Late summer and mellow fruitfulness

A warm balmy afternoon greeted those that ventured out today to visit us after a week of solid rain.  Pity the farmers trying to get their crops in (fortunately our barley was taken off before the rains came), nevertheless gardeners and their gardens will be breathing a sigh of relief at the return of decent levels of ground water.  Everything has greened up for a final late summer flourish.

I love this time of year as the literal fruits of one's labour are available straight from the tree or vine.  Tonight we were excited to discover a heavy crop of ripe figs in the kitchen garden.  It's an old tree, which may even pre-date Harold Peto's arrival in Iford (i.e. pre-1899), yet every year it produces a prolific crop of brown turkey figs, although rarely do we have enough sun to ripen so many of them.  This evening, I roasted them with balsamic vinegar and honey, and a pinch of ginger & cinnamon.  Satisfyingly fresh, simple food.

And so here are some photographs to delight and entice, taken this very evening around 7.15pm.

Photo shoot

Last week we were privileged to host the crew shooting for a future issue of an august knitwear publication, in and around the garden.  It is always a marvel to me how the fashion shoots manage to be so lucky with the weather at Iford.  Despite the day before having been depressingly drizzly and grey, they managed to arrive on the one day last week when we had patchy (but dry!) sunshine all day.

Though I am certainly not their target market, even to a woolly-Luddite like me it was clear that the knitted garments which they brought with them (to clothe statues and models in appropriate poses) were utterly gorgeous.

Such fashion shoots are important to Iford because they contribute not only to the wider use of the garden in general but also provide important revenue to enable us to continue with the maintenance and restoration of the garden.  But there are definitely shoots and shoots... some are assiduously sympathetic to the place and take infinite care not to damage the property - others, sadly, are less so.  Last week's crew was, thankfully, firmly in the former group, and it was a complete pleasure to host them.

If you would like to use Iford as a location, please contact our agents: Sarah Eastel Locations

Round 6 of the Maxxis Motocross

Farleigh Castle circuit, at the other end of the Iford estate from the manor, hosted Round 6 of this year's Maxxis British MotoCross Championship.  Seen amongst 'aficionados' as one of the great natural tracks (the track has been in annual use since 1936, so it's something of a grandfather in the sporting heirarchy!), old-school riding styles were required to negotiate the challenging terrain, bumps and steep terraces.

A report here from This is Somerset
and here from the official MXGB site

Judging by their attire, a few of the large crowd that attended the weekend event from all over the UK and Europe also took the time to walk over to the tearoom at Iford along the riverside footpath, where they found, hopefully to their satisfaction, something of a contrast from the petrol fuelled excitement at Farleigh!

A highly successful end to the main music season

Last Saturday saw the final Jazz Promenade of the season, and thankfully the weather turned out to be [relatively] kind, although it was threatening.  The morning and afternoon brought consistent showers, which sent worried shivers through the set-up team, contemplating with horror a return to last year's quagmire-car parks, sodden lawns and slippery steps.

The sodden sweet peas may have looked pretty, but picnic brollies were an essential upon arrival:

As usual, though, we confirmed the weather in its better behaviour by putting up more and more tents!

By about 7.30pm, just in time for the music, you wouldn't have known it was the same day from the photographs.

The 'macintosh'-clad audience was treated first to some wonderfully intimate Flamenco in the cloister where Eclipse held a capacity audience entranced by their beguiling Spanish dance.  By the end of their set, there wasn't a cloud in the sky over the Casita, which provided a complete contrast with revved up Cuban rhythms from the masterful Mojito, encouraging much revelry.  A fuller report will no doubt follow with photographs from the team at Iford Arts.

From our perspective, as the venue itself, we were particularly pleased that each of the bands expressed themselves very happy with the space in which they performed; this really is as important as anything to us - happy musicians = happy audiences!

Well done to Iford Arts and their volunteers on organising another great night and a fantastic season of events.

(Performance photos to follow.)

Festival season update

The 2010 Iford Festival has been a great success. Handel's Xerxes went off with a bang (pyrotechnics, and the blowing up of a bridge!), and we are now in the last two weeks of the season, with Iford Festival Productions' Rigoletto ending the season with a flourish.

I thought you'd like to see some photos of the two Iford Festival Productions - Xerxes and Rigoletto. For more photos, have a look at Iford Arts on facebook. If you've been to any of the shows or jazz proms this year, it would be wonderful if you could post up some reviews or comments, either here, or on facebook. Thanks!

Successful Cinders, and £40 special ticket offer

The first opera of the 2010 Iford Festival - Rosinni's La Cenerentola (Cinderella) - was a great success. Here's some photos to excite the taste buds!

There are only 5 tickets remaining for the second opera of the season - Handel's Serse (Xerxes) - and these are now on offer at the special price of £40 a ticket. Number of tickets per night as follows: Friday 9 July - 1 ticket; Wed 14 July - 2 tickets; Friday 16 July - 1 ticket; Saturday 17 July - 1 ticket.

To book, ring our box office at the Theatre Royal, Bath 01225 448844.

For more information about Serse, visit the Iford arts website: www.ifordarts.co.uk

Bye for now,
Jonelle

Terms and conditions: The £40 special ticket offer is subject to ticket availablity and only applies to telephone bookings. Credit card bookings are subject to a transaction fee of £3.00. Tickets booked previously fall outside this offer and cannot be refunded. Iford Arts, The Gatehouse, Iford Manor, BA15 2BA

Butterflies flutter by...

Your regular author apologises for the lack of posts over the past month - he has been taking his Masters exams at the Royal Agricultural College and then catching up on the piles of post which built up during the period!  Over the next few weeks I hope to bring you up to date on the past month at Iford, starting with the wonderful events of "butterfly day", yesterday.

Run jointly between Butterfly Conservation and Iford Arts, this wonderful free event is aimed at both children and adults, and was held this year on Sunday 27th June in the baking heat of a glorious weekend.  With England playing Germany that afternoon, those that came to Iford had the better fortune, avoiding the disappointment of a somewhat predictable televised exit from that esteemed sporting competition.

The lepidopterists and other wildlife experts had set up traps overnight in the Iford valley, and the 80 species of moth caught were on display for inspection by the 250 plus children and accompanying adults that visited us on the day.  [When the list of sightings both for butterflies and moths is available, it will be posted on this blog].

Inside the marquee, kindly donated by NFU Mutual Insurance, there were activities galore, including storytelling, paint-a-butterfly (or moth!), decorate a butterfly cupcake, and perhaps most popular of all, facepainting.

For the more inquisitive of our younger visitors there was a treasure hunt, which encouraged children to learn about trees through exploration and research, and for the adventurous, guided walks through the long wild flower meadows were available for keen-eyed butterfly-spotters.  The photographically entered a competition on the day of butterflies and moths sighted during these walks, and hopefully we can post the winning image on this blog soon.

Butterfly friendly plants were available from a stall run by Downside Nurseries in Westwood, which proved popular with those wishing to bring more of a flutter to their gardens.

Many visitors, we are told, discovered Iford for the first time: to them a big "hail and well met".  The tearoom was very busy (mostly ice creams this weekend), and we were delighted to be able to provide a rare and relatively safe environment where children could learn through the medium of discovery and play, that not all moths need be crushed immediately under foot!

The laughter of children truly is infectious, and whilst the garden itself may not be particularly suitable for young visitors owing to its historic nature, to be able to offer a free day of natural discovery for the young is greatly rewarding.  Thank you to all that made it happen.