New Forest

Sometimes you feel like you have got to get away from it all and a couple of weeks ago, we jumped in the car and drove away from the city in the direction of the New Forest. Considering it's just a couple of hours away and friends have raved about its beauty, I don't know why we hadn't visited early, nevertheless we booked a room with a lovely lady Pam on Airbnb in Lymington. We had the best of both worlds, walks along the sea wall with views across to the Isle of Wight, and driving past the beautiful villages and gorgeous cows and horses in the forest. On Sunday before we drove home we had a delicious lunch at a highly recommended venue, the Mill at Gordleton. If you're ever in the area this one you can't miss, the gardens are fantastic! It was a lovely break away, but we're off to Devon next week to really recharge the batteries - more English countryside, here we come!!

Abandonment

In parts of North Dakota, people have moved on and moved away. Barns and farmhouses sit empty in the vast, endless landscape, crumbling day by day. This evening, I came across these photos by Rick Craig, who captures these incredible scenes. This is the America that I am fascinated by and would love to explore. It's a place with some kind of personality, but with no persons there.

Images by Rick Craig

Orange House

A modern, rust steel box sits snuggly in the ageing, red-brick ruin. The way just a subtle intervention has been made yet it creates a really punchy little building. Here are more images of this studio space by Haworth Tompkins.

Image from Haworth Tompkins

Land of Juxtoposition

City, sea, greenery, desert - Israel, we discovered, is certainly a country of oxymorons. Young and trendy; historical and 4000 years old; modern and secular; traditional and orthodox. I'm not entirely sure what I expected, having always heard negativity and danger in the media, but I think we discovered a country with so much to offer. It's somewhere I'd most definitely visit again!...(and here come the posts of what we got up to!)
1: Tel Aviv looking towards Jaffa   2: Gamla and the Sea of Galilee   3: Massada and the Dead Sea

In a Field

A long time ago I'm sure I cut out a picture of people sitting at a long, long table in a field, and it just sprung back into my mind. So as you do I Googled 'long table field dinner party' and found it! The joys of search engines. They're called Outstanding in a Field and they travel all over the States doing dinners on farms, in parks and gardens. It looks just idyllic. One day I'd like to have a party like this myself. Summer 2011. Birthday? Decided!