Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green (Not too far from Watford)

IMGP0433_HMoore, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Today we have spent a wonderful day with friends enjoying the October skies, seeing the sheep and being impressed by the beautiful home and land where the sculptor Henry Moore lived.

There are barns filled with the moquettes, hundreds of little models that were used like sketches to explore his ideas - along with skulls, bones, stones and items collected to inspire and guide his work.  Anyone interested in taking a trip there, go to http://www.henry-moore.org/pg  to find out a bit more, although I would say that it will be closed from the end of October until next year.

Sheep feature quite highly in some of his sketches and ideas and it was great to get to see the "sheep sculpture" out in the field behind the barns.  At first look it may not look like two sheep, but is based on how the creatures stand together and sometimes relate to one another.  What I really liked is that the sheep in the field can walk through and rub against the sculptures, so you get to see a shiny bronze line around the sculpture where this happens.

 

 

I think that this large bronze was one of my favourites, although the incredible hand woven tapestries, interpretations of some of his charcoal, wax resist and ink sketches and designs that took two people around 9 months each to make (and could not be photographed) were also pretty memorable.

Rob testing the acoustics

Imagine Watford in town

IMGP9198_Rosa's bar, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

What better excuse to take out the camera than a brief burst of sunshine and a series of very lively and theatrical events happening in Watford town centre. Sadly I missed the giant insects which paraded past the clubbing district but did catch some outlandish hairdressers working on willing members of the public and the joyful performance of Rosa's bar by Wired Aerial Theatre.

Bad flying experience

This little blue-tit managed to fly in through the back door this morning while searching for bugs. It looked really strange with him flying around and landing on the blinds but he couldn't get out and made a lurch for the back window stunning himself and landing on the table. He felt of nothing and had such beautiful fresh feathers and I really thought that he had damaged himself. After watching him sitting on the outside table for a bit he finally recovered and flew back up into the tree.

Is this the Spring?

IMGP8761_Tess, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Today has been a most glorious day, it even felt warm this afternoon as I was tidying up the garden. Two bin bags of old leaves from last year and a complete re-potting of the rhododendron which has spent too much of its time tipped over in its pot this last couple of months.

Tess has spent a lot of time staring into the borders pretending that she is awake although she actually has her eyes closed. Her coat has been glittering in the sun and it is lovely to see her outside in the sunshine.

No, this isn't Watford....It's La Thuile

Had a fantastic trip to La Thuile in Italy early in the year. A fair bit of snow and blue skies for the whole week.

It was great to get back out on the mountains again and enjoy some brilliant company.

Picking berries in Harold last year

P1060416_edited-1, originally uploaded by Ajay Jayne.

Can't believe it has taken me five months to post these images up. We have already finished quite a lot of the sloe gin that was prepared from the berries picked in September and that sky has such an Autumn feel about it.

The job takes quite a bit of concentration...

The sunglasses may be due to optimism or could be to prevent thorn damage.

Remembering the sunshine

It has been such a grey and gloomy day here in Watford that I just wanted to post up some photographs of the Acer tree taken just a couple of weeks back in the garden. It doesn't seem possible that the light was this beautiful but at least I have planted some bulbs now to start 2012 with some colour.