Tag Archives: Georgia

As I Was Going To St. Ives

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Most children grow up with the English nursery rhyme shown below. I remembered it when I first heard about St. Ives, a well know holiday spot that is famous for the light which tends to look more blue than other places. This special light as well as the coastline has attracted artists to the area since the expansion of the Great Western Railway in 1877.

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By now you must have figured out where John took me on my overnight birthday trip. We left about midmorning on Thursday and headed south. There is only so far you can go before you run in to ocean in Cornwall so I had one or two ideas once we were on the A 30. I thought perhaps we might be going to Mousehole which is pronounced “Mowzel” and is pretty village near Penzance.  We’d been there briefly on a trip to Penzance and I had mentioned wanting to go back.  We had talked about going to St. Ives a few times, but it was usually during a school break for children which is not the best time unless you want to feel swept along in the sea of tourists and people on holiday. He did throw a twist into the drive to St. Ives when he pulled off the A 30 and began searching for turn that was difficult to find. I knew as we were turning into to Burncoose Nurseries that we must be there to pick up something for me.

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Right away, I knew what John had in mind. Earlier in the spring when we were out for a walk through the gardens at Lanhydrock, I spotted something very familiar to anyone who’s spent much time in Georgia. I know these types of trees grow in a variety of places, but I wasn’t prepared to see this one there.

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In case you couldn’t tell…we stopped so John could pick up a Dogwood tree for me. Earlier in the spring, I had talked about how I missed the blooming Dogwood trees in Georgia and John remembered and made arrangements to get one and plant it so I’ll be able see it through the window of my studio room while I’m writing at my desk. How sweet is that!  I told him that was a perfect gift for me. When we stopped for the tree, we had a look around the nursery which had an interesting history. As you can see from the picture below, it was used during WWII as a laundry  which was worked by women who were in what was called Womens Land Army. I had not heard of this before and found the personal stories of some women who were involved here.

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The pictures above show it before and after renovation in 1989, but I have a few pictures from our visit below.

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Me with my Dogwood Tree.

We left it there to pick up on the way home and then we were off back on the road for the rest of my birthday adventure. I still didn’t realize where we were going at this point and it took me a few more road signs before I worked it out. It was a perfect day for exploring St. Ives and it didn’t take me long to see the blue reflected light through my camera once we arrived.

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Notice the churchyard and grave stones on the hill.

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Surfers are very welcome here with many in from Australia.

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Sticky Toffee Pudding with Ice Cream and birthday candle.

I’ll be back with part two later to tell you about the sweet B & B we stayed in and our visit to an interesting church on the way home.

Days Of Summer-Going…Going…Gone

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There is a common theme with many bloggers as summer begins to wind down. For those with children returning to school, the end of summer is not based on changes in weather like a sudden crispness in the morning air or the exchange of summer shorts for warm sweaters, but more likely it’s dictated by the posting of bus schedules and shopping for school supplies. Many schools in America have started classes and the rest are not far behind only waiting to begin classes after the Labor Day weekend. Georgia students have been sitting in classrooms for about two weeks now and I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the teachers to manage the energy. Sun and heat still equals summer time to most children and it doesn’t seem fair to send children back inside while the days outside are still so inviting.

With the recent graduation of my only child from Virginia Tech, I no longer gauge my days of summer on any one else’s timetable. Although many of the flowers are beginning to fade here, there are quite a lot still blooming and everywhere you look there is life and color. In Georgia, the blackberries bushes would have closed up shop and ceased production marking the end of summer in a pointed way with only the thorns left behind. Here in Cornwall the blackberries are still fat and juicy with more waiting to ripen before they go for the season. There’s more than enough to freeze a few gallons for winter and make another pie or two, but pie making aside we seem to have missed what makes it feel most like summer.

After years of living in Georgia and suffering through the oppressive summer heat and seasons of drought for the last few years, Cornwall in contrast has had it’s third rainy summer in a row and waking up to another grey day I feel as if in some ways I am still waiting for days of summer to begin. To be fair, this part of the world is a wonderland in rain or with sunshine but occasionally I must admit, I’d be happy to see a bit more of the sun. I’ll leave you with a few summer pictures as we begin slip into fall here and I’ll head out the door to pick a few more blackberries for a last taste of summer before it’s completely past.

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The last three pictures serve as an example of what we do to blackberries around here. Mmmmmmm!

Don’t forget tomorrow is the day for TMAST so please consider writing a post for tomorrow using one of the topic sentences left behind over at the Tell Me A Story Tuesdays site. Send me a link and I’ll post it tomorrow on mine. So far Judy Harper has been the only one to join me in the story writing piece of this online group. Others have left topic sentences and I do appreciate that. It’s more fun for me to use someone else’s sentence so even if you don’t want to write a story for TMAST, please consider leaving a topic sentence here.  It’s practice writing not perfection so let your imagination run wild and see where it takes you.

Things That Make Your Heart Feel Tender

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We all know that things don’t matter as much as people, but sometimes when the people you love are far away there are some things you just don’t want to be without. Yesterday, after 78 days and trip that began back in America, some of my special things finally arrived from Georgia. It was a bit surreal seeing the things I had pared down to as the most essential from my American life taken off a truck in the tiny village in England I now call home.

I had to open some boxes right away to ensure there was no damage and my art pieces were the first ones I tore into. I was opening at a good pace with an excitement similar to a child on Christmas morning when the watercolor piece above stopped my excited frenzy of paper tearing with an audible ooooooh… followed by a loud ,”John, come look at this one….”

This sweet little watercolor is a tender connection to my daughter’s childhood and to her every time I see it. She brought it home one day very early in her school career somewhat rumpled as large project can be when carried by small hands. I loved it from the beginning and after claiming a space on the side of the refrigerator reserved for special things, I eventually took it down and rolled it up intending to have it framed. It took about five years before I could make up my mind how I wanted to frame it which occurred right about the time my daughter would have preferred that her middle school age friends not see the art work of her early years. She called this little bunny, “Cerit Body” or “Carrot Body”  as she told me when I mispronounced it the first time based on her written words at the top of the painting and if you look closely at the bottom, you can just make out the young artist’s signature too.

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I felt a bit tearful seeing this little watercolor painting and held it so closely that John picked up the camera to capture my emotional moment. I am so glad to have it with me and I’m already thinking about the best place to hang it when the dust settles around here.

Some things will have to stay boxed until my new space is finished and since our master bedroom is going through a renovation and extension too with the addition on an en-suite bath, nothing can be unpacked for that room yet either. Yesterday afternoon, John and I moved boxes of clothes and linens & towels up to the attic while creating a temporary holding space in the living room corner for the 9 boxes of books I shipped over along with a section for art and other collectables. The kitchen is overflowing with dishes and china, along with bowls and cooking things my grandmother once used on a regular basis. The wooden bread bowl carved by my great grandfather quickly replaced the basket that John kept fruit in and will have a place on the table once it’s cleared of all the pieces I placed there while unpacking yesterday.

Last night when all the lights were out and I was heading for bed, I followed my nightly routine of checking all the doors to be sure the house was locked up tight for the night. This habit is one I inherited from my father who always made this a part of his bedtime ritual. He called it shutting down the house. That I do it now reminds me of my father on a more frequent and personal level than seeing his photograph on my shelf…proving that sometimes a memory or tradition can be as valuable in some ways as our possessions. Last night however, as I lingered at the kitchen door and looked back into the messy room, I was more than happy and content to see the physical examples of my family and my story waiting to find a place in this new home.

In The Air Again

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I’ve “moved house” as they say here in England so often I feel as if I could almost do it in my sleep. As a child, we moved so many times that I missed a good bit of what was important in school…thank goodness I was a big bookworm or I’m afraid I’d know very little. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I’d been to 10 schools and in one extreme year of elementary school, I occupied a desk in 4 different schools on both the east and west coast. It’s no wonder that I grew up with a fierce case of wanderlust.

At 18, I joined the Army and left home moving after completing basic training to my first duty assignment, a post in Baumholder, Germany. I arrived there with what I could carry in two large suitcases and an over stuffed military duffel bag. The rest of my childhood things stayed in Georgia with my family so deciding what to pack was not too difficult. These last few months have presented a different set of choices with regard to packing and moving… some of which have been more difficult than others.

As I leave to fly back to Atlanta today, it is with a clear goal in mind. During the next few weeks, I’ll be sorting through what’s left of my physical life in Georgia. Ever a saver with too much stuff, I’ve been going through things since early last year when John and first considered the possibility of sharing a life together in Cornwall.

It was during the first bit of sorting and selling that I came up with the name of my blog…Gifts Of  The Journey. Having surrounded myself so long with things that held memories that I considered part of my story, I never would have believed I would or could consider letting them go. It would have seemed almost as if I were being asked to slice off a finger or a toe. I thought I needed those things to help me balance and connect to what was important. It was during the time when I was selling off the furniture and things that made my house so cozy, that I realized the gifts I was receiving in learning how to let go of the physical stuff in exchange for my deepening connection with John. I had no idea where we would go or really how we would get there, but what I did know was that my house and all the things inside were not what made it a home. Freeing myself from the belongings that I thought had to have, gave me the opportunity to start over in a life I could not have imagined would be so right for me.

I’m back in the air again soon and my next post will find me sorting through books and art and bits of my old life…choosing with the care and heartache my immigrant ancestors must have felt when moving to America so many years ago.  All I can think is…thank goodness, I don’t have to only bring what I can carry.

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