Inspiration

It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, how you sometimes don’t understand the whole picture but merely see, very clearly, glimpses of things. Do you know what I mean?

And if you do, that’s where I am in my mind this evening. It’s a warm, soft, heavy night in London, and I’ve had a fantastic few days. It’s a long story, but this is a blog about glimpses of things not the whole picture, so for once I will neither be starting or ending a tale. It’s been an emotional week too, in parts very happy and very sad, and I hope to be able to write more one day – but do you mind if it’s not tonight?

The backdrop to all this has been intense, too, and that I’m very happy to show glimpses of. On Friday and Saturday I went to two of the most beautiful houses I’ve been in in a long time, one in Northumberland, the other in Oxfordshire.

The first is Eglingham, a brief and delicious visit to which formed part of a wonderful day with new clients; a beautiful, vigorous, stone house of the perfect period of English classicism. Eglingham first made its way on to these pages almost two years ago, in a little blog I wrote about the wonderful world of Mr Walker; Tim Walker, the fashion photographer.

That was Friday – a long but fantastic round trip to Alnwick. The second, where I went last night, is at Wardington in Oxfordshire. Wardington is a mediaeval manor that was twice altered and extended, brilliantly, seamlessly, in the arts and crafts language in the 20s.

Both are in their own way perfect places; so different, so complete of themselves. And just for now, that’s what we’re going to catch sight of.  Perfect summer days and nights are made of these.

It’s at moments like this, and places like these, that I think we sometimes get close to a kind of heaven. Don’t you?