text: I write in praise of the idea of a retreat. Three times a year I go away, with a group of friends to eat, drink and be merry but, most of all, to work uninterrupted on ideas or just to stitch. The place we have found is Kingcombe in deepest Dorset and is run by the Dorset Wildlife Trust. The wildlife is useful, feathers being a case in point. From the design potential of a hen’s feathers to the donation of cast off bits of the resident Guinea Fowl’s tail, which featured in a recent piece of my work. Here, the work in progress with the gratefully accepted feathers, bottom right.
  Apart from comfortable accommodation (and amazing food, thanks to Andy, the chef), wandering around the grounds with your camera is very rewarding.
  I found it interesting to note the difference that the light makes. You can see that the fungi here look quite different when the shot is taken from another angle, so that the top of the ‘pile’ catches the light. I couldn’t help wondering what Marion Jazmik would make of these. Her wonderful work, based on all forms of fungus. featured in the last WOWbook.
  A new boardwalk had been built since our last visit and the design was spectacular. What appeared to be randomly placed pieces of wood as you walked past, resolved onto a pattern as you looked back – now that is so clever.
  The boardwalk ends at the stream and the base of this tree trunk really caught my eye. I loved the ‘verdigris’ streak running down the trunk.
  With a little jiggle in an imaging program it turned into a workable design.
  Did I get any work done? Well I made a start on some ‘leaves’, using the embellisher machine – inspired by the sunflower photograph. I’ll be talking about the technique in the next WOWbook.