Suffolk Treasures

The local Guild booked the Freemasons Hall for the show, Jane,Su and I stewarded on Thursday afternoon, occasionally there were more of us than there was of them which gave us time to wander round and see what there was.
No pins allowed in the walls etc so work was either hung from the top ridge of the forbidding wooden panelling round the room, or attached to the wonky white fabric suspended on posts in a hotch potch of rickety room dividers. It looked rather like laundry day, with lots of brightly coloured pieces festooned amongst the crumpled sheets like exotic lingerie.
However it is a salutary lesson that people I sometimes dismiss as, Lord help us, boring, can have rich imaginations and superior skills compared to my bodge jobs.

I was present when this piece was in the planning stage,some years ago, so it was satisfying to see that Sandra has finally bought it to a triumphant conclusion.It is taken from a large mirrored building in town, which has the saving grace that at least it reflects what is left of the medieval buildings that weren't demolished to make way for it.
This great landscape was one of my friend Ruthie's.
This box was interesting; it was called Hadrian's Wall and very trustingly had several authentic roman coins inside.
This an arty piece by Mary, it is a metre wide and about 6" deep; she calls it Hide and Seek, it is oddly compelling.
The Freemasons look on benignly.

plastic poem

There is a person on the plinth today in Trafalgar Square [ www.one&other.co.uk ]writing dreams and hopes on helium balloons and letting them float away. It is very romantic, tho probably not good for the environment/birds.

messing about near boats

Took Hattie the dog on long walk along the river bank, didn't mean to go so far but the sun was so bright and the trees so shady. Excellent reward as the posh marina we eventually stumbled into were willing to serve coffee to those lesser mortals without a centreboard.
It's coming up to the end of the school holidays so the river is like a particularly juicy cabbage covered with fluttering white butterflies as they get as much water and wind as possible before returning to land duties

But some of the dingies are keeping lonely vigil on the green still hoping one day their prince will come.

Big Sister

I am watching Big Brother nominations. They are down to two weeks now, seven of them left to nurture their conspiracy theories and desperate survival strategies. It is remarkable how different "real" people are from fictional people. I am not sure what it is that makes the difference. We real people are less tidy and don't have a smooth script...........or skin.......
Wandering bemused thru my ruminations this morning to find that BB is to be axed next year. Probably wise, I usually only watch the beginning and the last few weeks, it is fascinating for an only child to see a big noisy load of pseudo siblings fight and cavort, without getting involved. Probably why I ended up a teacher, tho that is possibly more of a gender issue.
I wish them all well, at least they have the courage [wise or not] to have a go at changing their lives. Even tho young adults are more savvy these days about the media, and it's power for good or evil, I do wonder just how much some of them realise about what is going on in this modern "Colosseum" as many BBs seem so clueless outside their own bubble, can't even place Britain on a map etc.
Wot is happening to education, it used to be the way to change your life, or maybe for the poorer families it rarely was.......ignorance may get passed on, the habit of recognising consequences of actions and choices, abstract thought is not developed.......same amongst the landed gentry.
BB was taken up enthusiastically in 70 countries it seems, so I feel a bit less of a freak for watching it, but no less guilty.

Audrey and me

After the visit to Norwich to see Lorina's work [see Embroderer]I am trying to develop a piece of my own.
Also I bought a DVD of one of my fave fabric artists, Audrey Walker - so I am very primed to start my new project.
Unfortunately I am not confined to the lunatic wing of the workhouse as Lorina was, with very little in the way of resources in so many ways.
I am in a "room of my own" up to my knees in bright threads and fabrics and mostly in my expensively educated right mind. Terrible conditions. Choices, every which way, multi tasking may be a female trait, but it plays havoc on "focus", as does insufficient testosterone undermine "drive"
Encouraged by the spirit of Audrey [she is now in her 80s and somehow overcome these difficulties] I have lightly painted some fabric and given it a bit of a stitch.
I have a seated Big Woman in mind, she will have frustrated dreams in her mind - so we have much in common.

thirsty

Possibly the hottest day of the year here in the SE, the garden is turning into the Serengeti altho the plants seem to be just about OK, the ones in pots tho are under extreme stress, especially the sunflowers. One broke in the wind [before I realised they needed string, and lots of it to stop them swaying and snapping] a few weeks back, but has regenerated and has flower heads just about to open so we are trying to keep it dampish as it has had such a difficult life.
Next door have bought a pump for the well we share, and set up sprinklers in their garden. They have offered to share but RP needs to "do it his way" eg stubborn.
All very trivial compared to the suicide bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq today, and seemingly every day.
Have just finished a novel on Scipio, lots about the atrocities [my eye slides quickly down the gruesome paragraphs] of both the Roman and Carthaginian armies - does give a context I suppose.
Humans can be horrific, but in the main we're not, mostly we rub along without doing each other in.
But I have seem to need my share of violence in three more novels this week. Ritual by Mo Hayder was very bloodthirsty, not many laughs.
Ann Cleeves' Raven Black was recommended by mother, well written and only two murders in the Shetlands, but the murderer was totally unlikely, very annoying.
Michael Marshall's Blood of Angels was so addictive I spent most of today racing through, lots of dismembered corpses [hands cut off - reminiscent of one of old Hannibal's reposte to the Romans]- so partly I wanted to get it over with before bedtime.
So another day passes.

imprint

Thanks for the good wishes. The second one below was done by hand-stitching the background [fields and sky?] and then computer printing the couples photo on some organza and sticking it on top!
I thought it kind of reflected the faint imprint we make on the land............or a quick way of finishing a project.......so you can tell that the size is A4.

I am fond of my old couple, I would like to make them some friends, if I can get it together.

Likewise this couple, They can have this commission like it or not after the exhibition, and give a donation to charity, so that will be a load off.

Tall story

It says in the Sunday papers that the best way to remember that i am "happy" is to keep a weekly list of things/events/whatever - for which I am grateful.
This sunflower is one, it reminds me to be persistent, even when it hardly rains.

treasures

Took Hattie the dog and RP for a walk across the farm and down to the river, sun came out, birds asinging - smells asmelling.
A bonfire was in full choking smoke, then new embattlements of horse manure marched alongside the fields. They were bad enough, but I suspect it changed to pig manure and that was much worse, olfactorily speaking.
I have almost finished the work for the next exhibition, towards the end of the month.
The Guild has booked the local Masonic Hall, which will be a fascinating exploration in itself. from the outside it is an elaborate dark and brooding Victorian building,secluded in a small lane but in the centre of town where IMO the pompous and vain-glorious businessmen roll up their trouser leg and give each other funny hand shakes to seal deals and dress in drag supposedly for charity.
As I understand it Masons used to be a powerful country wide clique/network, perhaps to say a very English version of the KKK is going too far, most high up policemen used to belong and it was all a secret network of middle class power and intrigue.
I am not sure how much it works these days, now that women are allowed inside and it is all regarded as a bit of a farce....but who knows. That usually happens - any profession or plot that belatedly allows women to belong is usually already on the slide ..........
Father once joined the something Order of Buffalos, he had a little blue and white leather apron that I suppose was part of his regalia. As far as I know it was a short lived aberration, probably only entered into to annoy.
He also once briefly declared himslf a communist for the same reason.
The exhibition is called Suffolk Treasures and doubtless much of the work will be. The Guild has about 80+ members and some of them can stitch lovely stuff; one category is for a 6" x 6" competition, but i can't do anything that dainty/precise............
I had a commission to do a double portrait of some London friends, they have moved again now after about 15 years being shining lights of the village - whether the community wanted them to shine so brightly was never asked. E soon ran the WI, local Hospice etc, and L chaired everything else.
I am entering their piece as a Suffolk Treasure [at least it made me finish it]- the county is ful of in-comers throwing themselves into their new life with a vengence,and they are a new kind of treasure.
I suspect most of the treasure themes will be based on Sutton Hoo, Constable and general rural beauty, so hopefully my interpretation will nor be able to be compared, and found wanting.
I am putting in two little fabric figures, which I learnt to do at a Guild workshop as well as the bloody Arches which hopefully someone will take home with them.

flower time

Woopie doo, summer!
Pity about the migraine..............

books

We have a new library van; it trundles up every two weeks for those poor souls too whatever to make the six miles into town [main library]. After many years of grumbling the library folk have extracted a digit and mixed the books around a bit, plus some new ones, so I came away with six to defend me from myself.
Picked up the newish David Peace about Brian Clough, first one to get it out - not surprising as most clambering onto the van are even older and greyer than me.
I picked half a dozen books, probably mostly rubbish.......now that's not a nice thing to say about words that some poor tortured mind has bled over. I would love to write a novel, but when I have read a really good one, polished off in a few days and go on to the next it hardly seems respectful to the author. At least my stitchings hang around longer - literally.
I am reading a brilliant one today, Denise Mina's "Still Midnight" I wasn't convinced at first [I have avoided her previous ones as too miserable] - but this one is very well observed and gathers speed as it goes. Even a smile now and then.

flutterbies

Many, many Painted Ladies by the seaside. Tried to capture them on camera, but they are very fluttery.

beside the sea

A sunny day

So we went to the sea-side.

School holidays, so we, and the crabs, were not alone. Next week is the World Champion Crab Catching Contest.

Given the untrustworthy habits of the weather roofs are coming off all round and being replaced, this was a rather attractive version, I have not seen the reeds waving from the ridge before.
We had a lovely couple of days, tho with all the healthy sea air and walks Hattie the Dog and I needed an afternoon nap. Then of course I was awake and reading till 4 a.m. having mucked up my body clock. Hattie seemed to cope OK with sleeping whenever required.

The clear colours of the salt marshes and the sea and the blue blue sky............shame about the nuclear power station just along the coast. There it is lurking on the horizon, they are talking of building a newer sparklier one next door. No use complaining as the French have them all along the coast only 20 odd wet miles away.
Why we can't have wind turbines and even wave machines machines instead.
At the mo there are wind turbine makers who have taken their factory hostage to stop it being closed down, the only joint that makes them in this country.
Fortunately the Dutch seem to have got the idea, the country could practically take off like a helicopter squadron - so maybe we can buy some from them, eventually.
No good having a small one on this windy hill, the chimneys are too rickety.
We could do solar panels but RP is slow to invest in change (and kerfuffle] and I am too lazy to persuade him. Should really; neighbours have and say it keeps the water at a warm temperature so it costs less to heat to hot when necessary, thus saving money and the world.

forecast

Sometimes it is sunny

and the garden grows

but into each life a little rain must fall, usually when hattie and I are trying to take a walk.