Lambs, arctic winds, big birthdays and freefalling

Well, we’ve had a time of contrasts just recently.  We had a great week with the meditation retreat – silent and peaceful – followed the same day (!) by Gail’s 60th (yes, very hard to believe) birthday weekend.  Gail borrowed Poulstone for an “at home” from Friday to Sunday with a party on the Saturday evening and a singing workshop too!  It was lovely meeting Gail’s family and friends, and nice to catch up with old buddies, many of whom have been Poulstone-goers for a decade or two.  Also, a great chance to dust off outfits that we might not have the opportunity to wear anywhere else, given the rural nature of our general lifestyle!  Gail has been a great support to Poulstone in many ways over the years and it was lovely to have a chance to thank her by letting her use the space for her celebrations.

Mind you, we did all spend a little time wondering if Gail’s party would be snowed off, but in the event only a few people couldn’t get here due to the weather.   An arctic wind has remained since then though and only in the last couple of days has the sun broken through to offset the cold breezes.  If you’re visiting in the next few weeks, take a walk over the bridge to Sellack to see the new lambs.  Some are very new and tiny, and the older ones are already banding together into naughty little gangs for races and other lamby mischief!  They’re such a pleasure to watch and more curious than frightened at that age.  They must be very glad of a little sun on their backs these last few days after the severe coldness of the last week or so.  Mel’s just come back from a walk and taken some pictures of the lambs and the blazing sunshine on the river today.  Also, some photos of the lovely daffodils coming out under the copper beech (good to see the Buddhist approach to “pest” control (ie leave everything as it is!) has had some rewards!!).

We now have a week-long writing course in called Freefall with Barbara Turner-Vesselago.  The first morning, as we begin printing the morning’s writing for Barbara to read, is always a good test of technological know-how as we try to print Mac files from PCs, ease data off sulky memory sticks and download printer drivers for those whose memory sticks won’t work.  It was pretty smooth this morning, all in all.  It takes not a little courage to sit with yourself all morning and see what comes to you to write – freefalling into the words.  There’s a lovely quiet, focused feeling in the house.

 

That’s all for now.

With love,

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Spring is on its way!

Well, the squirrels did’nt eat all the crocuses!  A sweet little cluster of purple heads have started to appear by the silver birch and dotted into the lawn.  They don’t last long but are a lovely little treat if you take the short cut down past the mulberry tree at the moment.  We currently have a resident pheasant who has so far escaped the camera but he’s clearly enjoying sitting on the garden wall where he’s able to survey things from a good height.  The swans are very active at the moment, flying low over the garden and on to the fields beyond.  I don’t think we could ever get bored with the wonder of them flying overhead.  The other day we were on the bridge over the Wye and five or six flew over us (and one flew under us!) – magical.

There’s a general sense of Spring being in the air.  Mel has been spring-cleaning the office and now has zero-tolerance of anything being dumped in there for repairs or on its eventual way to somewhere else!  Sweet peas and various kinds of veg seed have been sown in pots ready for planting out later in the year.  We’ve also bought some plants for starting to plant up the kitchen yard for this year.  This week Steve and Dave decided the time had come to take down an old and ailing fir tree by the corner of the barn.  It’s been cut fairly high and we plan to grow a clematis through it so it will live on as a piece of natural sculpture.  Mentioning this was really only an excuse to include a picture of Dave in his balaclava – there’s a very brisk wind coming up the valley at the moment!


 

 

 

 

 

Having said farewell to Manda Scott’s two shamanic groups last week who we loved having in the house, we’re joined this evening by Burgs and his crew for a seven day meditation retreat.  The meditation retreats are wonderful to have here and we hope to be able to sit with them this week.

Anyway, more from us soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Flu, Spring, masseurs and rabbits…

Well, we haven’t got to the blog for a few weeks.  Mel had several weeks of flu last month and was out of action.  Still, there are silver linings to most things  – she discovered she wasn’t indispensable and also lost a few Christmas pounds!

Despite the nocturnal bulb eating forays of the local rabbit population, we still have at least some lovely bulbs bursting into colour – the snowdrops are coming up amongst the dogwoods and around the place, and crocuses and daffodils are beginning to appear.  There should be lots of colour in a week or so.  We also planted some bulbs in rows up in the veg patch for picking for the dining tables, and as we wait for the group to arrive today, the tables look lovely with daffs and helibores on them.

We’re starting to get busy in the veg plot.  Gail’s bringing up manure from the compost area and has been planting onions this week.  Steve’s mowing the lawn today for the first time this year which always smartens the garden up after the winter.  After weeks of mainly greyness, it’s a lovely Spring day here today.  Hilary is on Iona having a much deserved rest and so the lovely Ellie, who some of you may have met last year, is cooking for us for the next few days.  We have two shamanic groups coming in this week back-to-back so we should be busy.  Since last writing, we’ve had a large group of lively masseurs (and masseuses!) here doing the residential part of their training and we’ve had a seven day silent meditation retreat since then.  Quite different energies – which is one of the pleasures of running the place!
             

Gail’s also quite an accomplished seamstress and has recently made roman blinds for most of the bathrooms, recycling some old curtains that had been languishing in the housekeeping cupboard for years.  She’s also adding thermal lining to existing curtains which should make things cosier after stepping out of the shower in the winter months.

That’s all for now.  Time to meet and greet!

With love

Mel & Steve xx

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

 

Swans and things

Yesterday was the most golden, blue-skied day we’ve had for a while.  After the snow thawed, there came more flooding, but one of the wonderful things that happens here when it floods is that the swans from the river start landing on the flooded fields and when the water recedes they often stay for weeks.  Yesterday was so lovely, Mel went out for a walk with the camera and took some pictures including some of the swans.

    

We’ ve also recently been having some amazing cobwebs in the Poulstone meadow.  Thousands of tiny spiders lay their webs in drifts across the grass and when the sunlight illuminates them, it looks like a shining path of silver to the sun!

 

Beautiful!

Hope you’re getting a little sunshine too?

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre


Rabbit tracks in the snow…!

We’ll, we’ve just had a wonderfully snowy week and were lucky enough to enjoy it without having to worry about guests travelling on icy roads. In fact, the timing was very good – all our deliveries had come and we had a week before our first group arrived.

So we just enjoyed being snowed in and went for lovely walks down by the river.  Steve had a fascinating time tracking in the snow the movement of all the rabbits that are currently decimating our bulbs!  We’d put up some barriers to the walled garden and could clearly see where they had tried to get around them.  In fact, it’s a good job everything has thawed as it could have become something of an obsession!  We may just have to stick to daffodils which they don’t seem very keen on…..We mainly stayed cosy up at home but Mel made occasional forays out to the rather parky office to check the phone and emails.

Fortunately, the roads thawed in time for a rare opportunity to get all the staff together in one place.  Because of the part-time nature of the work, we can all be a bit ships-in-the-night, so it was lovely to have an all-day staff meeting up in the facilitator’s flat to be together, talk about things, and share lunch (Steve’s wildly experimental but very good spicy aduki bean shepherd’s pie which was wonderful teamed up with one of Hilary’s home-grown cabbages!).

We now have a new yoga group in this weekend tutored by Suzanne Jevon-Hughston who is a local teacher.  The sun put in its first appearance for a while this morning.  So it was lovely, fresh and bright for their mid morning walk.  Next week we have a group of shamans coming, who have been working at Poulstone for over two decades!!  Some of them come from west Wales in very rural locations so we are hoping that the thaw will continue and they can get to us easily.

More soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Book launch

As promised, we now have the full details of Barbara Turner-Vesselago’s book launch.

The launch will be on Saturday 2nd February 2013 from 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Bristol Music Club, 76 St Paul’s Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1LP.

Barbara will be talking about Freefall Writing; what it is, how it came to be, and why both beginning and experienced writers find it a reliable way to get the thinking mind to step aside, so that writing becomes a truly vulnerable and open-hearted engagement with the moment.

You are invited to join Barbara in the delightful ambience of the Bristol Music Club for wine, refreshments and perhaps a little creativity!  Barbara will also be signing copies of her new book, for sale at £12.99.

RSVP to iva.carrdus@valapublishers.coop by 25th January.

“Here is a book that charts new territory, inviting the writer to fall with confidence into the ether of the creative self in order to write with skill and authenticity”

Louise Green, Editor of Lapidus Journal 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from everyone at Poulstone!

We hope you had a peaceful and relaxing time over the Christmas break?

Ours was quiet and cosy and spent with family.  We did have to remove a flock of sheep from the veg patch on Boxing Day morning (!) but otherwise it was a wonderful opportunity to unwind…

We’re looking forward to receiving our first guests soon and hope we see you here some time in 2013.

Warm wishes and love,

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Merry Christmas!

So, last day in the office today (hopefully….!) before we break for Christmas.

We had a lovely pre-Christmas celebration with Hilary, Gail and Gemma.  We met in Hereford at the Cathedral for craft stalls and carols before having lunch and coffee & cakes at the wonderful All Saint’s Cafe in All Saint’s Church.

Later we went and saw  that old Christmas favourite, The Muppet’s Christmas Carol, at The Courtyard Arts Centre Cinema, which got us nicely into the Christmas spirit – the jury is still out over whether Hilary or Mel cried the most over Tiny Tim!!  More tea and cake afterward before we said our end-of-year goodbyes and headed home.  Despite the grey day, it felt a lovely start to the festivities.

From everyone at Poulstone, we wish you a wonderful festive season, however you celebrate it, and a peaceful and happy New Year to come.

With love

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Freefall Writing Competition – get scribbling!

 

We spoke a few posts ago about Barbara Turner-Vesselago’s new book, “The Art of Freefall: Writing without a Parachute”.  To mark the launch of the book, her publishers have a writing competition which anyone can take part in.

So if you’re a budding writer, visit their website at www.valapublishers.coop/freefall-writing-competition.  First prize is a coaching session with Barbara by phone or Skype, a signed copy of her new book when it is published in February and your entry published on-line.

So, if you find yourself looking for a diversion from over-eating and James Bond films over Christmas, get scribbling!!!  Closing date is 12 noon Monday 14th January 2013.

We’ll post the flyer for the book launch in Bristol as soon as we have it.

Good luck!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

End of year retreat

We’ve just hosted a three week silent retreat at Poulstone from mid-November onwards, with meditation teacher Burgs (see www.theartofmeditation.org).  Some of Burgs’ more experienced students came for a seven day silent Vipassana retreat followed by 9 days of continued silent practice with some teacher input.  The final week was a foundation retreat for beginners upwards.  And we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit in on the retreat too.

It’s obviously not all bliss looking at the (mainly unwholesome) contents of one’s mind over a prolonged period (!) but everyone felt they benefited hugely from the retreat.

Particularly over the Vipassana period, there’s been a lovely still atmosphere in the house, very conducive to practice and rest.  We’ve also been treated to some extraordinary sunrises (see above and below)…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also have had gales and flooding too.  The Wye burst its banks at the end of November, transforming the landscape.  Unlike some areas of the country, we were very lucky that the floods were only a minor inconvenience here.  In fact, it was rather wonderful not to have to go anywhere or worry about people getting here/being able to leave!  The winds, unfortunately, had their way with the half-constructed greenhouse which we had to take down completely in a high wind!  We’ll try again in the Spring….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This wasn’t the only thing to test our equanimity after the retreat – the rabbits and squirrels had discovered a rich source of food while we were on retreat – our newly planted Spring bulbs!  We think the flood waters may have driven a lot of the wildlife from the fields into the Poulstone gardens.  Ah well, we were rather disappointed to say the least but we hope some will survive to brighten the Spring months.  The wildlife is part of what makes living and working here so wonderful, so we have to accept these occasional conflicts of interest….!

Anyway, we are back now into the end of year activities – finishing up the admin, washing valances and undercovers, putting the garden to bed for the winter (Gail has been doing lots of raking and cutting back over the last couple of weeks).  It’s nice to be working quietly at our own pace and it feels very peaceful here as we enter the darkest part of the year…..

Anyway, we hope you’re enjoying your approach to the festivities x

More soon,

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre