A modern-life fairy tale

Do you like restoring houses and planting gardens? Or at least are you tempted by the thought of doing these activities? Of course, there will be the constraints of time and finances. You will also need imagination, grit and physical resilience. If you would like to relive your fantasies, then watch Escape to the Chateau.

 [Update: there is always a copyright issue, so the links would not work. You may need to search what is available at this time on YouTube.]

The show follows a British couple buying a chateau in France. The building dates back to the 1860s, when it was raised upon the foundations of a 15th-century fort. There are 45 rooms, a moat, 12 sprawling acres of land, and much more. The building has been empty for 40 years, when the couples buys it.

From reconstruction and rebuilding, to orchards and pigs, to boudoirs and gourmet seven-course dinners, it is all in the roller coaster of experiences. It is unbelievable how this couple makes it work.
 
The show is a mix of a fairy tale with incredible amount of work. And this is the reality – enormous effort has to supplement the flights of our imagination. There is no magic wand that we can wave. Here is the website of the creative couple.

Another version of a modern tale is this of the five from Honey Grove farm:

We are a family cohort of makers, bakers, gardeners and beekeepers. We are eaters, too, emboldened by the concepts of commensality and convivality. Our home and land is the inspiration behind all of our creative endeavours and we'd truly love to share it with you...

There are four young people living on six acres on Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, and you can find out more about them on their website. You may ask, who is the fifth on the farm? Well, it is Gus Sims, the dog who "offers workshops on unconditional love and forgiveness."

And now I am back to binge-watching Escape to the Chateau.  Au Revoir!

Snowy dreams

I am crazy about gardens. 

Just thinking about a garden project and flowers relaxes me and makes me happy. Therefore, in the midst of my current blues caused by a three-foot snow cover, I look for YouTube garden shows that carry me into my dreamland, where I feel my best.

I love the Gardener's World (British) series; many of these are on YouTube.

More than a year ago I also discovered Big Dreams Small Spaces, another British show on gardening. I watched all episodes I could find, but then the show disappeared for the usual copyright reasons.

Recently, I was happy to find out that some episodes were back on YouTube.

Each episode is the story of two gardens. The stories follow the process of transforming boring and abandoned lawns into magical worlds of flowers. 

Monty Don is the leading gardener in both shows. He is the guardian of a fairy-like world of amazing flower beauty, plant secrets and nature poetry. 

Do you like fairy tales? If you do, Monty Don can teach you new fairy tales.

My last trip to the dollar store yielded more seeds

Beauty and behavior

 

Jacob Riis Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street

Although I am a cancer researcher by profession, I am in love with interior design and gardens. I recently found yet another British show on house remodeling. The series are available on YouTube at the moment - The £100k House Tricks of the Trade Series. In the past I was absorbed by the Grand Designs series. The difference between the two shows is that in the first one the houses are usually refurbished on a low budget.

 

There is something therapeutic about taking a dingy, ugly, and dysfunctional living space and turning it into an inspirational environment where creativity soars. Sometimes I wish I could wave a magic wand and erase the ugliness from this world. It is not that this would eliminate the world unpleasantness, crime, grief and wretchedness; however, I believe that practical, beautiful and clean surroundings command more decent and respectful behavior in humans. 

I heard long ago the thought that when you treat people as if they were better, they do become/behave better.

 

I am far away from being a fan of expensive renovations. For me, clean, open, light and freshly painted spaces are a sufficient canvas to create something inspirational that allows the spirit to be free and creative.

 

Check this Frank Lloyd Wright webpage for more inspiration.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City (1959), interior, by Frank Lloyd Wright.

  
Watch the transforming power of gardening:
Can You Dig This Official Trailer #1 (2015) Ron Finley Documentary Movie HD.