Yup. Five months since I posted Kent #1. Time flies when you have other pastimes. Fortunately my number of followers is so small that no one will notice. Put it this way, I have more fingers than I have followers. Ne’er mind, I do this because I enjoy it. That said, if you want to see more of my occasional and intermittent posts subscribe to the email by looking for the widget on the front page of this website.
And, of course, I updated my camera equipment in March and returned to Fuji after thirty-odd years. But last summer I was still doing my weight lifting with my (wonderful) Nikon kit and having a few short days in Kent.
Having had a career that denied me summers I’ve been trying to make up for it by getting outside in the sunshine and that includes membership of the National Trust. Until I gave up that employment thing it wasn’t worth paying for. Hence a visit to the NT property of Sissinghurst ‘Castle’ & Gardens – ‘castle’ because it’s not a castle at all. The Tudor buildings here were referred to as the ‘chateau’ by the 3,000 French sailors who were imprisoned here during the Seven Years War, between 1756 – 63 and the derivative ‘castle’ stuck.
The property now though is known for and restored to the period of the 1930s when it was famously owned and developed by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson. They led an interesting lifestyle to say the least which you can read about here Vita Sackville-West on Wikipedia
A still life treatment in the Library, the light from the window was just nicely touching upon the bowl.
One of the main aspects of Sissinghurst are the gardens that she designed here and the blooms were abundant at the time of our visit. Can you identify them?
Yes, that was a crude device to avoid having to look them up myself. Horticulturalist I am not. I limit my level of identification to ‘flowers’.
One last shot here, a bit of work in Photoshop CC to create a painterly canvas version.
In Kent #3 we will be strolling in Canterbury.
my digital darkroom 