Here is the final batch of photos taken each day. Spring abounds, with fresh greens, blossoms, the fading of the daffodils and the arrival of bluebells, taking the project full circle. These are mainly taken in Hampshire, with a couple in the Cotswold village of Burford.
Watching Springwatch and uploading photos to my Around the Way album on facebook, shots of the local area this spring/summer, around Brockwood Park where I live and work. It’s a public album that can be viewed here.
Springwatch. I like Springwatch. It’s so low key and real. Animals doing their (often odd) animal things. Lots of egg-stealing today and a grass snake gobbling a young bird. The others hopped out of the nest to escape. And kites back from the brink.
Earlier, to Southampton to pick up hire vehicles for some end of term school activities. U-Drive. I don’t mind driving their large 17-seaters: they’re already so beat up that the pressure’s off.
Walk then snooze after a silent lunch. We don’t do that very often and today was a welcome surprise, to be able to sit in the sun, eating fine wholefoods, with people but with no chit-chat. Some students couldn’t handle it, giggling from time to time. It reminded me of the 10-day Vipassana course where of course all the meals were silent apart from the first and last days. Allows for proper chewing. Going on the course again in the autumn.
Here’s a scene from the after lunch walk, looking north towards Woodlands, the unexpected greys of the beeches backed by the rape crop brightness.
Woke at 4 then slept again, resting deeply until towards 8, a four hour spell disappearing in a flash.
Woke at 0545 thinking it must be near 8.
I awoke from dreams of work issues, not having enough information or information changing and a decision nethertheless is needed.
How I am reacting on waking will become my day.
Sitting still for some time allows it to be different.
Then the day can proceed from there, rather from the slightly panicky feeling on waking as thought catches hold of the past or the imagined future.
Plenty of time for sitting quietly and for a quick run through of the structural integrity exercises, after a lap bath.
Bright sunshiny morning.
Where it happens:
Cessation of steering means that which was being avoided, by habit really, comes to the fore.
What is it?
Some nausea, an internal giddiness.
Strong sensation of the front of my face, a barrier between the world and me.
Poor face, that’s not what it’s for.
Then it began undoing in a series of odd expressions and tension release.
Look at people’s faces.
How we are inside is right there for the world to see.
The masking doesn’t quite work.
At work, going through the weekly-published memoirs of Mary Zimbalist, Krishnamurti’s assistant, adding to our database relevant information about Krishnamurti talks. Beyond this it’s a travelogue, basically, with hints as to his extraordinary nature.
Lunch in the sun again, with a Korean student who adores Samsung. “Best company in the world!” We ate rice and tofu burgers. Walk after lunch to Brockwood Bottom.
Which looks like this:
And is really as far as you can go before Brockwood is no longer Brockwood but Joan’s Acre or Riversdown.
Drowsy in the afternoon.
Baked potatoes for supper.
Then to C’s in Alresford for the night.
Finished The Reluctant Yogi which was more factual and less anecdotal than I’d hoped.
Woke up at 4, just as the birds began to sing.
Cleaned teeth at the open window, fresh air.
Sat on my little stool.
Watched the breath.
Watched how I controlled the breath.
Let that go.
Stillness soon came.
Travelled around the body, sensation, sensation.
Travelled some more until the organism had its own intelligence.
And it let loose.
No method or technique remained.
Awareness and action.
An hour was soon over.
Then Structural Integrity mobility drills and exercises.
Balancing out the muscle groups.
That took over an hour.
Back to bed for an hour and a half.
The best dreams.
The ones that undo and liberate as they unfold.
I was running, slow mo.
Only very lightly touching the ground.
In doing so, flying higher with each bound, I was no longer able to see.
Bounced into some ropes and rebounded back.
But all was well in my slow motion.
And on landing securely I could see again.
Back up; sun salutations.
Fried rye bread breakfast, with St Dalfour spread.
To work after saying goodbye to my partner and best friend after a long weekend.
The lowdown on the recent trustee meetings.
Excitement in the air for the opening of the school pavilions.
Email catchup. Postcards to family from our camping weekend.
Finding photos for a trustee to gift to a donor:
Krishnamurti smiling in the grass.
Fed the fish on a sunny break, chatting with a friend.
Lunch: risotto rice of two varieties, asparagus, diced roast spuds.
After lunch a short nap.
Then the opening ceremony.
Met on the south lawn, mingling and photographing.
Here’s the project manager looking at stages of the build:
The oak beams still very visible in the almost-finished buildings.
Walked over en masse to the site.
Songs, speeches, ribbon cut, naming ceremony, high teas, tree planting, chats.
Took many photos for Friends of Brockwood.
Here’s one:
All the pavilions are named after trees at Brockwood.
Afterwards, supper of potatoes and rye bread.
French Open, the last last set of the Federer match against a plucky local.
Cut my own hair with clippers.
Wrote this.
Aim to sleep by 10.
Brockwood Park School Pavilions Project, a set on Flickr.
With the recent visit of International Trustees, I was able to enter the site for the first time since January. The roof tiles and weatherboards are being put in place and all the of insulation has been pumped in. Wet paper pulp for the walls. A change to the original design are several mezzanine platforms for spare beds and home workspace.
Brockwood Park School Pavilions Project, a set on Flickr.
Due for completion in July this year, work on the pavilions is really moving forward, with most of the major construction work completed. Currently the verandahs and walkways are being built in a horseshoe, linking the seven buildings with boardwalks.
The pavilions are heated using a geothermal system. Deep down, the temperature is a constant 14 degrees C year round. Installed by a local company using the most efficient technique for heating, it uses a multiplier to build the heat enough for hot water and underfloor heating. A heat exchanger will circulate the warm air. The pavilions are highly insulated using paper pulp in the walls and polystyrene under the floor. The windows and patio doors are triple glazed, made in Sweden.
Each pavilion is for accommodation, with shared kitchen spaces. Two will be for students only, one for staff only, and the others a mix of students, mature students and staff. The staff pavilion has two flats, each with two bedrooms, designed for those staff with a family.
I’m looking forward to seeing the project move toward completion in the coming months, with the interior fittings, walkways and landscaping.
At the south-eastern end of the house is the water tower, built in 1912 by Mr. Coates in order to supply water both to the house and the neighbouring cottages he built around the same time. Like other old buildings this too has a ghost associated with it, which has its origin in the unhappy love affair and the tragic end of a young maiden who jumped off the top, during the time of Lord Chesham. The tower, apart from the water tank at the very top, now houses the biology, physics and chemistry laboratories.
I ain’t afraid of no ghost! Especially not after lunch on a clear, bright day. Here are the views over the school, parkland and beyond.
Central Hampshire, in the quiet English countryside, a unique building for the study of the the works of J. Krishnamurti, which really means the study of oneself and one’s relationship. I spent the previous four days as a guest at the Krishnamurti Centre, relishing the quiet and space it provides for serious inquiry and light-hearted conversation at mealtimes. Here is a photographic tour of the building designed by religious architect Keith Critchlow, using the principle of sacred geometry
Digging the pipeline between the Centre and the new wood chip boiler house out near the car park. Rather than disturbing the brick path, a tunnel was dug underneath.
Brockwood Park School Pavilions Project, a set on Flickr.
Update of photographs. The oak frames are being put in place on the rear three of seven buildings
With the new term fast approaching and the school staff arriving back this week, after lunch I took a quick tour of some of Brockwood Park School before it once again fills up with people. Here are some views of some of the original(?) features of a building begun in the 18th Century.
Big up the kitchen team!
Tyler, a prospective mature student at Brockwood Park, surprised everyone with a quality freestyle rap to end this evening’s informal evening. (Brockwood informal evenings are like an open mic show, with everything from classical to comedy to rock to… rap)
Around Brockwood this evening:
Maybe 200 years ago, an owner of Brockwood Park planted beeches surrounding the estate and in avenues along the lanes. Many of these survive today, often creating delightful tree tunnels.
Here’s a video I made of the mating and courtship ritual and display of the Brockwood peacock. He spends a lot of time with the hens. Unfortunately they are not peahens but chicken hens, so they are not very interested, despite his best efforts. And his best efforts really are spectacular, with his huge feather display, the shaking and the lunging. He’s almost as impressive viewed from the back. This palaver carries on for more than twenty minutes at a time. Some peahens came over a few weeks ago from a farm half a mile away but they didn’t stick around. Maybe he got lucky that time…
Here’s how it’s supposed to go:
Around the Brockwood Park this evening
I’m in the field with the sheep; ewes and lambs. Each mother has two babies, a week or two old I’m guessing. My arrival is met with stares, curious from the lambs and glaring from the mums. I sit under a tree, the presence of a human something to be kept an eye on, but only for a few seconds before the chomping continues. After a few minutes a little panic kicks in and the young who aren’t with their mum bleat and bleat. And run when the bleating is answered.
We are all in the shade on this hot April morning. The adults are breathing quite hard under their thick wool.
Later, the shepherd arrives on a quad bike. I nod and hold up my camera to give him a reason why I’m here. He nods back as he rides past. The scene is disturbed. The mothers all stand up and the lambs draw near and butt the udders for comforting milk. Later, when the shepherd has moved to another field the milk is denied, instead stepping forward to wean the young onto grass.
After a while, all is calm again. The ewes lie down and the lambs continue their hesitant exploration. Some of them dig a little, scratching the dry soil, smelling things. Some climb on fallen branches, others just loll about or snooze. But it’s the skittish jumps I delight in, that energy firing into their legs, skipping them into the air and leaping them about. On a hot day there’s not too much of that, or maybe they are not quite the right age.
Each lamb has a number sprayed on its back, matching that of the ewe. Each has a tight band around its tail about half way down. One day the end will drop off. One day the males will be slaughtered. One day some of the females will become the concerned mothers.
Around about this evening.
Examples of earlier flowering in Hampshire this year…
19 May 2010:
12 April 2011:
24 April 2010:
7 April 2011:
Falling Awake 