Three annual markers courtesy of The Grange, Lewes

Yes, yes, I’m back on the subject of Southover Grange Gardens. I promise that I will not post endless pictures of planted beds all summer long, tempted as I am to. But there are three markers in my year when it comes to the Grange: 1) When the tea hatch opens (scrap that, this is one […]

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Inspired by Matisse: Bringing 'Henri's Scissors' to Life

A couple of weeks ago Chloe over at Gannet + Parrot invited me to join a bloggy challenge set out by Hattie Garlick over at Free Our Kids to create an activity from the pages of a favourite children’s book. Hattie had started this when she and her two children sat in the garden reenacting ‘Snail Trail’, […]

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The Wallflowers of Lewes

As the warmer weather gets into full swing, Lewes’s gardens give us lots of talking points around town. But in truth you don’t need to stickybeak over someone’s garden wall for talking points about plants. The ones that creep out through the fissures in the flint walls are strong little things that beg to be noticed. So here […]

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Family Stays: 'Camping With a Kitchen' at Mount Harry House, near Lewes

For two years now, we’ve been meaning to go away for a weekend with two other families who also each have two young kids. This year it actually became possible and our ‘trip’ (if you can call it that!) happened the weekend before last. Just as we were mulling over where to go, a flier for […]

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'Constructing Childhood' and Tinybop's quiet apps

At the start of this year, whilst wandering around the Internet work evading, I came across the inspiring and insightful talk that Tinybop founder Raul Gutierrez gave at Creative Mornings New York in January as part of a series of talks themed around childhood. His was entitled ‘Constructing Childhood’ and from it I gleaned rather a lot of wisdom.

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Beachy Beauty: Littlehampton, West Sussex

A blazer of a day is on the cards tomorrow, had to quickly share Littlehampton. If you have no plans, I cannot recommend this beach enough. My older son’s school had an inset day yesterday, so we headed to Littlehampton to visit a poorly relative. Here we spent the day having lunch at the East Beach Cafe and […]

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Wild flowers, spiked trees and curious collections (or: For the love of the Grange)

Southover Grange Gardens is a jewel in this town’s crown, which says a lot about it, given Lewes’s overall beauty. For those of you who either don’t live here or have visited and not found it yet, it is a walled garden of ‘rooms’ that are bounteously planted up in an ordered, ornamental fashion. It makes us feel better […]

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Sweet things for Father's Day at Bonne Bouche, Lewes

One last Father’s Day post and then I’ll pipe down. As I walked past Bonne Bouche on Monday and saw this notice, I was reminded that a box of beautifully packaged chocs from the beautifully packaged Bonne Bouche, all chosen by the children, could be a beautiful thing.

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