Cutting Edge Thoughts on Rich Pudding Day

Saturday was what is known in this household as Rich Pudding Day. It means all the most wonderful things and experiences rolypolied into a single day. The day was bright and the wind was crisped as we headed down to Emsworth on the coast to have coffee and read the newspapers in our cherished Driftwood Cafe. After a walk along the shore we continued not to Chichester as usual, but set our sails for Mottisfont Abbey on the River Test. The reason for this was the Cutting Edge exhibition there. We are newbies to Mottisfont, but we shall return and return and return! It is Rich Pudding House! To get to the exhibition we had to walk along the long gallery which is covered cheek by jowl with St Ives School and French Impressionist sketches. The exhibition of cut work which includes three-dimension work, is just a delight and wonder. I love this play on a stump work mirror!

For once we were not faced with the chilled sandwich syndrome in the cafe at lunch time. (How I loathe chilled sandwiches! They are the worst monster to be devised by a Health and Safety Committee since British Rail Sandwiches of the 50s.) Instead we had warm rolls filled with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce - thank you, thank you National Trust! Then off to the shop to see what exhibit goods there were. You can imagine I had second and third thoughts about this bag with a cut-out design by Rob Ryan. Is it an insult? Is it a joke? Is it a koan that I have yet to dig? Anyway I bought it - to give as a present maybe - but will my friend think that it is an insult, a joke or a koan - or simply an insult? There is time yet to decide.

The gardens at Mottisfont are a delight - they have the national collection of briar roses - though these were not in flower right now. Daffodils and primroses are up though. After Mottisfont it was back on the road for a short tootle to wonderful Winchester - home of the Arthuruan Round Table, the cathedral with the longest nave in England and, once, to the Textile Conservation Centre. It is, all in all, one of the prettiest towns. Back home to settle by the log fire with a cup of hot chocolate and a copy of The Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury - the story of the Quaker Cadbury Family of Bournville.