Pipe and Glass, South Dalton, East Yorkshire.

Oil on canvas 12x10 inch

The Pipe and Glass is a wonderful place to visit. Often I stop on my way home for a coffee, today however, I found myself stopping to paint. Earlier I had visited Etton village to walk around, to look for a view to paint. As I looked at the interesting Holderness Hunt buildings two farm vehicles passed me and then turned into an adjacent field. The second vehicle, an open backed van had two very interested collies on board. The first van towed a tri-axle trailer loaded with fencing. I looked as the little convey drove up the hilly field, thinking, that the trailer would be difficult to turn. Sure enough it made a huge arc before returning, some way off and parking next to the other van. They proceeded to create a pen to hold the sheep when they were rounded up. The field is very big and, what looked like hundreds of sheep, ewes with large, almost full grown lambs were scattered all over. I was expecting the collies to round up the sheep but a strange thing happened. The sheep began streaming in lots of single file threads towards the farmers. I was thinking what well behaved sheep they were when suddenly, one of the collies began to 'work' them. Frankly, it was chaos. The sheep about turned and ran away in different directions. An agitated farmer kept shouting 'lay down' and other directions without any obvious compliance from the dog. My attention was distracted as two women passed, heading for another field in which two horses grazed. They entered the field and the very well behaved horses walked towards them to have their halters fitted. Then they walked towards me and the gate which I opened. It made me think about doing a painting of a horse, maybe just the head, something for the future I think. Looking back at the sheep, one of the farmers was now flapping a green plastic bag, the other farmer carrying a lamb and the single collie now working well to corale the sheep. I decided to leave them to it and drove to South Dalton. The Pipe and Glass have a superb garden at the rear and all the plants are edible, even, as a gardener told me, the roses. I walked around the sinuous winding pathways surrounded by the fragrance of mint, borage and aniseed. Of particular interest was an apple tree whose origins date to the same tree Isaac Newton knew, when he formulated the effects of gravity. Guest rooms open out onto this garden area, a wonderful place to stay. The gardener and I had a long talk about garden design which I really found interesting. The notion of OC or CO ( that is Order and Chaos, or, Chaos and Order) was a thought provoking idea, as indeed was the methods Monet used when planting Giverny. He explained his idea of using the colours Turner had employed when painting and how he transposed these into remarkable garden designs. The notion of particular colour schemes was all very stimulating. The gardener, it turned out was a student at Beverley Grammar School, just before my time though,  and we recalled some of my colleagues, some of whom had taught him as a student,

which made me think

......

what a small world it is.


As I painted the gate leading to Dalton Park was constantly opening and closing making a regular clanging noise. Sheep in the park nibbled their way towards me as I painted, hence the need for the gate to be closed. Hope you like the picture.