A Summer Walk along the Green Way

I've travelled far and wide on my Nice Days Out but sometimes it's nice to explore somewhere a little closer to home.

So one sunny weekend in June my sister and I went for a walk along part of the Green Way, a local walking route that runs between the villages of Bray and Cookham, via the town of Maidenhead. We started our walk in Maidenhead and headed towards Bray.

The walk got off to a slightly un-promising start, with a slightly menacing bank of thistles and sightings of such urban delights as abandoned shopping trolleys...

 

 

... and (weirdly) what looked like an old and rusting milk float!

 

Everything was gloriously overgrown though, an absolute riot of green which looked wonderful in the summer sunshine.

It wasn't long before the urban faded away and nature took over and we were walking through veritable tunnels of overhanging trees.

  

We passed a few other walkers - and were passed by several cyclists - but as you can see from the photos this was a beautifully peaceful place to walk. I did a lot of standing to take photos and then scurrying to catch up with my sister who had walked on ahead (going for a walk with a blogger can be very dull!).

 

There were a couple of side paths to explore, but we kept to the main path that passes along the edge of Braywick Park.

Everything was clearly signposted, with maps and information boards at regular intervals so you could see your location and read about things like the local wildlife.

There was also some fab woodland art along the way, carved from old tree trunks.

At one end of the park, there's an area of rough grassland that was a former landfill site. What a pleasure to see (and hear) it reclaimed by nature (there were lots of chirping insects, always a lovely relaxing summer sound!).

 

We walked along the edge of the grassland then arrived at the Dell, a local nature reserve.

My photos really do not do justice to how gorgeous this place was. Small but absolutely overflowing with wild plants and flowers.

 

 We wandered round the Dell for a while, ooohing over the loveliness...

... then headed back, retracing our steps back down the shady tree-lined paths and soaking up all that relaxing green goodness along the way.             

A perfect Sunday walk!

July in Pictures: Lots of Flowers, Infinite Pumpkins, a Giant Ice Cream and a Very Long Walk

July was pretty busy! Let's take a look at what I got up to...

At the start of the month I went to Windsor and walked all the way along the Long Walk and back. It was a rather long way (and, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda regretted the decision two thirds of the way along) but 100% worth it for this fabulous view back to the Castle.

I wrote some letters and cards to my friends and penpals and shared a pic of some of the lovely snail mail I'd recently received (is there anything nicer than getting a bit of happy mail?). 

I went to London for the day and came back with treats: a gorgeous mini tray from Liberty (in my all time fave Liberty print) and a book from Daunt Books. I was supposed to be sticking to a tight budget in July (and mostly succeeded!) but couldn't resist these lovelies, both of which I've had my eye on for simply ages.

In the evenings, I was working on a couple of personal projects including a tiny scarf for a polar bear! The bear is one of Alicia Paulson's charming felt ornament patterns. I've been slooooowly making these since buying a bundle of her kits a few years ago (too many projects, too little time!) and have re-started them in the hope that I will actually have some finished in time for Christmas this year.

Those super skinny knitting needles belonged to my late grandmother. It's always quite moving using her old tools to make stuff - I actually wrote about this a couple of years ago.

I also started something new: an embroidery project inspired by the late great website The Toast. I have a friend who loved the site, so I decided to stitch her something inspired by one of its unofficial mottoes. I had so much fun stitching this and posted lots of in-progress pics... I'll be blogging about it in more detail soon :)

In the middle of the month I went to see the incredible Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery. The mirror rooms were particularly amazing. You only got about 30 seconds in each room but it was totally worth it (and I was lucky to visit when the exhibition was quiet - I heard people were queuing for over two hours in the final week!).

This piece is called "All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins". "Chandelier of Grief" was also amazing.  

Later that week I went on a photo-taking-tour of London with Kate and friends. We visited lots of Art Deco stations on the Piccadilly Line oohing over architectural details, taking lots and lots of photos, and generally having a lovely, happy, nerdy day out.

This is my favourite station of the day, the gorgeous seven-sided ticket hall at Hounslow West. The staff were most perplexed by us all showing up with our cameras, so it's clearly a hidden gem

Back at home, the garden was looking lovely in the sunshine. How amazing are these hydrangeas?? Like the hydrangeas, I wilt a little in the heat and neither of us was especially happy in the mini heatwave we had in late July. I spent a lot of time in the shadiest place I could find and ate a lot of ice cream!

The new issue of Mollie Makes came out, which was exciting because it includes three projects designed by me (yay!). Click here to read more about my makes for this issue.

I spent a lot of July working on felt flower patterns for my shop. I will, of course, be blogging about the patterns when they're ready for sale... in the meantime there's lots of felt to cut out and sew, photographs to take and edit, instructions to type up and proofread, templates to draw and label, etc etc etc.

Cutting out lots of flower pieces means a big pile of colourful felt scraps! I love the sculptural look of these.

In between working on my new patterns, I took a day off and went to Cookham to visit the Stanley Spencer Gallery (click here to see a snippet from my train journey through the countryside!).

I spent a very relaxing couple of hours exploring the village (expect a blog post as soon as I've got my photos edited!) and discovered that (contrary to my previous belief) you CAN have too much ice cream when I accidentally ordered the world's largest Mr Whippy (oops). I tried to finish it but, sadly, it defeated me.

At the end of long days of crafty work you might think the last thing I'd want to do is more crafting, but you'd be wrong. In the last week of July I kept myself entertained in the evenings by adding some more stitches to my ongoing "using up my scrappy leftover bits of embroidery thread" cross stitch project...

... and sewing together some of the white squares for my mini patchwork squares blanket. I've got lots more squares to knit (then sew together) - I must remember to buy some more white yarn!

I finished the month working on more flowers. These are just some of the samples I'm stitching for my new patterns. I want to make my tutorials as useful as possible so I'm including lots of variations and project ideas along with the basic pattern... which means lots of pieces to cut and sew.

I'm really pleased with how these patterns are coming together, I can't wait until they're finished so I can do the big reveal and finally get them listed in my shop (and get started on the other ideas I've got in my sketchbook!).

Knitting, sewing, cross stitch... art, walks, architecture... flowers, nice post and tasty ice cream. All in all, July turned out to be a pretty good month :)

I'll share another Instagram round-up next month. I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me.

The Brunel Museum

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you might remember me mentioning the wonderfulness that is the National Art Pass.

"The National Art Pass gives you free entry to over 225 museums, galleries and historic houses across the UK as well as half price entry to the major new exhibitions." It's great!

It's saved me loads of money on my Nice Days Out and led to me visiting dozens of interesting places I'd otherwise never have visited, and many I'd otherwise never have even heard of.

One of my recent "places I visited because it's free with my Art Pass but it turned out to be awesome, you should totally go whether you have an Art Pass or not"... is the Brunel Museum in Rotherhithe.

 

The museum is housed in an old engine house. It's petite but interesting, telling the story of engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first and last projects - the Thames Tunnel (the brainchild of his father, Marc Brunel) and the iron steam sailing ship Great Eastern.

The story of the Thames Tunnel is one I didn't know before. It was an amazing feat of engineering but the work was long, difficult and dangerous and overran by 15 years - and Isambard nearly drowned in the process!

Outside the museum, there's a small paved area with benches shaped like Brunel's bridges (including the railway bridge at Maidenhead).

There's also a gorgeous little garden (which is free to visit).

You go up a narrow set of steps...

 

... and wow, what a riot of colour and scent!

During the summer the garden is host to campfire cocktail evenings which sound kind of amazing.

This isn't just a pretty garden though - it's built on top of the shaft sunk by Marc Brunel so he could begin digging the Thames Tunnel. Part of the shaft is still visible above ground, and has been decorated with a mural based on a watercolour sketch done by Marc Brunel showing his plan for the tunnel.

When you visit the museum, you can actually go down into the shaft itself (accompanied by a guide, of course!) and stand in the space where the tunnel building began, where millions of visitors paid a penny to walk through the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World’ and where Isambard Kingdom Brunel was rescued after nearly drowning. 

This was quite a spooky space to be in! I've never been anywhere quite like it. 

Hurrah for the Art Pass and hurrah for small museums!

Click here for more info about the Brunel Museum and the history of the Thames Tunnel.