Category: People

It’s a beautiful morning here at Poulstone – the garden is alive with the quickness of birds especially around the vegetable plot – swallows, martins, sparrows, wagtails, greenfinches, blue-tits and a greater spotted woodpecker looking for grubs on the pear trees. Can’t believe it’s a fortnight or so since we last wrote!  August is fairly back-to-back so we are gearing ourselves up for lots of cooking, cleaning and bedmaking!  We have just had a glorious week with Marianne Murray and her Holotropic Breathwork group, sadly the last time this group will come in its present incarnation (although the students are planning to take on the booking so we hope to see a number of this delightful crew next year).  The weather was fine and sunny most of the week and they were able to end with a fire in the walled garden (and lots of singing – some very lovely voices among them).

Marianne is taking a break from teaching next year but still offering her other work.  We notice she has a lovely new website at http://www.mariannemurray.com and she offers sessions by Skype, phone or in person for individuals navigating their transformational process (not only those who practise Holotropic Breathwork). We wish her well with her sabbatical and hope to see her here at some point in the future xx 

As Marianne left us on Sunday morning the heavens opened and we have been blessed with some much-needed rain for the last few days, interspersed with brilliant sunshine.  The grass is greening up nicely again and the meadow looking less of a prairie! We noticed a couple of days ago that two herons have started to make the meadow their territory. We occasionally see them flying over or at a distance but this pair are around the ha-ha terrace and rather comically standing around amongst the cattle! They’re so huge in flight and it’s such a treat to have them at close quarters.

Yesterday we welcomed Muz Murray’s group (http://www.mantra-yoga.com/) in and are enjoying the chanting coming from the group room this morning! This group is new to Poulstone and we very much hope they enjoy their stay here this week. Hilary has the week off so Steve is taking up the apron for the next few days and enjoying being able to incorporate lots of our own produce as the veg garden is at peak production in August.

The lunch bell beckons so more soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

We’ve just said farewell to Alec Jones’s Dragon Spring Tai Ji School Summer Gathering (www.dragonspringtaiji.co.uk). It was a wonderfully hot and sunny weekend so they were able to play Tai Chi outdoors for most of the time, under the cherry tree when it was very hot!. We were watering the veg plot at dusk one evening and a group of the students were playing their form on the tennis lawn – very peaceful and still, the Tai Chi and the evening beautifully meeting one another. We really enjoy having the school with us every year and look forward to seeing them again next summer.

We have a few days now before our next group and so are catching up on garden jobs – today we had a lovely day picking clean the dwarf bean and mange tout plants so they keep producing and picking the plums which are starting to fall off the trees. We also picked all the dahlias and sweetpeas so more keep coming ready for the August groups to enjoy, and now we are awash with flowers for home and the office! Some of the new varieties really are stunning. We like this white one and the purple pom-poms especially:

Whilst picking and snipping, we’ve been seeing a lot of interesting insects at the moment. We loved this raggedy bee on a raggedy dahlia: 

And there were grasshoppers about too – on the dahlias and one visited us while we were de-stoning plums and arranging the flowers. He took a fancy to Steve’s knee and then started nibbling our flapjacks!

We also came across this amazing caterpillar – if anyone knows what it will become, we’d love to know! We’d never seen anything like it before!

Well, that’s about it from us and the Poulstone creepy crawlies! Hope you’re enjoying the sunshine and time outside too.

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

We’re enjoying having the European facilitators of the Shadow Work Guild (http://www.shadowwork.com/) with us this week. It’s an international group of practitioners meeting for on-going professional development in Shadow Work.  We had already met John and Nicola Kurk (http://www.goldenopportunities.org.uk/) when they visited Poulstone a few years ago and it’s been a great pleasure to see them again and meet their colleagues. It’s their last evening tonight so we hope the forecast rain holds off for their celebratory evening around the fire.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the swing door we’ve been picking the vast quantities of berries that are ripe around the garden – loganberries, gooseberries, red and blackcurrants. It’s been lovely hunkering down in the dappled shade of the bushes or getting the full sun on our backs. Some of the berries we will be freezing for use at other times of the year but we also plan to make some jam and chutney this year. We’ve found a W.I. recipe for Gooseberry Chutney so watch this space!

We have a week off next week (probably to pick more berries!) and then Alec Jones’s Dragon Spring Taiji School (http://www.dragonspringtaiji.co.uk/)\will be joining us for their annual summer gathering. We look forward to seeing them.

More soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Sorry!  Couldn’t resist that!  The wisteria at the front of the house is looking wonderful right now.  It’s a lovely sight for guests sitting out on the front step in the Spring sunshine having their cups of tea.  Also, the clematis that we planted to cover the old conservatory at the front is finally maturing after a few years and showing huge dark pink flowers. In between showers Steve has been busy trying to manage our beech hedge which has over the decades expanded to an unworkable depth without dangerous goings-on with the electric hedge trimmer!  He’s managed to take alot of growth out from the back so the visual impact is minimal.  We had a pleasant afternoon cutting the debris up into lengths for kindling and use around the garden, surrounded by all spring green-ness of early beech leaves.

Gail is out and about in the veg garden planting out seedlings and bringing up the muck ready for the squash, pumpkin and courgette plants that are being raised in the old conservatory.  Steve’s been cracking on with the weeding today in a high wind!  It’s been beautifully sunny though most of the day.

We’ve just said goodbye to Jan Adamson and Desiree Emery’s shamanic group on Sunday and welcomed Manda Scott and her shamanic students on Wednesday evening (http://www.mandascott.co.uk/).  Both these groups are old hands around the house and it’s lovely having them return here year on year.  Manda is also a historian and author of many historical (and other) novels.  The new novel  in her Rome series is now out and you can see details about it and her other works on her website.

Right! time to check on the kitchen before supper!

More soon

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Still enjoying the Spring weather and all the cherry, plum and pear blossom is starting to come out in the garden. Lovely and bright and fresh.  The cherry tree in the Japanese-inspired garden we made last year is looking particularly good.  And the pheasant eye daffodils around the small apple trees are also looking beautiful and smell gorgeous.  We went out last night at dusk for a wander round the garden and walked into the walled garden to waves of beautiful scent.  The last light in the sky was picking out their pale petals against the dusk.  Magical.  All the tulips are beginning to come out in the long border and the round bed near the back porch too. Everything feels like it’s coming alive!

Gail and Mel have been planting potatoes this week and preparing some of the other beds ready for seedlings we’re bringing on indoors.  Mice have had their wicked way with our courgette and squash seeds, so we re-sowed them last night in slightly more protected circumstances on a trestle table they won’t be able to climb (we hope)!!

Following on from Burgs’ introductory course last week, we were joined by Manda Scott this weekend, again for an introductory course, this time in shamanism (www.mandascott.co.uk). It was very nice to have so many new people arriving at Poulstone over the last week or so and from their enthusiasm for the courses they took, we expect to be welcoming them here again before too long.  Burgs (www.theartofmeditation.org) is back in again from today for a Towards Samadhi retreat for advanced students which will take us right up to Easter.  We have the Easter weekend off before our Freefall writing course returns for its annual residential starting Easter Monday (www.freefallwriting.com).

That’s about all for now.  Enjoy the sunshine!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

We do seem to have packed a lot into the last couple of weeks.  Burg’s meditation group (http://theartofmeditation.org/) went out last Wednesday, Clare Gennon and Richard Farmer’s Metatronic Healing weekend came in on the Friday (http://www.metatronic-life.com/) – and Burgs returned for his seven day retreat on the Monday!  Phew! Interestingly, these quick changeovers, which are very frequent these days, seem to get easier and easier as we get more used to doing them and trust more that everything will fall into place if we just stay quietly engaged with what needs to happen.  Anyway, Burgs’ retreat is now in till next Monday so a chance to catch our breath!

Steve has taken a bit of time off recently, roaming the Brecon Beacons with a back pack.  He’s come back looking very aired and extremely bearded!  He’s been easing back into work with some mowing and mending, and cleaning all the outside windows of the house now that the swallows and martins have finally left their nests in the eaves (making it now worth doing!).

We continue to be inundated with produce.  Hilary has been using up some courgettes that we accidentally let grow to marrows, spinach and chard, turning it into delicious minted pea, spinach and courgette soup.  A wonderful colour as well as taste!  Not quite time to pick the apples but we continue to freeze the windfalls for puddings next year.  We’ve been juicing windfall pears too which make a beautifully tasty, sweet juice.

There’s still a fair bit of colour in the garden – pink, orange and yellow dahlias, cosmos in various pinks and whites, nasturtiums, heleniums…..Today’s so warm, you can hardly believe autumn is here.

Well, time to turn our attention to next week’s menus and collect up today’s windfalls,

More soon!

Much love

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

The apple-fest continues in amongst our other jobs.  Gemma is becoming a dab hand with the rotary apple peeler.  We are also picking plums, mulberries and damsons.  The two plum trees donated by Spectrum Psychotherapy’s Women in the World group have yielded the first fruit we can pick from the new trees.  They have a very nice flavour and we have frozen this first harvest so the group can enjoy them in a crumble or almond sponge pudding when they come in November.  Our squash harvest is a little disappointing – only six (admittedly pretty large) squash from 10 plants!  Ah well, they are very beautiful and there’s something quite magical about them even if there aren’t very many.  Recent groups have also been able to enjoy home-grown rocket, beetroot, spinach and chard, kale, dwarf beans and potatoes.

We are probably saying goodbye to our sweet peas now as autumn arrives – we’ll be picking our last nostalgic few bunches before the first frosts arrive.  The dahlias are now coming into their own and will take their place in posies on the dining tables during the autumn.

The Reiki Gathering enjoyed their stay last weekend and we hope we shall see them here again.  On Monday we were joined by Ruhani Satsang (http://www.ruhanisatsangusa.org) and are greatly enjoying the silence and feeling of peace that their meditation practice is bringing to the house.  Many of them have been students of their Master Sant Kirpal Singh (deceased) since the 1970s and meet annually to meditate and listen to discourses, travelling from Europe, Canada and America.  It’s very inspiring to see such devotion to their practice.  They will be departing tomorrow and we will be joined the following day by another silent retreat with Burgs (http://theartofmeditation.org/).  So pretty busy for us today and tomorrow!

More soon!

Warm wishes

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

 The veg garden is really flourishing with the rain coming after so much warmth.  The blackcurrants need picking so we’re hoping for some dry days to get on with that again. The squash are beginning to get big enough to net on the garden wall, the courgettes are epidemic and Gail has just harvested our first lot of white onions this year.  Our cyclists last week enjoyed oodles of spinach, kale, mixed leaves, rocket, beetroot, courgettes, chard and blackcurrants from the garden.  They went out every day even when it was rainy and were rewarded with a couple of beautiful dry days towards the end of the week.

We now have our Holotropic Breathwork group arriving tonight, led by Marianne Murray and Michael Harris.  For information about their work, see http://www.grof-holotropic-breathwork.net/profile/MarianneMurray.  Marianne has been coming to Poulstone annually for many years and we always enjoy having the group here.  The forecast is fair for the week so we hope they have a chance to enjoy the gardens between breathwork sessions.  The grass is beginning to recover from its prairie-like state of a few weeks ago!!

Well, time for a bit of tea before the welcome talk!

More soon x  Stay dry!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

We’ve had three bee swarms in the last couple of months and on the last occasion, Steve managed to get close enough for a photograph.  It’s wonderful to see wild honey bees thriving like this and we can easily give them a wide berth until they fly off to make their new nest.  The noise is tremendous and it’s quite an interesting sight to see them clustered together like this:  

It’s been really hot and sunny here now for weeks and Alec Jones’s Dragon Spring Tai Ji school (http://www.dragonspringtaiji.co.uk/index.htm) was with us last weekend, enjoying being able to play their forms and do their exercises outside.  Their practices included cane and fan forms which were lovely to watch.  After dark one evening we kept hearing a cracking sound on the tennis lawn and eventually realised it was the crack of the fans being opened and shut!  Two of the students were kind enough to let Steve photograph them whilst they practised their fan form.

 Meanwhile, the final touches to the stone garden have been happening.  Some sempervivum plants have been nestled in amongst the rocks and look rather good against the stone.  

As the weather has cooled off a bit and some rain has finally come, we now have a lot of lycra around the place with the very wonderful Bicycle Beano vegetarian cycling holiday.  These guys laugh in the face of British weather and bring a lovely homely and communal atmosphere to the place.  Jane Barnes and Rob Green have been running these holidays for years and attract a really great crowd of people.  They always enjoy themselves whatever the weather.  If you’re ever tempted, their website is http://www.bicycle-beano.co.uk/.