I mean it was only in October last year that I read that we were all set for the worst winter since the Ice Age. And now there are all sorts of gloomy mutterings about the ‘Polar Vortex’ coming over from America. It sounds like something out of Doctor Who. But you can bet your bottom dollar that it’s just a fancy new name for something that’s been around for ever but now that it’s called something else…. now we’ve really got to start worrying about it.

So, as I say it’s not good for us. All this doom and gloom, and just you wait for what’s coming up next, makes us feel anxious and miserable and stops us living in the present and enjoying life as it is now. Take my dear lovely mother in law, who has been worrying that the world is coming to an end. For someone who has lived through a lot more hardship than a few days with the lights out it seems unfair to me that she should be worrying because of all the stuff being thrown at her by the modern news machine.

So I know it’s not a new idea but let’s sit back and look around us and start focussing on the good stuff that’s happening right here and right now. Because there’s always something.

Winter Berries
Winter Berries

I’m offering the sunshine this morning, and the colour of the berries on the trees, the bliss of getting between just laundered sheets in bed last night, the fact that I’ve nearly finished all the work for the start of term next Wednesday, the poetry of David Whyte who I’ve just discovered. And that’s just for starters.

If anybody has got any suggestions I’d love to hear them. Because I think we need to start redressing the balance.

So here’s to good news and the things that make us feel positive about life.

And a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Back to the Drawing Board….

On By janeIn The KLC Course6 Comments

Literally….

Because I am. Back at the drawing board I mean.

I thought I was done with all of that stuff. Wind back a couple of months and there you have me shutting the door on my little office in the garden and vowing never to go back in there again. I packed up the drawing board, put away the pens and the layout pads and all the stuff that goes with trying to be a garden designer, cleared up and threw sackloads of rubbish away. My unfinished novel was calling to me.

But the moral of this particular story is never say never….

The unfinished novel is still calling. But it will have to wait a little longer. My final term at KLC, which should have started last September and finished in December, commences on January 15th. It’s an odd feeling – going back after a few months off, to the same place but to different people. My fellow students from Diploma 6 are all done and dusted, embarking on their careers as…. well as whatever they are embarking on. And here’s me going back to school again.

I did have a moment’s…. well actually several moments’…. panic last week when I went to dig out all the work I did in the summer for the dreaded Crane Park Project which has to be presented on the first day back. And couldn’t find it. Had I thrown it all away? Please, please, please don’t say I had….

Well thank goodness I found it. Because if I hadn’t the thought of doing it all again was enough to make me…. well who knows what I would have done. Best not to go there….

Now you have me shut away in my office, discovering that all my pens have run out of ink, remembering what a nightmare it is trying to draw measured perspective sketches, struggling with the challenge of mastering the computer aided design programmes which still baffle me. With the wind and the rain howling outside my window. Was going to back to all of this really such a good idea?

Well you know what…. it was. Because it’s great to get the old grey cells working again, great to be scared, great to face new challenges. With more time and less panic (and Sketchup for Dummies!) I’ve actually managed to master (to a very basic extent) the art of drawing a 3d model of my design for the area round the Shot Tower in Crane Park. People who are comfortable with designing with computers would probably laugh at my pathetic attempts. But I feel like a million dollars.

So I’m presenting my work on the first day of term to a new cast – the students of Diploma 7. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it’s a bit daunting. But I’m determined to be more relaxed and less anxious about this last term of mine. I got so tired and emotional by the end of the summer that I had stopped enjoying myself. So I’m going to try and take it a bit easier, be kinder to myself. And we’ll see how it goes.