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.

It's my party and .......

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be mainly at my desk. Big crit on Monday that I'm only slightly behind schedule with!  For me that's quite an improvement.

Two girlfriends have insisted on taking me for a quick glass of wine mid afternoon. What I want more than that is to get a relatively easy render style, that would be the bestest birthday pressy. So they're coming over and we're getting the paints out - I think I may be getting old.

Oh hello, Ive just found my park furniture

http://www.chrisnanglefurniture.co.uk

Garden Designers V Landscape Architects

My fellow student Pierre made a really interesting point yesterday. We have moved onto 1:50 and the Landscape Architects are walking round in a daze unable to leave 1:200 and the Garden Designers are flying ahead. I must confess I feel much more comfortable at 1:50 than I did at 1:2500. Onwards and upwards x

I don't profess to fully understanding it but it looks very interesting

http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/2872

Clockwise or anti clockwise

I'll now be investigating which way my wisteria climbs as to whether it's sinensis or floribunda

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=2045

Wisteria sinensis

highly scented and vigorous
smaller flowers and leaves after
twists anti clockwise

Wisteria floribunda

bigger clusters of flowers
less scented
not such vigourous plant
twists clockwise

I remember Jamie saying in the Paris trip in first year than wisteria has very strong root growth and to be warned of planting it next to house foundations. Quite often it's the wisteria that holds up old houses.

I'm planting the wisteria near retaining walls so I'm going to opt for floribunda as I'd imagine the root growth will be less vigorous if the top growth is, but I'll need to remember this for specification and construction drawings

The one for me x

The passing of the Iron Lady

Today we had lectures on green engineering and embodied carbon. It was utterly fascinating and really depressing all at the same time. It made me realise how much I take for granted and the percentage of food we waste and the energy and water consumed to produce it.

Today was also the day that Baroness Thatcher died. I realised this when I logged on Facebook in my coffee break and saw a torrent of updates such as "ding dong the witch is dead" "And where's the street party"I think it's fair to say my mates are fairly left!

Baroness Thatcher was a woman who you clearly couldn't ignore. I was born in '76 so was really young during her time as PM but remember it quite clearly. I don't know if it was my age but she always struck me as a very strong female figure and I don't remember too many of those at that time especially in politics. However I also remember Anita Roddick and annie lennox who were also strong and also changed a lot of lives ( often in better ways). The passing of anyone is sad and theres clearly a lot of vitriol with Margaret Thatcher's death. She was a politician who clearly knew exactly what she stood for, it's just a shame her legacy is so epic in so many ways.

Desire Lines

http://www.archdaily.com/353578/4-lessons-the-uk-should-take-from-denmark/

http://www.timberpress.com/books/planting/oudolf/9781604693706

It may have been a bit pricy but my goodness it helps with daunting planting plans.

100 lessons learnt from studying Landscape Architecture

http://alanadehaan.tumblr.com/post/46452788439

Thanks Alick

Model oh model, please can I have my home back.

Clean Monday

Today was clean Monday, a Greek celebration which marks the end of eating meat for Lent. There's a little more to it than that, but you know. I only realised after returning from another 14 hour 160 mile uni Monday to see my friend Theo and his mates in full swing. I then did what any good mate does and dropped in for a quick one.

Today was also our last interim before Easter and a day beyond all others in my 3 and a half year short academic career that I REALLY REALLY didn't want to go into uni. I'd done about 20% of the work expected for the crit and that was pretty rubbish too. I'd had tears this weekend, I'd had tantrums and I'd not managed to get a fraction of my work done. Not to mention the fact that it was the last class before Easter. I could so easily just not go in and then work like grease lightening during the holidays. However I've not missed a lecture yet and don't intend for this to happen if I can possibly avoid it.

I pinned up (it didn't take long) and then I was the first to present, typical. Jamie and Julia gave me my crit which included the expected slap of the legs and the 'you're not going to get through this degree unless you empty your head into your sketchbook, design freeze and get it onto your A1's'. They are absolutely right. You see I expect people to know what I'm designing in my head by telepathy, that ain't ever going to happen and will always end in tears.

Their feedback was far more constructive this crit and I've left feeling more encouraged than disheartened and suitably booted up the arse, which is good because I have 3 weeks ahead in which I need to kick my projects derrière - starting with a rendering style.

I love watching the Greeks celebrating, Clean Monday was no exception. The Greeks are (generally) united by music, food, drink and celebration. However they are also a hugely Patriarchic society and the Greeks have dramas in a way that the East Enders cast can only look on and admire. Drama is a Greek word. Part of the reason I'm so blocked with producing work for uni is that I can't find a rendering style. Maybe it's a bit like my beloved Greeks, It's perfect in some ways and so broken in others but you just get on with it.

Stop stop stop

I really must stop designing and start producing, otherwise I'll never get anywhere

Strong concept and language