Two weeks to go

It's amazing how as this course continues my learning curve just gets steeper and steeper. It's 2 weeks till D day and I still have a heck of a lot to do.

I pinned up 2 weeks ago which was mortifying. I was really behind, my presentation was terrible and my work even worse. It was like one of those dreams where you're in a place, you look down and realise you have no clothes on.

I've moved in with a friend down the road so I can get to the library easier every day (Brighton is a bit of a shlep). I'm on first name terms with the staff at the petrol station over the road as I get my coffee and chocolate  and I regularly get a second look in my dishevelled state, but I'll get there. When I do I'll be poor and overweight but it will feel fabulous.

So two weeks to go, lovely Tanya is giving me a crash course in In Design and I'm going to do my best. Why oh why does the university not teach In Design - it's heavenly. Forget Bryce and 3D Autocad that we were taught, 2D Cad, In Design and Photoshop are my running shoes as I sprint to the finish.

Life is what happens while you're busy making plans

T'was the week before pin up and all around the house was quiet. Who am I trying to kid!  I've had a week where my beautiful 5 year old niece was taken into intensive care for 5 days with breathing problems, I've had one of the contracts terminated on a block of flats I maintain  and I have a perpetually crashing AutoCAD.

'A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water.' Eleanor Roosevelt.

Bullseye

I wanted a link between my planting plan and my overall design concept of intensive caring. I'd chosen salvia's for heir height, long flowering and colour contrast. I also like the idea that I'm using a plant that shamen have used for cleansing and blessings for centuries. While researching the salvias I found

The name Salvia derives from the Latin salvere ("to feel well and healthy, health, heal"), the verb related to salus (health, well-being, prosperity or salvation); referring to the herb's healing properties. Pliny the Elder was the first author known to describe a plant called "Salvia" by the Romans, likely describing the type species for the genus Salvia, Salvia officinalis. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia

Thank you Wikipedia, you beauty

Shame I saw this too late

I love this seating idea and it would work beautifully in under my cercidiphyllum but if I don't design freeze now I won't get enough work up.

What ever will I do when I don't go to bed and wake up thinking of the design.

Getting ready for final crit and beyond

Whilst washing up just now I realised that we have now had our last Friday tutorial.  We now have final crit on Tuesday week, three construction drawing lessons with Jamie and then the external examiners interview. The trouble with this time of year is that you're being pushed so hard (and rightly so) that you don't really have time to reflect on what's going on, it's as though you're stuck in fight or flight and can't assess. The prospect of not having a complete project to pin up on the 7th May is truly terrifying, I need to put it to the back of my mind (especially at 2am), keep putting one foot in front of the other and ticking off the 'to do list'.  

As a group at the moment we're rock solid and in a few short weeks that will disperse like ink in water. I'll miss my fellow students and the camaraderie that you build from going through something so intense with a group of like minded people.

I am also slightly daunted by the prospect of not being a student as well as running my company, I've been in further and higher education and setting up my business for the past six years. For now I've completed the course and got the business to a point where it runs itself much more freely. I can't quite imagine not having a 'to do list' or finishing work at 4pm and not having anything else to do that evening (except maybe chips and cider on the beach with friends), There's a big old space coming which is a sad ending to an amazing journey but also an incredibly exciting beginning x

Any fool can make a garden in spring

Christopher Lloyd famously said that any fool can make a spring garden. He is of course correct but that doesn't take away from the special place they hold, it's that message from nature saying "hold on in there girl, it's going to get warmer'.

This is a garden we've been working on for about 3 years now and is really starting to find it's feet. The setting is sublime, it's nessled in 140 acres of private woodland in Ashdown forest and I spent a lot of today listening to the cuckoo and watching the returning swallows nesting in the barns and outhouses.

Birthday come.......birthday GOOD

Nothing better than steaming compost

Pressy from a girlfriend - a student survival kit.