Author: Raj

Rajesh sees Poulstone as a refuge in a fast-moving world and is inspired by guests leaving Poulstone renewed and re-centred. He regards the energy of Poulstone to be perfect for retreats and manages Poulstone to maintain and sustain this energy. Rajesh has been attending retreats for a very long time and occasionally runs meditation retreats. He was introduced into the many different faiths of India including Hinduism, Sikhism, Christianity, Sufism and Buddhism from a very early age. These faiths have formed a large part of his upbringing. He is a barrister by profession specialising in human rights from Chambers in London. He is also a humanitarian and environmentalist and has worked with and founded organisations around the world whose objectives include the rejuvenation of land, communities and promoting human rights. He also founded the first Indian vegetarian restaurant in Worcestershire with his family. His joys include cooking, gardening, playing the sitar, reading Eastern philosophy and loves being with his family and friends.

A week of firsts

Last week was definitely a week of firsts!  We saw the first swallows and martins on Tuesday – Mel actually saw them arrive this year as she was barrowing compost up to the veg plot.  Then on Friday we heard the first cuckoo calling and in the evening we spotted the first bats out of hibernation here.  All very exciting, and combined with the sunny weather we’ve had this last week, it seems, after all the false starts, Spring is here!  The trees are starting to show the first faint haze of colour as buds start to open.

Today is sunny and glorious – there are cabbage white and peacock butterflies enjoying the light warm breezes, the (big, fat!) bumble bees and honey bees are out investigating the flower beds and the air is alive with the sounds of birds – buzzards’ cries high above, the chatter of sparrows and the distinctive sounds of the swallows’ call, the soft voices of the pigeons, the alarm call of pheasants….

The silent retreat we have here this week with Burgs (www.theartofmeditation.org) has just broken silence and people are enjoying talking and sharing experiences out on the lawn in the sunshine.

Steve has spent the week weeding and catching up a bit outside and Gail has at last been able to plant the potatoes.  The courgette, squash and pumpkin seedlings are starting to show and last week Mel planted rainbow and swiss chard and spinach, as well as starting to prepare the bed for the carrots.  It feels like we can steam ahead a bit now!

 

 

 

 

Steve and Dave have also finished shaping the new area by the fountain ready for re-planting – more of that to come in a little while!

We shall say goodbye to our meditators tomorrow morning and then get on with readying the house for Richard and Marigold Farmer’s group (www.soulmoves.co.uk) arriving on Friday.  Hopefully this lovely weather will continue so they can do some of their work outside over next weekend.

Anyway, that’s all from us right now.  We hope you’re having a little Spring sunshine where you are and enjoying the feeling of everything enlivening around us.

More soon!

Mel & Steve,

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Day in the garden

Wednesday was wonderfully warm and sunny and everyone got out into the garden.  Even Mel was sprung from behind her desk!

Steve and Dave have begun a new project around the cherry tree by the barn (more of that in due course) – the area had become a little dark and overgrown so time for a change.  Mel swept and tidied the kitchen yard and potted up some hanging baskets for a bit of colour out the back.
Gail and Mel also sowed under cover the calabrese, sweetcorn, brussels, kale, squash, pumpkin and courgettes.  It’s felt too cold to plant much outdoors apart from the onions….still, the warmth of the day made us hopeful of some warmer weather to come and a chance to really get going on the veg plot.

Given the coldness of the wind today, it’s hard to believe that we ate our lunch out under the pear trees…….!!

Well, Steve’s out in the garden again today – in steady drizzle – ho hum….Everyone else is working in the house.  We have a lovely yoga group from Bristol here (www.yogabristol.com) lead by Charlotte Hunt and her partner Dom.  They’re having a nurturing weekend of yoga, walking, massage and relaxation.  We’re greatly enjoying having them here x

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

 

Latest novel to emerge from Freefall workshops!

The Freefall writing students have departed and were very enthusiastic about what they have learnt and experienced over the week with Barbara.  (Barbara Turner-Vesselago – www.freefallwriting.com).  The first thing people ask us when we mention Freefall is whether anyone gets published as a result of writing using this method.  The answer is simply “yes”!  Many people just come and write for pleasure but others do get published.  David Harrison who was on the course last week is the latest published author.

Dave was an aspiring writer when he first came to Freefall in 2008. This year, he published his first novel, Due Diligence, a crime thriller set in Manchester.

Dave says he acknowledges the massive contribution made to his writing by the Freefall process and by the supportive environment at Poulstone. He’s been back every year since 2008 and has already booked his place for 2014!

If you want to see the results of all this good work, check out Due Diligence at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Due-Diligence-Jenny-Parker-ebook/dp/B00BU815XC/

Well done, Dave – we look forward to seeing you next year – and reading your first novel!
More soon!
Mel & Steve xx
Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

More on wi-fi…..

As a follow-up to our last post on wi-fi and for anyone who is concerned about electro-magnetic pollution generally, we recently came across this You Tube clip via friends of ours which we thought you might find interesting.  We found it very informative and useful and it confirmed some of our own experiences.

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_wxM6IAF1I

You may also find this video of interest:

http://vimeo.com/54189727

Much love

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Lambs, arctic winds, big birthdays and freefalling

Well, we’ve had a time of contrasts just recently.  We had a great week with the meditation retreat – silent and peaceful – followed the same day (!) by Gail’s 60th (yes, very hard to believe) birthday weekend.  Gail borrowed Poulstone for an “at home” from Friday to Sunday with a party on the Saturday evening and a singing workshop too!  It was lovely meeting Gail’s family and friends, and nice to catch up with old buddies, many of whom have been Poulstone-goers for a decade or two.  Also, a great chance to dust off outfits that we might not have the opportunity to wear anywhere else, given the rural nature of our general lifestyle!  Gail has been a great support to Poulstone in many ways over the years and it was lovely to have a chance to thank her by letting her use the space for her celebrations.

Mind you, we did all spend a little time wondering if Gail’s party would be snowed off, but in the event only a few people couldn’t get here due to the weather.   An arctic wind has remained since then though and only in the last couple of days has the sun broken through to offset the cold breezes.  If you’re visiting in the next few weeks, take a walk over the bridge to Sellack to see the new lambs.  Some are very new and tiny, and the older ones are already banding together into naughty little gangs for races and other lamby mischief!  They’re such a pleasure to watch and more curious than frightened at that age.  They must be very glad of a little sun on their backs these last few days after the severe coldness of the last week or so.  Mel’s just come back from a walk and taken some pictures of the lambs and the blazing sunshine on the river today.  Also, some photos of the lovely daffodils coming out under the copper beech (good to see the Buddhist approach to “pest” control (ie leave everything as it is!) has had some rewards!!).

We now have a week-long writing course in called Freefall with Barbara Turner-Vesselago.  The first morning, as we begin printing the morning’s writing for Barbara to read, is always a good test of technological know-how as we try to print Mac files from PCs, ease data off sulky memory sticks and download printer drivers for those whose memory sticks won’t work.  It was pretty smooth this morning, all in all.  It takes not a little courage to sit with yourself all morning and see what comes to you to write – freefalling into the words.  There’s a lovely quiet, focused feeling in the house.

 

That’s all for now.

With love,

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Spring is on its way!

Well, the squirrels did’nt eat all the crocuses!  A sweet little cluster of purple heads have started to appear by the silver birch and dotted into the lawn.  They don’t last long but are a lovely little treat if you take the short cut down past the mulberry tree at the moment.  We currently have a resident pheasant who has so far escaped the camera but he’s clearly enjoying sitting on the garden wall where he’s able to survey things from a good height.  The swans are very active at the moment, flying low over the garden and on to the fields beyond.  I don’t think we could ever get bored with the wonder of them flying overhead.  The other day we were on the bridge over the Wye and five or six flew over us (and one flew under us!) – magical.

There’s a general sense of Spring being in the air.  Mel has been spring-cleaning the office and now has zero-tolerance of anything being dumped in there for repairs or on its eventual way to somewhere else!  Sweet peas and various kinds of veg seed have been sown in pots ready for planting out later in the year.  We’ve also bought some plants for starting to plant up the kitchen yard for this year.  This week Steve and Dave decided the time had come to take down an old and ailing fir tree by the corner of the barn.  It’s been cut fairly high and we plan to grow a clematis through it so it will live on as a piece of natural sculpture.  Mentioning this was really only an excuse to include a picture of Dave in his balaclava – there’s a very brisk wind coming up the valley at the moment!


 

 

 

 

 

Having said farewell to Manda Scott’s two shamanic groups last week who we loved having in the house, we’re joined this evening by Burgs and his crew for a seven day meditation retreat.  The meditation retreats are wonderful to have here and we hope to be able to sit with them this week.

Anyway, more from us soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Flu, Spring, masseurs and rabbits…

Well, we haven’t got to the blog for a few weeks.  Mel had several weeks of flu last month and was out of action.  Still, there are silver linings to most things  – she discovered she wasn’t indispensable and also lost a few Christmas pounds!

Despite the nocturnal bulb eating forays of the local rabbit population, we still have at least some lovely bulbs bursting into colour – the snowdrops are coming up amongst the dogwoods and around the place, and crocuses and daffodils are beginning to appear.  There should be lots of colour in a week or so.  We also planted some bulbs in rows up in the veg patch for picking for the dining tables, and as we wait for the group to arrive today, the tables look lovely with daffs and helibores on them.

We’re starting to get busy in the veg plot.  Gail’s bringing up manure from the compost area and has been planting onions this week.  Steve’s mowing the lawn today for the first time this year which always smartens the garden up after the winter.  After weeks of mainly greyness, it’s a lovely Spring day here today.  Hilary is on Iona having a much deserved rest and so the lovely Ellie, who some of you may have met last year, is cooking for us for the next few days.  We have two shamanic groups coming in this week back-to-back so we should be busy.  Since last writing, we’ve had a large group of lively masseurs (and masseuses!) here doing the residential part of their training and we’ve had a seven day silent meditation retreat since then.  Quite different energies – which is one of the pleasures of running the place!
             

Gail’s also quite an accomplished seamstress and has recently made roman blinds for most of the bathrooms, recycling some old curtains that had been languishing in the housekeeping cupboard for years.  She’s also adding thermal lining to existing curtains which should make things cosier after stepping out of the shower in the winter months.

That’s all for now.  Time to meet and greet!

With love

Mel & Steve xx

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

 

Swans and things

Yesterday was the most golden, blue-skied day we’ve had for a while.  After the snow thawed, there came more flooding, but one of the wonderful things that happens here when it floods is that the swans from the river start landing on the flooded fields and when the water recedes they often stay for weeks.  Yesterday was so lovely, Mel went out for a walk with the camera and took some pictures including some of the swans.

    

We’ ve also recently been having some amazing cobwebs in the Poulstone meadow.  Thousands of tiny spiders lay their webs in drifts across the grass and when the sunlight illuminates them, it looks like a shining path of silver to the sun!

 

Beautiful!

Hope you’re getting a little sunshine too?

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre


Rabbit tracks in the snow…!

We’ll, we’ve just had a wonderfully snowy week and were lucky enough to enjoy it without having to worry about guests travelling on icy roads. In fact, the timing was very good – all our deliveries had come and we had a week before our first group arrived.

So we just enjoyed being snowed in and went for lovely walks down by the river.  Steve had a fascinating time tracking in the snow the movement of all the rabbits that are currently decimating our bulbs!  We’d put up some barriers to the walled garden and could clearly see where they had tried to get around them.  In fact, it’s a good job everything has thawed as it could have become something of an obsession!  We may just have to stick to daffodils which they don’t seem very keen on…..We mainly stayed cosy up at home but Mel made occasional forays out to the rather parky office to check the phone and emails.

Fortunately, the roads thawed in time for a rare opportunity to get all the staff together in one place.  Because of the part-time nature of the work, we can all be a bit ships-in-the-night, so it was lovely to have an all-day staff meeting up in the facilitator’s flat to be together, talk about things, and share lunch (Steve’s wildly experimental but very good spicy aduki bean shepherd’s pie which was wonderful teamed up with one of Hilary’s home-grown cabbages!).

We now have a new yoga group in this weekend tutored by Suzanne Jevon-Hughston who is a local teacher.  The sun put in its first appearance for a while this morning.  So it was lovely, fresh and bright for their mid morning walk.  Next week we have a group of shamans coming, who have been working at Poulstone for over two decades!!  Some of them come from west Wales in very rural locations so we are hoping that the thaw will continue and they can get to us easily.

More soon!

Mel & Steve

Poulstone Court Retreat Centre

Book launch

As promised, we now have the full details of Barbara Turner-Vesselago’s book launch.

The launch will be on Saturday 2nd February 2013 from 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Bristol Music Club, 76 St Paul’s Road, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1LP.

Barbara will be talking about Freefall Writing; what it is, how it came to be, and why both beginning and experienced writers find it a reliable way to get the thinking mind to step aside, so that writing becomes a truly vulnerable and open-hearted engagement with the moment.

You are invited to join Barbara in the delightful ambience of the Bristol Music Club for wine, refreshments and perhaps a little creativity!  Barbara will also be signing copies of her new book, for sale at £12.99.

RSVP to iva.carrdus@valapublishers.coop by 25th January.

“Here is a book that charts new territory, inviting the writer to fall with confidence into the ether of the creative self in order to write with skill and authenticity”

Louise Green, Editor of Lapidus Journal