cold and grey

I am a spoilt petulant pensioner this morning, not a pretty sight. When I was away last week it was up and out, not wandering around with a vague headache not wanting to do anything, but knowing that the thing i do worst is Nothing.
The weather is atrocious, cold, wet grey.
We have had a double radiator fitted while we were away in the NE Wing, as that room is never warm. Now if we keep the door closed and lean on it the blood does continue to circulate in our tired old veins, rather than coagulate in cold hard lumps round our wizened hearts.
The Committee Ladies of the recently formed Stitching Forum have disintegrated into Apprentice type squabbling and resigning while I was away, so embarrassing.
When I was young, [tra la] we women were all consciousness raising and working together to change the world. Now so many women are wearing pink, pole dancing and tearing at each others jugular.
Obviously I have stayed away from their meetings as I am well aware that these days
I am much too paranoid to wish to be in any committee, as I know the in-fighting will lead to tears before bed time. I edit the eNewsletter instead and encourage creativity and sharing, much easier
If I was on The Apprentice I would probably throttle myself within minutes trying to stop myself saying something that would start a war. The Women's team lost this week. Even in the Charity version recently the female team, who won, were apparently daggers drawn within hours.
Men just seem to form a battalion and charge, often in the wrong direction but they save their in fighting until they have worked out who the real competition is. I guess it is all those team games.
I played hockey at school. No i didn't, I was put in goal and snarled at the hard balls hit at me till they let me go and sulk elsewhere. I don't want to compete, winning or losing is embarrassing and I definitely don't want to be anonymously in the middle.
Also I have no forward planning, having refused all board games [except Risk] since I could toddle. RP bought an version of the Roman game 9 mens morris or whatever at the Villa visit and instantly beat me hollow, he was cheating by planning ahead.
Daughter is very competitive and fits in much better in the States where it is viewed as admirable. On the other side of the cent American women are often so supportive and encouraging, purring praises that in our self depreciating culture would be suspected to be sarcasm.

woof

We met up with some old friends for lunch.
S and I have known each other for so long, it was lovely to see her again, always puts me in mind of Vonnegut's novel where extra terrestrials saw each other as sort of long holograms of their whole lives, the past and the present were all present.
S and D have been married nearly as long as I have known them, the 4years at the start when we were all single seem less and less present, a shared.......myth almost.
When I was in turmoil they gave me sanctuary while I lurched forward to these greener pastures.
I was at the wedding and funeral of their sorely missed youngest.
We are linked.
Our chat over lunch tended to focus hilariously on our individual decrepitudes, but the fact that we managed to stagger off for an hour and a half walk with Hattie the dog was encouraging, and D plans to cross to the Continent and take part in a cycling race across the Alps in the summer, so there is hope..................
We arrived at the meeting place via the SatNav, occasionally the nice purring voiced lady would instruct us to take a sharp left or whatever in a somewhat surprising way, which we worked out was because the roads had changed since she was given her script. It is sensible to always have the map book open too, so you don't end up in Timbuktu.
However as we sat in the pub car park, suffused with the glow of success, we noticed the SatNav was pronouncing Bow Wow on it's screen.
Maybe the machine was having some form of breakdown - however on taking Hattie up the Lane for her constitutional, we discovered it was the name of the lane.

roaming with the romans

Went to a Roman Villa today, mostly fourth century remains, tho they lived there for 3 centuries before going home. The mosaic floors were very lively with figures cavorting around and geometric designs for the more formal rooms. this spring is reminiscent of the wells near here, tho this one has a longer history.
It still had a wall round it which made it seem cosy and accessible, the info showed us [in the usual mediocre sketch they provide] how it would have looked as a shrine to a water deity. There were the usual hypocausts , and these posher under floor heating pillars which suggested the family were pretty rich, and comfortable at one time.

An elderly visitor asked the guide if the invading Vandals had destroyed the areas of mosaic that were missing by lighting fires as they squatted in the abandoned buildings. No they eroded over the centuries you ignoramus

My hackles rose, usual vision of the world being destroyed by uncivilised yobs [teddy boys, hoodies whatever].

No you nervous nelly, the Saxons [not the Vandals] didn't live in the valleys at all, because by the time the Romans finally left their law and order had broken down [the vandals were sacking Rome not cold wet here]and the Saxons [including those Romans who had married in, and stayed behind] had to build defendable homesteads on high ground.

Is it inevitable that as one gets older one gets more fearful of the young. I've a strong core of paranoia but I hope it never settles on fear of change.

Perhaps feeling "got at" is inevitable staying here in Middle England, "Private" notices everywhere and even their gates look as if they would like to gnaw my bones, but this spring was fun.

windy

Took a long walk today down this path , a windy green tunnel through the fields, past the horses and the hairy long horned cattle.

Got rained on a couple of times and lashed by angry brambles, still vengeful having been flailed so viciously in the winter.

We found the neat label on a post which explained exactly what we were about.

Didn't go the whole way, surprisingly, just to the next village and a very cosy pub for lunch.

Some of the trees looked like they were hugging themselves - which was perhaps sensible, as on the gusty return journey, a young dead ?elm crashed to the ground beside us, and another was shattered further up the path .

We definitely heard the first one crash down.

I was reminded of gnomish musing in philosophy lectures to the tune of - if a tree falls in the forest, will there be a noise if there is no-one to hear it.

"I'm younger than that now"

metaphorically speaking

We have escaped the village and travelled through time and space to ........another village. This cottage was once two workers cottages, now knocked into one for us non workers and a dog.

It is very warm and comfortable now, central heating plus wood burning stove - jammed with unburnt anthracite [what is that doing there?] and old fag packets among sooty logs. Most people have lost the ability to fire raise I suspect. I light ours nightly at home in the winter, but I rely on prepared "fire lighters" to initially get the kindling and coal blazing.

The stairs here are very steep, with hardly room for a foot to step, did they have smaller feet then? Were people really smaller 200 years ago, the number of times I have bashed my bonce on the bedroom door lintel certainly seems to bear out the theory. Surely tho they had lots of fresh veg and lamb, organic even.

The garden round the cottage is very small, cottages and houses built higgeldy piggeldy from the soft buttery Cotswold stone, I guess there wasn't too much time for gardening then, or keeping the odd Black Spot.

What did the workers do? Farm land all around, woollen mills in the area. No mill workers now anyway, most lucrative industry seems to be herding tourists and housing retired persons. Dry stone walls snake around into smaller and smaller mazes of tiny new houses and even tinier gardens. old walls demolished and old skills resurrected in rebuilding them.

The indigenous villagers are not to be pitied in the main, as it is they who are selling off their gardens to make room for yet another house.

We all need a home.

Maybe the indigenous are no longer here anyway, moved away to the cities when the mills fell silent, and the middle classes moved out of the cities and put central heating into the refurbished cottages .............and sold off the gardens so they could move to bigger houses.

This is one of the wells from which the villagers used to get their water until the 1930s. Now it is a Grade II listed "building" preserved in perpetuity for the delight of the tourists.

It will do as a metaphor.

layers

Went for a walk down by the river, buds are budding and the fungus is fungussing.


This tree stump is almost dressed throughout.


Close up the growths are so beautiful a detailed subtle design repeated and repeated in layers upon layers, a bit like sea shells, they are so amazing.

When we were learning to stitch "creatively" we are taught to layer up, pile up, embellish........lots of the well known stitching divas still do.
But I have this urge to simplify.

I guess I use the stitches instead of paint or pencil to make marks. I am more interested in the mark making than the stitch building, the textures and colours of threads are a feast but I seem to just want to snack.

















After the walk we all had lunch in the pub, views of cold brown mud as the tide was out. The pub is brown inside and out. They let dogs into the bar as long as they don't bring the mud in with them. They keep biscuits behind the bar for Hattie the dog, and she gets her "specials" -bits or beef from the sandwiches.


C. who works behind the bar went off to Australia but here he is back again.
Sometimes I think I will go mad if I stay in the village another day, it can seem to close in, day after day, it can be really testing dredging up the confidence to face myself and keep questioning whether what I do/am has any value.
When I was at work I sort of knew what I was about, I knew I was helping kids move forward with their lives; now I have to gird up my loins and move myself along. Not as far as Australia tho, actual travel can be refreshing but we are still there , wherever we go.

something old

A bit of a surprising day as the curator of the museum, me and my stitching pals visited, turned out to be the daughter of a bosom pal of mine from the sixties.
It felt like the usual linear narrative of time had suddenly made a hand break turn and looped back on myself.
She's the dark haired one on the left, sorry no need for explanation, she's the young one.
I guess it was a bigger surprise as my old mate lives in New Zealand, I knew her daughter was around but I never expected to just walk into a room and find her there.
I had to sit on myself for a while so I didn't just jump in her lap and yell Surprise, specially as she doesn't know me from Eve, after all she grew up on the other side of the world and I don't do longer haul than San Francisco.


Our friendly local curator had gathered together accessories thru the ages which largely meant in this case shoes, bags and hats. This neat Regency bootee was extremely attractive, and could have been worn by young Jane Austen, well possibly not literally as i don't know if she came to this neck of the woods, but I would happily have worn them if my feet had been quite a few sizes smaller.
Wish I could find some like it now, but with a tougher sole, these weren't meant for walking the doggy thru the muddy fields round here.
The late nineteenth century little baby boots are just cute, and now I am a g'ma I am helpless to resist.



There were lots of hand embroidered drawstring purses. The usual discussion about how "they" had more time as they didn't have many distractions then............not like me now, surrounded by the entrails of various bits of half completed projects, The Shield on the gog and the lap top in the appropriate position.
But i guess they didn't have washing machines, fridges, stoves with timers, cars, take aways, all to save time, but somehow we still don't have any more.
By the way, does anyone understand what the hell is going on in The Shield any more?

This tiny purse is seventeenth century, the 3 pansies make it seem very familiar, but it was used 400 years ago. Things survive, people don't that would be irritating if one thought about it too long.

I really liked this crazy Crazy Patchwork bag, the maker has gone potty scribbling stitches in patterns designs, pictures, looks like it would be fun to do in - spare time.

I found time to say hello to the curator, and when I got home I sent her some pics of her mum and me, when we were new.

toothless old crone

Went to a Patchwork Show. This Art Quilt appealed to me, I think Lowry would have approved.

This amusing triptych also caught my eye, encouraging us to drop everything and have a frolic.

I am not feeling too frolicsome tho as I have broken a tooth, and am now on antibiotics as apparently there is now also an infection, and eventually I shall have to have the whole caboosh out. Very depressing.

ladybirds

Ladybirds patrolling the rose bush amongst the Red Hot Pokers.

Health & Safety

L and I went to M to persuade the owner of the Gallery/cafe to hold our first SLAPPERS exhibition, fortunately she agreed, so we have to get to stitching our Big Women.

I don't think she will feel comfortable with anything too controversial so it is lucky it is just us girls paddling about in the shallows. She certainly doesn't approve of the name of our group. Not even ironically.

The Quay is still in uproar [in a very English way] about the horrible fence that has been inserted to save people from themselves. All that is lacking are signs saying - don't walk off the edge, the water is cold. ....................you might get wet.

As word play is so beloved of this island race, the rebellion neatly exploited the British habit of spelling sounds in wildly differing but satisfying ways which make us all so complacent when foreigners come around.

Being a quintessentially English understated protest animals [not real] were also roped in to support the cause. probably the real swan would approve as it is much more difficult to feed the birds [real] now.
Not attractive you will agree. All because Health and Safety said the owners may get sued if someone fell in [so far there is no record going back thru out recorded history of this ever happening, but maybe in pre -history, before notices or fences were invented something might have happened, of course there wouldn't have been the insurance cover then either.

This is where we will show out stuff come the new year. But a bit soon to worry about that. A drop more global warming and the whole thing goes to pot, as I notice the fence is not even waterproof.

the Assyrians et moi

I have done a bit of sploshing on the Arches, and I wanted to echo these Assyrian wall carvings [British Museum booty] to suggest the salt marshes and reeds. hmmmmmmmmmm

Also I am finishing this colourful portrait which started when I saw a Japanese bloke who was free machining faces, a long and often boring technique which seems to please the viewer as they can see it takes time and apparently skill, so they sold well. I should never have sold my own self portrait however, I wanted to show it off and put a silly price on it and someone bought it.

Then I was left with this last face and what to do; after a visit to Freda Kahlo I wanted to to be her [the way you do, without the back ache of course, and probably without Diego Rivera, tho I am sure he was very personable] so I started the winding lock stitch in place of her exotic leaves. Maybe I have done too much, maybe not enough.

Last week I gave my SLAPPERS stitching group a workshop on............getting in touch with their emotions and thus deeper into their work [pretentious, moi?] it went well and some tears were shed to prove it - which was OK in a small group who trust each other but I must have listened to myself a bit too as I threw caution to the winds [and priorities] and went full steam ahead with another Big Woman project this week. I sketched out some dancing figures, traced them and am now moving them around to get a gleeful feel.

Hopefully it will be fun stitching them, rather than the hassle most things become after a while, but then I get to that smooth zone where I know what I have to do and for a few weeks/days - then I am engaged and easier to live with.
Or maybe not, the Three Muses below I painted and stitched and then totally lost confidence about 18 mths ago. Since then they have been pinned on the wall shouting at me to finish the grass you arse- but I just look away and mumble I can't be bothered. However the photo looks OK so maybe they can ease into my hands soon, if I can fix that leg.
Today I am off with L to try and persuade a cafe owner we know that she would do well to put up our Big Women exhibition in January.
A deadline always helps.

enter the dragon

We had Spring weather yesterday, sun, sleet and rain in rapid succession, repeat.

We are running out of coal for the fire, and altho the house is probably warm enough most of the time I am going to have to go into rehab to be weaned off the cheerful flames dancing in the grate.

I tend to only own boots and sandals - I don't want to be dealing with that in between bit.

Daughter also had snow in Nevada again this week, after a bright warm spell, but it was obviously concentrated, serious snow with which someone [s] could create wonders.

live on the edge

Went down to the Ferry cafe again for lunch, lots and lots more cholesterol. {Eventually i will learn how to spell it] Even with my statin armour i didn't eat the batter, but I did have quite a lot of chips, tho I believe they are bad for arthritis, but sometimes you just have to live dangerously. I try to avoid all that family, something about enzymes, but I wish I didn't believe it, as it also thus forbids tomatoes, aubergines, chillies, and peppers.

It was a bright day again, sun glittering on the sea, so much so that you could hardly look at it.

Saw M there, looking like a Valkyrie striding the sea wall with Henry the Labrador. She reckons she has lost 2 stone thanks to her 3 hour rampages, marching from Felixstowe and back along the coast, she doesn't have the chips either, so that must help.

The little stall opposite sells fresh fish, locally caught, maybe not the sword fish. I don't much care for fish myself, but it is improved if they have just pulled it out of the water. Poor fish.

This is the little jetty that leads to the ferry to take passengers over to Bawdsey on the other side. So I guess this isn't really the sea, it is sea water but there are sand spits and stuff on this part of the coast, keeping the vast cargo ships far out on the horizon before they risk nosing into the docks. Lots of notices along the beach proclaiming it an ASBO area for speed boaters. Presumably they are usually going too fast to read them tho.

trip out

It is some years since I have been in a Mcdonalds. I was too early for the film, so decided to live dangerously. I instantly remembered that slight feeling of panic trying to choose which queue and what to order.........however now my kids are no longer pounding my ear drums so I was able to concentrate, breath and think at the same time.

I stuttered out my long forgotten mantra, veggie burger, fries and coke with an apology for my frantic stare, explaining i had not been on these premises for many years.

The lady took my order - and pity on me, told me to go and sit down and she would bring the food over on a tray!

Almost persuaded me to ask for a concession ticket in the movie house, but I am not going to admit my age to some flibberty gibbert - so well padded by cholesterol, and defended by my statins I sat in solitary state in the cinema and laughed and cried my way thru Slumdog Millionaire.

Brilliant, unexpectedly lived up to the hype for once. Always encouraging to see something well made. Torture scenes meant i had to close my eyes sometimes but otherwise a very good film IMO and so colourful.

death & despair

This was the end of our Tony Blair.

A few years ago the village had a competition to make scarecrows, to be placed on public view and judged as to artistic and maybe sarcastic merit.

Local lads expressed their enthusiasm by throwing many down the hill, after a night too long in the pub, so the communal spirit dried up and became rather prune faced.

We couldn't quite bear to eviscerate Tony, so he hung about for some years getting increasingly dilapidated and earning stinging epithets such as straw man, feet of clay, jerk etc.

Our Tony had a head then, but he lost it about the time we invaded Iraq and I realised I had been thoroughly hoodwinked and had likewise had to accept my jerkhood.

While Tony burned I was working on my new piece for summer exhibition.

We have to take a look at the area around the exhibition centre, an old Victorian Maltings and produce something relevant.

I decided to Do the arches

They are tall and elegant, which at the mo, my piece isn't. M gave me some lovely silks which I have juggled into position, but then I thought I would trap them behind a chiffon so i could set about stitching them to death.

Demise arrived earlier than I expected, unfortunately, as the lovely sheen has gone dull and all sorts of doggie hairs, fluffs and detritus have been stuck down as well.

Oh dear.