Skip to main content

An inspirational lady

We have been staying with our very dear friend, 60goingon16.  She lives in a small village set amongst the wooded hills and valleys of mid-Devon.  We had a wonderful, mellow time, reminiscing about people and places we have shared over forty years of friendship.  We have enjoyed walking the dogs, yummy things to eat, and some time sitting in the sunshine in her garden, while a neighbour had a rather delicious smelling bonfire a few doors further up the street. The air smelt autumnal and the sunlight was gentle and golden.
In Dulverton, there is currently an exhibition about an amazing lady called Hope Bourne.  You can read more about her here 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-28064139
She was born in Oxford in 1918.  In the early 1950s she and her mother came to live on Exmoor. By the 1970s Hope Bourne was on her own, with no home, no formal qualifications and little money.  What she did possess, in abundance, was intelligence, fortitude, and a deep love of wild places.  She lived alone, in a small caravan sited in a remote part of Exmoor.  She was more or less self-sufficient, earning a small living through her writing, sketches and paintings of her environment.  She loved colour, "one of the great emotional forces of life".  Her surroundings developed a deep sense of spirituality within her.  
There is much to learn from her words and so I shall be checking out second-hand book shops to look for her books.  She is a very inspirational lady.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

Coastal walk from Gullane to North Berwick

By the time I have walked about four miles, my toes are screaming at me - it's the arthritis, you see.  One of the joys of being that little bit older than I was.  However, for a long time, I have been keen to walk along the beaches, and follow the coastal path, between Gullane and North Berwick. So, having worked out the tide times, I decided today was the day, and off we went. Below is our starting point, the bay at Gullane.  It's a lovely beach, very popular with dog walkers. This is looking east, the direction Tilly and I were going to take. Looking back, up the Forth, the unmistakable bulk of Arthur's Seat, and Edinburgh's skyline, just clear enough to see. For most of the walk, there is the choice between wandering along a series of beaches, or following a path along the top of each. There's no denying it, at heart I am a shell-seeker.  I have loads of shells at home.  We lived on one of the out islands in the Bahamas for a just over a year, a lo

Possibly the last post and a sizzlingly hot vase on Monday

The border in our tiny garden is in an in-between phase at the moment and not very colourful, but elsewhere there are pops of high summer colour and I have brought them together in my vase today. The running wave uses Blogger as it's vehicle and they are changing the way a post is created but unfortunately I cannot make the new format work. I can't progress beyond the title! I cannot navigate to the main body of the post to create text. The new template has no prompts for adding photos, weblinks, to format the text, change font etc. It may be my old MacBook that's as fault but I can't do anything about that!! Are any other IAVOM bloggers who use Blogger having the same problems? I have tried, three times, to contact Blogger through their 'Help' prompt and received no feedback or contact whatsoever. This post is using the old 'Legacy' format, which no longer permits any kind of formatting of text, and so after four attempts I have finally manage