I took a trip to Farmleigh one morning last week when it was bright and sunny - and on the chillier side. Most of the colour from my previous visit had gone, and the herbaceous borders had pretty much been cleared out.
I really liked the decaying hosta leaf, and in the walled garden, a rose petal had fallen onto a leaf.
All month I have been meaning to get back and add some photos from the Sculpture in Context exhibition. Life just seems too busy - but a singularly wet morning and a day off are a good combination.
All 74 photos I uploaded from my visit are HERE, but for anyone like me with less time, here's my quick pick of some favourites.
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| This was a whole array of raised dishes in a circle under some trees. The fallen leaves were a great addition |
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| There was a companion hare to go with the fox |
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| I'm pretty sure I remember a chickenwire sculpture from another year, a fox perhaps. I must look back. |
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| I can't remember the title of this, I think it had Spring in it. I would have called it Bird Brain. |
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October has come in with a sudden drop in temperatures - a warmer duvet on the bed, heat on in the mornings for half an hour, and time to put away my cycling shorts till the Spring.
I didn't feel very productive in September - the darker evenings don't help, and of course we were away for a week. But here are my favourite cards... thank you, Lorraine, for two stamps and the stamped lighthouse image (plus your card to use as inspiration).
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| This was a two-for-one stencil background - this was the stencilled one, and I added flocking to the deer's antlers, which turned out very well. The second monoprint background was used for the floral birthday card. |
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| A rainbow-themed challenge was a good opportunity to pull out this rainbow-coloured scratch paper - it's embossed, and then gently wiped with a baby-wipe. |
Today was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies and a distinctly crisp feel in the air. Since tomorrow's forecast isn't great, I decided to push myself out of the house after returning from leaving my sewing machine in for a service, and I went for a walk in Farmleigh.
There was a small clutch of relatively young moorhen chicks - they must have been the last batch of the season, because while they were no longer little scruffy balls of fluff, they weren't that big and they were cheeping madly. I also some some young tufted ducks, which were probably the ones I shared a video of a couple of months ago.
Here are the moorhen chicks.
Also some of the general flora. I was surprised to see so much blue (not in the photos, but the herbaceous border had a lot, more monkshood than I've ever seen in one place before, but a couple of other things too. I always think of blue as a Spring flower colour...
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| I'm not personally a huge fan of hydrangeas, but I always think the dead heads look so pretty |
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| The waterlilies on the lake are dying. I thought this one looked like a perching bird - in fact I did think it was a bird on first glance |
And one utility box art which I snapped with my phone near work a few weeks ago. Our president has two Bernese Mountain dogs, and Aras is simply the Irish for "building" - so the president's residence is Aras an Uachtaráin. I think there is also something written on the other end of it, but I haven't paid enough attention to it as I'm usually focussed more on traffic.
