chillside

Hockers

2012-02-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

Still got the same snow, no more no less. Gets very boring tramping across the church yard to the car at the top of the hill. Had to move it from outside the house as the Lane is icy and ungritted. Unlike my teeth, it is so cold.

Heating keeps cutting out; drains blocked and had to pay the man and his rods £126 to free us.

Went up to London on Thursday to see the Hockney exhibition. Strange smell of candle wax throughout. Many many pictures of trees, painted "en plein air" at least three huge rooms full, Yorkshire trees, like looking out of a car window and seeing the trees go by.

The smaller water colours of farm land were quite good, nice light and sense of tranquility, maybe 20 or 30 of them; easy to see, exhibition wasn't crowded which was a surprise.

Lots of oil paintings, thick rather ugly daubs in lots of cases, wouldn't have passed muster at the local art group exhibition. Horrible glaring green.

Then there were the iPad pics, 52 of them, all beautifully blown up and mounted around one complete room, the changing seasons. Sunshine seems to suit him best, the shadows bought the pictures alive, the rest were ugly.

Then he retreated to a huge studio and did some from his imagination [based on years of study] these are the huge ones you see on the posters in California colours. Really much more attractive than i thought they would be

So - a varied response, plus an irresistible urge to get an iPad and have a go!

Up up & away

2012-02-05T03:15:00.000-08:00

Snow arrived last night, should get wellies on and crunch out for a walk but can't bring myself to do it.

Have five jumpers on, in various thicknesses - and that's indoors, plus woolly tights and socks and the felt bootees daughter made me.

Daisy remains dressed as always and quite relaxed.

Finally bought tickets for the Hockney. R.A. suddenly opened the box office again and everyone piled in, mostly getting the dates and times they asked for, so they must have kept plenty back.

Ha, Pakistan finally all out for 3 million or something close. Doubtless England will score at least 3 in reply.

Led a good workshop [which I read in a magazine] where we take a source pic, place it below bondaweb and draw through, then turn over, paint pic on gluey side and then iron onto fabric. Worked pretty well, means I can transfer sketches quite simply, maybe.

Have lots of 10 min "gesture" sketches from the dreaded Life Drawing classes so am hoping to play with some of those..............actually have about 4 pieces of stitching work started plus proposal forming for my OU chapters and a 4,500 word short story.................feel quite unusually positive about it all, so obviously beginning to wonder if I am becoming bi-polar.

I am reading Pure by ? [won the Costa], about Paris in the 17th century when it was decided to empty les Invalides cemetery in the city [which over the years had grown and engulfed it] and having sorted the bones and bodies of the centuries, which were polluting the air, move them away. Weird flat story telling quite mesmeric but perhaps I shouldn't read it at night.I am hoping to get the new Leonard Cohen, but in the meantime got his "I'm your man" CD as only had it on cassette. The man is a genius.

add 1 drowner but she will be waving soon

2012-02-02T07:25:00.000-08:00

Nearly done, just have to redo printing and make all tidy.

working on the women

2012-01-28T02:59:00.000-08:00

Still working on my Waving or Drowning and have started on Monstreous Regiment of Women. That's the original spelling of the quote but may just be too tricksy ..........or peeps will enjoy correcting me .

I think sing and Shout Every Day may be finsihed but don't know how to mount it, as usual it is a funny shape ie long.

time for sons

2012-01-26T02:39:00.000-08:00

Son sent me this image of these Big Bottomed Ladies from long ago, dug up in France.

Happy occurrence all round. Son doesn't find it easy to relate to his stitchey old ma, unlike Daughter with whom many chats and discussions are possible.

Son's father was an archaeologist, we spent many a summer in a caravan on a dig, son and daughter gathering shards of pottery and bone, laying them out on a plank in an attempt to sell them to visitors.
Somewhere there is a pic of Son sat on his potty in front of the Finds Hut. Mother was inside preferring to clean mud from finds rather than from Son's nether regions.
The photo was pre-computer so he may be saved from further exposure; at the time he was very exposed to a wind that seemed to blow straight from Siberia onto the Welsh coast. Have no idea of the geographical veracity of that statement, and could care less.

Son is fast approaching 40 now and looks somewhat like father, including the cigarette.
Of course we would have more to talk about if he collaborated with some lass and produced g'children.
Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

back from hols

2012-01-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Cold but sunny, so a good week on North Norfolk coast. Missed Hattie tho; lots of dog walkers on the beach, no poo restrictions, a village full of dog walkers grinning behind their hats and scarves.

Having no doggy friend of our own we concentrated on staying upright in the wind looking for mermaid's purses and stones with holes in them.

Miles of sand and dunes, blue skies and flashing waves. The seals were gathered on the rocks as they were having thier babies and baby seals aren't water proof so mums and dads have to loll about in the sun waiting for them.

Village pub did huge meals with piles of chips, but

Fortunately all the beach combing seems to have kept the weight gain down to manageable proportions.

blue

2012-01-09T14:56:00.001-08:00

Just coming down from mild hysteria, as I went to my first Life Drawing class for several centuries. I felt far more exposed than the model, I was so inadequate.

It was a small group arranged in a studio just down the hill. I have been moaning I should brush up my life drawing for ages, but every class I could find was on the wrong day, or too far away, or whatever excuse I could come up with.

Then I found one had been set up within 10 mins wander.

If I didn't sign up I would have to have wimp tattooed on my forehead.

Annabel was the artist mentoring, she is big and noisy and does some quite enjoyable paintings. These are two of hers, the second possibly expresses her personality more.

There are about 7 or 8 in the group, I was too nervous to count accurately. We started with 1 minute sketches, worked up to 5 mins and ended on 20 mins.

It was exhilarating to be drawing again and torture to be doing it so badly.

Everyone else drew big and bold, I was tight and small.

Annabel has a special pencil thingy called a clutch pencil which has a great big thick carbon lead, so I came straight home and ordered one. Pathetic.

Our model was a rather fine woman called Blue [yes Blue] she was very good at posing in interesting ways. She looked very strong and "noble".

Good to draw if only I could remember how.

shock & awe

2012-01-07T07:02:00.000-08:00

Quite an eventful few days, starting with me machining [sewing] thru my my left hand middle finger. Shock and awe, rather than pain. Turned the wheel and pulled it out, followed [more like a bad joke] by the thread still threaded thru my finger. Happily I just missed my finger nail so clenched teeth and plasters, + hot sweet tea were all that was required.

My advice - don't try this at home.

Finally got to see the Gorgeous G'son, via Skype, he is growing up so fast. Daughter starts as a classroom assistant at a posh private kindergarten next week, GG starts in the tinies class. Last week they had a preview, daughter got on OK, only briefly distracted by flash out of corner of her eye of GG racing across the hall pursued by hapless tinies class teacher.

Fingers crossed that they both settle.

Went to my first two stitching groups of the new year and both were very convivial, Xmas spirit still surviving apparently, even I was cheery.

Did some printing making a stencil with plastic stuff ironed onto silk organza, using the result as a kind of screen print. Quite mucky, but got a result, as did we all, so good start to year.

Windiness has meant loss of electricity for friends; a tree down from our garden, into the lane below, for us.

Latter was alarming as RP entered from the wind, rain and darkness with the information and the look in his eye that he expected help.

Once I would have revelled proving I am as strong and able as any gent but I am an old girl now and we have our pensions to pay unemployed youngsters to do for me. However it seems he was concerned someone would imminently drive into it. What are headlights supposed to be for.

Snarky words ensued. I compromised by using my bad temper to stamp off the ivy clad branches and tugging out of the way. IMO the trunk was neatly aligned by the side of the lane and could wait till morning. RP felt as a good citizen he should tug it up the lane onto a grassy bit.

I left him to it.

Decided my rage was probably misplaced and would not cover me with glory so held my tongue about whatever it was that had upset me.

Silence often speaks loudly, even shouts.

getting a handle on it

2012-01-03T04:25:00.000-08:00

Gertie decides she wants to go out. Not this time the handle is stiff, but she breaks into our bedroom repeatedly

Out and about

2012-01-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if this will frighten the horses, however this is the result of an horrifically social week culminating in several gin and tonics.

Xmas was quiet, just me, him, mother, 2 cats, Miss Haversham [our Xmas tree drooping with fading garlands in the corner] and a large turkey.

The in-laws Diamond Wedding anniversary was ..........decorous, contained, respectable, mediocre food and forced chat. I could go on, but brother and sister in law did that ...went on endlessly, so i won't.Did you know you get a card from the Queen for your 60th anniversary, with a picture of the Queen on it and special instructions to the post man.?

New Years Eve was cheerier; we had a meal with friends on a gun boat in the harbour. It was built in Bruges in 1898, was interned in the First World War; sunk and seized by the Germans in WW2 in 1940, recovered and returned to Antwerp and became a hospital ship in the 50s...not sure which war, Korean? and then in the 70s fitted out as a "party ship". Rather degrading but maybe it enjoyed a bit of frippery.

Now it is a French restaurant.

crimble crumble

2011-12-27T05:50:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas wasn't quite this jolly, tho it has the right number of contestants.

Ma sat stolidly in our new armchair for two days[not that anyone would notice as it was draped in the same scarlet fabric, but I knew that if it slipped it would no longer reveal dirty, worn arms.] Took 4 months to arrive, one would think, that needing the business, firms would get their hammer and nails out pronto, but no.

K [from Denmark] gave me some prints of some Danish? dancing ladies [maybe a calendar originally] which really tickled me so I have started making these, only hand sized .....actually more difficult than I thought to get something zingy. Dunno what to do with them, maybe make cards, maybe make a dancey pic a la Beryl Cook.

No Book Tokens so far! Outrageous. Ma decided she was down with the kids, and I wouldn't need them now I have a Kindle. Not true, a book is a book is a book. A Kindle is a convenience.

Son and daughter however were pleased with theirs and we got several extra phone calls as they fought to set them up. Daunting Daughter then complained she was up till 2.30 a.m. reading her first download Val McDermid.

RP knowing me better bought me the new Belinda Bauer in Hard back [at full price, there's dedication] which I am romping thru, wanting to go slower but also wanting to reach the denouement. Was reading Camomile Lawn as I have Mary Wesley's biography; it's a strange collision of the refreshingly but ultimately rather repetitious sex scenes, an un-nerving variety of couplings amongst somewhat priviledged the young people during WW2. Didn't see the TV series.

MW started late into authorship so maybe I should be encouraged. I have to write the outline and beginnings of a novel for my Open University................oh dear. It's like opening the gate onto a huge empty field and thinking which blade of grass do I need to pick. Or I can do a half hour film script/stage play. same problem tho.

Maybe as I get older I have lost the strength of belief./opinion/something. I would quite like to write a scenario involving an irascible old woman, Stephanie Plum's grandma, a grouchier Miss Marple..........dunno.

Have to go to Diamond wedding celebration of the in-laws this week, with associated family. That should mean I return twisted lipped with all the words I couldn't say marinating in bile. Mount that horse and ride it ............

cat trix

2011-12-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

Still besotted with the cats.

Gertie has a fairly amazing trick where she jumps up at a closed door handle [horizontal bar shape] and clings on till her weight pulls the handle down and the door opens

Wish we could catch her at it for YouTube but she chooses her times. Last time was opening the bedroom door at 5 a.m. this morning.

Daisy's only oddity, so far, is that she runs into the bathroom whenever I am on the loo and sits purring on my lap.

Got to go and do the veggie shopping tomorrow, doubtless the shops will be very busy as folks seem to panic and act as if they have to stock up for a siege, where actually the shops hardly shut at all.

Turkey is waiting for us until Saturday at the village butchers.

Bought a cheap reprint ppb of a Jonathon Kellerman,- The Web - at the Co-op, goodness knows where they get them from. It was only £1.99; not much cop IMO, so possibly overpriced after all.

Also chose new Belinda Baeur [that doesn't look right] as a pressi when I wandered into Waterstones [some kind of magnetic field Hadron Collider should investigate]wrapped now so can't check. Her last two were excellent, so couldn't resist, which was silly as I can smell Xmas Book Tokens coming my way. Going to need a good book to get me thru.

Walked by river today, sunny and mild and many oyster catchers and redshanks and curlews and LBJs to keep us company. Can't take a cat for a walk, which is just as well for birds, Gert and Daisy still gnash their teeth daily at the window at all feathered friends. So far they have only caught spiders in the bathroom, which is very laudable .

why

2011-12-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

I guess because I have always drawn women, even when I was a kid, then as a teenager taught myself to draw the very skinny clothes horse types with high heels and pencil straight skirts.

Now I mostly want to avoid the stereotype of the celebrity aspirational, the thin but sexily curved image that isn't real. Most women by that standard are "fat" and so my women are everywoman, they resist judgement because they revel in their female shape, even if they are sad sometimes. But mostly they celebrate.

Sometimes especially when I work in clay I find myself making thin fragile women but I think they represent early puberty to me, and when I come to think of it old women in my mind are also skinny usually, maybe with a tummy, so I guess to me us fat women are strong women.

And sometimes I do flowers!

waving mostly

2011-12-16T03:06:00.000-08:00

Cold and wet outside, a bit of snow mixed in but nothing to make it pretty yet. We have a full compliment of oil and coal for heating and did a big shop yesterday. I have three jumpers on, the cats are sitting as close to the radiator as they can physically achieve without actually being on top.

I have been working on another Dancers piece, am a bit stuck at the mo as to how to proceed, thus various false starts or Samples as we call them in the trade/profession. NB The multi dancers piece is about a dozen times bigger than the next one. This is the smallest one [pin size is a clue].

I am thinking along the lines of Waving not Drowning..........

Christopher Hitchens has died, he gets two ticks on my mental lists of those who go before me- cancer and old age. A very irritating curmudgeon but always engaging. Him being a celeb I have "seen" him infrequently, lately in a mag article still arguefying and then suddenly he is gone.

Better get on with my ladies while I have time. Strangely knowing this I waste oodles of time, watching the gog, reading books [just read an excellent one by Tana French] and am really pleased when trying to write my script for homework that I have eaten up another hour without noticing it.

I guess it is the empty times when I am bored or brooding I am trying to avoid; always pushing myself along. Definitely faulty potty training. Glorious Grandson is 3 and still resisting, goodness knows how that will turn out.

priorities

2011-12-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

Xmas - again. Not much to look forward to really, just more life [hopefully and which can't be bad, I am grateful, honest] but no Daunting Daughter, Gorgeous Grandson or Cycling Son. Just him indoors, me and mother. Plus the cats of course. We have opened the cat flaps now, but so far they have taken one look at the outside world and declined. They would rather sit in the window and continue to promise the birds what they will do to them - one day. Loudly and with much tail twitching and teeth chattering.

Gerti has discovered Fire.

I have down loaded the pattern for the jumper Sarah wears in the Killing, as I have actually finished my Jayne Hat on same mysterious knit in circles needles [shorter ones]. Obviously it is too big as the pattern was for a pin head, so I added some stitches, then some more, maybe too many. I know I can undo and knit up again as it takes very little time, and even at my age I have some time to spare. But, I can't make myself frog it, note technical term learnt from Heidi.

It does suggest tho, that if I attempt Sophie's jumper it will not end up the right size, as usual...............and I do have other things to cock up first.

fight/flight club

2011-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

Had my last social engagement [Xmas lunch with SLAPPERS] today, no outside jollies for a month, so no excuses about getting some work done.

We had roast pork at Jimmies Rare Breed Farm, poor piggies looked very happy in the fields, little did they know. Hopefully.

No I remember now we have one more engagement, supper out with P&R, very festive.

After that it is just him, me and mother; plus the beautiful cats, as long as when we let them out tomorrow, for the first time, they return to base..

This is a piece being worked by friend Ruth, based on Kew. If you enlarge you can see the excellent design. Sadly she wants to cover this with a transparent layer with embroidered flowers.

I am fighting her tooth and nail.

Have been struggling with my script for the next Open University assignment, each time I come back to it I tweak, probably I should blitz and start again. It is due in after Xmas, but I am aiming to get it done before as it would be nice for no-one if I was still whittling about it. Xmas celebrations may provide me with Pinteresque plot I suppose.

I am working on my sketch of dancing? woman. I have cut a printing block and done various bits of her which now have to come together, but obviously I am fighting tooth and nail with that too.

It was extremely windy oop North yesterday apparently........165 mile an hour gusts, [ on top of Ben Whatsit] not much down here, tho the river was over the road in three places when I tried to drive off the peninsula to piggy heaven this morning.

Many birds when the tide goes out, always lots of oyster catchers, geese, ducks, a heron and cormorant or two but now there are zillions of little dunlins, or knots or plovers -whatever, little tiny brown jobs anyway.

They look like scatterings of little white bellied pebbles on the sand till they all rise together and fly in a twinkling cloud two yards further down the river. Easy to love the world we live in when I see such sights.

Sadly it is all Euro crash and save the Libraries/NHS/ anything worth while and all is doomed.

Merry Xmas all.

knitted brows

2011-12-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Serendipitous Opportunknitty blogged that she is making Jayne hats, apparently featured in a SF series Firefly, haven't seen that but am taken with hat so this may solve my need to "knit" as it descends each winter. I did explore the possibility of knitting Sofie's jumper from The Killing as featured in Radio Times. However the wool comes from Denmark and goes round long circular needles, no can't be doing with it.

Hat also needs circular needles but I have hopes...............
Ma knitted this helmet for the Gorgeous Grandson for his third birthday which the Daunting daughter believes may stay on his head longer than usual as it fits under and round his chin and neck.
His waistcoat is my knitting contribution which will probably only appear on this occasion no matter how much she says s/he likes it, but it is the thought that counts. Ma also knitted him some squares which I made up into a kind of tabard. DD found this hilarious. Can't please everyone.

I am now lusting for knitting wool, I Need it, but enough to drive into town........................?

under whelming

2011-11-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

After young Grayson I tootled along to the Tate Modern to see the Tacita Dean installation in the Turbine Hall. It was a lovely day, sun shing, crisp and bright, river all ashimmer, however I had been tootling for some hours and rapidly running out of steam.

Finally took my courage to the sticking point and hailed a taxi so that I would get back to the station on time for train.

I guess it was the right thing to do as I would probably have washed up in the next tide if I had tried to walk back to Embankment Tube station, but even tho there are bus/taxi lanes there are also Road Works, cost me £15 to sit in the middle of them for what seemed like hours.

Finally jumped out and ran the last 50 yards.

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman[&woman]

2011-11-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

Left the cold and misty river to struggle up to London on Network Express.

A great massing of gents in black coats with lap top bags and a coffee.

Being unpractised these days I sat in a nicley empty seat pointing the right way only to be turfed out as it was ticketed as booked.

Ended up at a table for four, two of which discussed office politics all the way as I sat muttering to myself with my back to the engine.

Arrived on time however, but Ruth assumed I would be late and went looking for me outside the British Museum, while I rotated inside looking for her. We never did meet up. She hadn't my mobile no. and couldn't hear her own!

However Grayson was well worth it. The collection of BM artifacts, placed with his own responses made me see everything with shock and awe. Much the best kind. I have been trying to add Brian Sewells review which says exactly the opposite and so astringently. I half agree with him and am half besotted with the exhibition.

two beauties

2011-11-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

The cats have landed. So great having them around. They have been fostered, very caringly for about 6 months we were told, nobody wanted to take two cats together. The foster mum had two big boys of her own who will be relieved to see them go, it took me some time to realise she meant two tom cats.

She is deeply into cats, said she had to move from one house when her previous cat died, she just couldn't stay.

Her husband is Spanish, so presumably thinks it is an English affliction.

She claimed our new babes didn't really seem to know their names [Immi was short for Imogen she thought] but I have taken the liberty of re-naming them Gert and Daisy.

They were two comedians during and after the WWII, that I presume I remember from Workers' Play Time, a dread comedy show on the wireless when I was a kid. They were played by Elsie and Doris Waters, sisters to Dixon of Dock Green.

Daisy is the big beautiful black and white one, Gerti is the slinky beautiful tortoiseshell.

So far [day 2] they have explored the house but are a bit nervous of eating, either that or they disapprove of my choice of cat food.

They do eat it at night, I suspect Daisy has first dibs.

Cooing these names at them at every opportunity seems to be working, already they come when called, and so far it hasn't driven RP mad.

They do seem to like walking on my key board, sleeping on my stitching and last night one of them must have walked over RP's switch board and turned all his computers off. Energy saving too!

2011-11-19T03:36:00.000-08:00

The cat woman came today, from Cat Protection League, to check us out as future cat owners. apparently we passed and hopefully can pick these two up on Monday.

We picked them out because their pics looked so delicious and their back story intriguing. Ebony [the long haired 1 year old] has lived all her life with Ibbi 2yr old [?] the strangely marked one in an upstairs apartment.

As usual when the new baby appears it disjoints the family arrangements and these two were turfed out.

Immi is somewhat opinionated, [bites] so they have been in foster care for some time as the League of Cat People didn't want to split them.

I reckon they are lesbians and Immi is obviously the butch one. What on earth can Immi be short for?

We will have to keep them in for a while and then introduce them to the idea of a cat flap.........and the two dogs that live next door, and the bossy cat that lives below the bank. He has become very smug since Agamemnon left him the extra territory to strut around in.

Still no sign of a puppy, we have been drifting, making a change seems more and more distanced and I guess we are getting used to having the freedom to go out without a backward glance. But coming back to an empty house is horrid.

Once I looked at these two however the whole enterprise seemed possible and I am now very impatient for their arrival on Monday. [ Foster mum is away over the w/e]

Cat woman kept saying well if you don't like the look of them we have others, in a worried way, so i don't know what she fears, but we are firm.

Can't play Goddess with these things, have to take whatever turns up.

Fiber Futures: Japan's Textile Pioneers

2011-11-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

Try clicking on title below to see the video of Japanese contemporary work, a bit different from what we do round here.
However in the main it doesn't excite moi, beautiful but ?soulless...........or at least doesn't connect with my soul. Great to have as part of the jolly old pantheon tho.

Fiber Futures: Japan's Textile Pioneers

looking for inspiration

2011-11-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

I was at a workshop with my SLAPPER pals [Stitchers Lacemakers and Patchworkers Practise Embroidery Regularly] where we used ......I was going to say pesto but that's not right, Gesso that's it. Painted on fabric then when dry roller other paints/dyes etc lightly over it so it shows thru, and generally over lay and print up a fabric until it is ready to be finished with some stitch.

Now I have several lovely lengths of cottons all ready for action, but can't think what to do that isn't facile.

Think this might be a Gauguin print, that I took a pic from at some point to stimulate a birth of a design thought.

I don't think I can get away with something quite like Gauguin's but maybe more like this one from the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille.

French trippers

2011-11-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

To try and celebrate/forget the fact that I am another year older we caught a Euro star from Kings Cross to Lille.

Closer than Findhorn C!

Done Paris a few times, most people shocked that we should reject a return visit for a provincial town in the Nord, but we thought that the train goes there, it must be OK.

I don't like going underground and even worse under the Channel [very dark out there] but it is quite quick and I had my kindle.

I had downloaded the new Connelly, PD James and Lee Child. It can be deduced that I didn't sleep well on French pillows as I came home 4 days later having read them all. Wasn't "thrilled" by any of them but they did pass the time.

The hotel had been built in the seventeenth century as a convent for the Minimes order, quite a rigorous group who may be somewhat surprised by the luxury of their accommodation now the cloisters have been covered with a glass roof and a piano bar and restaurant inserted.

We took the Metro to Le Palais Des Beaux Arts, and were amused by the cocktail lights twinkling in the ceilings but not so much by the huge Broken Glass chandeliers, very lumpy shapes.

I did have my birthday money burning a hole in my pochette, but French shops are Very Expensive. I took one euro as one pound which isn't quite right [specially in these Crunch times] but served for me, as I am in-numerate. Many of the shops were the same as in London, if more sparkly clean, but the prices were often twice as much.

So I returned home mostly still clutching.

Bought the new J Grisham at Liverpool St, cheaper in hardback than Kindle!

The trains from Liverpool St station had been in total disarray all day, but had largely been sorted so we arrived home only 10 mins late.

alchemy

2011-11-03T10:14:00.000-07:00

K gave me a jar filled with walnut .....what are they called, not the shells, the green outer fruit type covering. Anyway if soaked, boiled and strained thru muslin they are supposed to make walnut ink, like the monks used.

I looked up some recipes on the webby [not surprised to find what I needed, the surprise would come from not finding the info] and set to.

One is supposed to throw in some rusty iron, vinegar and some gum arabic. Had to do without the latter.

I let it boil away for some hours, giving the very smelly potion a suspicious poke every now and again. It smelt a bit like when I used to boil up lights for the puppy dog until RP [he was Working Person then] threatened to leave home.

Eventually I got bored and sieved it thru a square of RP's precious wine making muslin. Being a textile artiste I have plenty of muslin lying about, but he had to buy his own, so i thought I would make use of it too.

The result is a half jar of dark brown fairly translucent liquid, that paints paper in a golden brown. Not really dark enough for monks, but probably useful to me on paper and fabrics, and quite good fun. I could have boiled it further to render it down more, but am going to see if I need to after having used it.......for something.

Maybe these old world recipes will come in useful when the Euro collapses, America bombs Iran and the "deadly flu virus" has swept thru.

stitching

2011-10-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

At one of my stitching groups we did a workshop between us on how to make a vessel, this is Textile Artist speak for a container.

I started this one by sticking parcel tape round a small space hopper. Other more sensible people chose smaller objects to work on. Once the object is securely covered we had to cut it off the base in 2 halves and then stick them back together.

On this shiny brown bandaging we then glued tissue, lace and fabric. Perhaps over aspirational we attempted to make it quite fragile and maybe see thru in places.

Next we cut it off the parcel tape in 2 sections

My mistake was to join these 2 halves and then try to stitch, battering the poor sphere horribly, would have been easier to stitch before joining them.

There is still stitching to do but only when I am feeling patient and gentle.

I would like to make a Grayson Perry like pot with appropriately contemporary comments and pics on it.

I hope to go and see his show at the British Museum soon maybe that will give me the impetus..

I am also doodling with this Woman under a Waterfall and when Ma visits I add a few flowers to the garden to deflect me from matricide.

plots & nots

2011-10-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

It hailed today, very heavily.
As I hear it Bangkok and Dublin have been flooded, not two cities that have much else in common, I would have thought.
Retired Person is quite happy as the garden needed watering, but he would prefer if his potter down for his evening pint was in the dry. This exercise used to include Hattie the dog, now he plods bravely down the hill on his own.
We are going to France on the Euro Star for a birthday outing soon and when we get back there will be a serious search for a puppy and kitten.
Just read the new Ian Rankin, quite good, probably better than the previous book; down loaded it for half price onto the Kindle, at least it won't have to balance precariously on the book shelves for ever after. I am supposed to be distributing extraneous books around town but don't seem to get round to it somehow.
I see they are going to do the Million Book Give Away again. I suppose it is a good idea, except I seem to have read most of them, and so have the people I know.
Apparently they asked Harper Lee for permission to set her book free, as it won top of the vote, however she didn't reply. They put it down to her old age, 85. Hmmmm I guess some 85ers are older than others. My mother at 90+ would have replied in an instant, and at length, to any query.

Instead they are using Jane Austen's P&P, presumably they didn't use a Ouija board to ask permission.

Had a visit from D this week, she used to clean our house weekly, until she slipped into clinical depression. See what too much housework does to you. I maintain unhealthy chaos with the occasional dusting just to maintain my own health.

D disappeared into the NHS after some months refusing to leave the house or brush her hair.

They took her away, were patient for 6 weeks then gave her a bath and cut her matted hair off. She is a stubborn woman however and spent some months refusing to respond.

So nothing for it but ECT. Gulp.

She told me cheerily that it was all to no avail, but on the 18th [!] shock session her mind started to clear. Of course her memory isn't so good.

They continue to plug her in, but she is now allowed home on leave

Listening to someone being jolly about their anguish, at length, is not easy, in fact it is totally distressing.

More difficult for D, no doubt.

travels with my daughter

2011-10-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Daughter has beaten the monsoon dampening Bangkok and returned home to drier Nevada.

She says there were few visitors this time of year so she got to go on the trips solo with just a guide, and thus ended up driving the elephant from the front seat.

She climbed over 2000 tall stone steps to greet the Buddha above the city.

Bangkok is apparently dirty, hot and humid, and has too many pasty faced Europeans sporting beautiful young Thai women on their arms.

Most of the city was under water, but the bit she was staying on was frequented by bankers and such who had the high ground, to keep their feet dry. No change there then.

The islands and the people outside Bangers were lovely however and friendly. probably i will never be able to verify, long haul - not tempted.

Chain Reaction strikes again

2011-10-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is the Hat of sighs, made by my clever friend Frances and stitched with worries by moi. I have put it in the exhibition with a copy of Elizabeth Parker's sampler [in the V&A] She was a maid in the 19th century I think, to a household in Fairlight [near my lovely Hastings] and was assaulted by the master.....it would seems. She didn't know what to do, felt guilty in the way that victims can do and thought she would go to hell.

Frances made the hat and I stitched phrases round it [easy bit], as if they were buzzing her head. Don't ask what, I have forgotten and now I can't read them on the photo. Apparently the local paper has picked up on the show so maybe Elizabeth will make it into the news. Poor lass.

I love this vessel Carol made, why didn't I think of it!

We have had good remarks so far for the show, so fingers crossed we all make a fortune

exotic aromas

2011-10-10T10:27:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I went to the Knit and Stitch show at Alexander palace, three Huge Halls filled to the gunnels with knitters and stitchers. A bitterly cold morning became tropical as we grazed around munching on the exotics on show and transferred much dosh to the stall holders in exchange for fripperies and other urgently needed magic potions.

Some lovely work on exhibition to marvel at. Beryl Dean's ecclesiastical gold work was by turns amazing and traditional. We were forbidden to photo but the piece I liked best [above] was a poster of her work from some august cathedral or other so I could snap it.

Gwen Hedley

has been making series of these strange little votive offerings for some time. They had all sold before I got to them, £20 - £30 each, I am not surprised. They are 3" _ 4" maybe long and I reckon could be worn also as brooches. I suspect they are more difficult to make successfully than one would think. Of course they are donated gravitas by being displayed on a wall amongst other Art, context is so influential when ever it may be a case of the emperor's new clothes.

I was also very taken with these two long hangings of textured patches of old? fabrics, about six foot long each, somehow they were very resonant of something subtle. dunno that one could buy one to hang in the home somehow. Maybe they need to be shown only on Gallery walls. Or maybe I haven't got a big enough house..........or maybe I don't live in a subtle enough way.

Anyway it did me good to get away from Death Row for a day, tho unhappily there is still an aroma of dying cat around, and not in a subtle way.

death row

2011-10-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Feeling miserable as Agamemnon [left] has gone to join Bubble in that big cat heaven in the sky. She won't be too pleased as her big brother did bully her rather.
He hasn't been eating well, and last week he stopped altogether, we waited for nature to take its course but nature wasn't feeling compassionate so we took him to the vet this afternoon, who of course pronounced - cancer.
I am sick of holding beloved animals whilst they go to their last sleep.
We have a row down the hedge of 4 cats and 2 dogs with Clara the chicken safely ensconced on the other side of the garden.

textile show

2011-10-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Gaiety Girls are prancing at Dragon Hall in Norfolk. I stewarded on Sunday, one of those hot days that no-one in their senses would want to be inside, so we didn't have many visitors. At least I got a lot of uninterrupted stitching done.

sea trip

2011-09-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

Went for a wander along the sea wall in this glorious very late summer, but found the bureaucrats had got there before us with their signs. Goodness knows what they are doing and of course it is top secret. The solitary egret was there as usual. Some day s/he is going to have to find a partner.

As we wandered back we saw the ferry from Harwich was just about to dock. This is probably the last chance to gain a tick in the box, as it had been a plan to venture onto the high seas and get some fish and chips at the posh place over the river, at least once this year, so we toddled along.

Just as well as this was their last w/e, but seeing how the sun is going bananas I reckon they may grant themselves an extension this w/e.
Of course everyone and their kids were out and about so we couldn't get on, they took one pay load over and came back for us 20 mins later. It is over 30 miles round the coast road to Harwich but not so long if you are a crow/sea gull. She's a rusty old bucket, but she does the job.

I am without a job at the mo. Delivered my Gaiety Girls to the Gallery so now I have no deadlines left this year to thrash me along.

Thus am rather bad tempered gazing at the television with no stitching to excuse my inaction,. obviously it is the fault of the media as most of the programmes are so inane I am bound to feel guilty sitting watching them. I have found a new author, which helps Hakon Nesser I think, tho it doesn't look very likely written down......he is a Norwegian and writes well. I have over dosed on crime stories lately but he is somehow more reflective and easier on my soul.

hurricane winds, crouching houses

2011-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

For the second week we have moved on to Port William on the south West coast of Galloway. On the way we passed the Wicker

Man [woman? s/he looks rather fey] fortunately for him/her no flames until next year.

We arrived in PW just in time for the tail end of Hurricane Katia

A very dramatic sea-scape at the bottom of the garden.

Apparently Scottish Electric turned off their wind turbines because they had more than enough electricity.

Happily the weather repented and has been kind ever since, sunny when we go out and peeing down when we are in. No wonder the hills are so green and lush, so many cows and sheep. only seen one pig however - plastic. Bacon rolls are still available however, which is helpful as eating out is more difficult round here..

Only one pub in the village, Retired Person bravely gave it a go but someone spoke to him, so he has his beer safely at home since then.

Home is one of those low, squatting, stone shoe-boxes linked along the winding roads, ubiquitous round here. Maybe it is the wind, thankfully this one has been extended out back, usually they look very small and ....grumpy.

The fishing boats were safe in the tiny harbour and were soon out again after the storm pulling in the orange buoys attached to lobster pots. We haven't eaten out in the village so I don't know if they are on the menu, maybe scampi and chips.
Wigtown is Scotland's National Book Town
There are 15 second hand book shops they claim, tho one sells just old [heritage] newspapers.

The Book Shop, confidently named, had a double stack of books as pillars at the entrance. But like The Creaking Shelves it didn't seem to be doing much business, the Shelves is selling up, but RP helped out by buying two airplane model kits there [to go above his model railway] so maybe they will survive a little longer.

Most of the book shops seemed to make most from their cafes, Readinglasses claimed to be the last specialist women's bookshop left in the UK.

Some how i couldn't bring myself to go in, I knew I wasn't going to buy anything from any of them. Waterstones and Amazon + the kindle have already taken my money.

Educating Arches

2011-09-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Andy Goldsworthy crops up as one blunders around the countryside, except when he proves to be Richard Long as I have got my artists in a tizz.

He was born round here [Dum and Gallers] and returned from triumphs to erect these strange arches. They are Striding Arches apparently and apart from this one anchored in a byre [but trying very hard to get in - or out] they are dotted around the hills.

We drove seven nerve shattering miles thru the forests on a day mercifully without rain or we might be stuck there still] up and down a rutted track. Felt like pioneers till we were passed by the post office van.

Somehow it was rather underwhelming, I am sure when they [students etc] were labouring mightily day after day to erect these things they felt deeply fulfilled. The arches are meant to represent how the Scots have always strided [striden?] out around the world, fearing no man, but altho the sand stone is skillfully cut, and the key stone expertly placed, the surrounding forest and terrifying journey to see them did seem more significant.

But there again I expect that is partly the point.

We also trundled round the by ways searching for the Twelve Apostles. Standing stones from pre-history.

When we finally found them lolling ignored in a sheep field, looking like a circle of very badly cared for broken and grey teeth, we wondered if the Scottish gods were having a laugh.........however as with everything -it was the journey that really counted.

dumfries and galloway

2011-09-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

The drive to Scotland last week was interminable, made possible only by listening to The Lollipop Shoes on ipod and an overnight stay in Harrogate.

The hotel was enormous and cheap, maybe because a Lady Gaga tribute act was going to thunder up thru the floors until midnight. Had my first Wagamama meal in this country - adventurous for oop north.

The cottage is an ancient stone barn, walls 24" thick but all refurbished in the "best possible taste" - oatmeal and eau de nil. Three bathrooms, but no baths, sad I like a good wallow on holiday. Just a few muddy steps down the bank flows the river Scaur, absolutely wondrous, tumbling Scottish waters leaping and jinking under ancient trees, beautiful.

The countryside is so beautiful, lush green hills, thanks to the rain, huge beeches and birches lining the roads, all mouldy and mossy, so serene. It was a wondrous week; I am attempting to make a textile diary of the gorgeousness, brought some inks and bags of threads and fabrics.

Also done a fair bit of reading, polished off several crime stories - Sophie Hannah kept me awake at night watching the door. very tense making.

Sue Townsend's Number Ten for light relief [Tony Blair in drag] and Snowdrops one of the Booker shortlisters. Very atmospheric but somewhat depressing.

Have also read from the short list The Sisters Brothers - good but got bogged down in the second half I think, and Derby Day [left off the short list] a well researched Victorian style who dunnit.

All except Sue were depressing, and really she was too when you consider TB and his antics, both in real and fictional life.

Started one by Lin Anderson but had to chuck it, nastiness, couldn't take it, wouldn't take it. She can bog off with Val Mcdermid, exploitative violence,and not well written either. have turned to an early Donna Leon for a gentle murder or two in Venice, much more enjoyable.

all at sea

2011-09-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

sea monsters

2011-08-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Not too much to report, summer doldrums. No earthquakes thus far.
The only one I felt was when I lived in Durham years ago and it shivered briefly at 3 .6 or something in the middle of a dark Northern night.
The earthquakes in the East of America do make me quake for my two offspring in the West, especially as one lives in a basement on top of the St Andreas Fault.
His birthday soon, what does one buy for an adult son with no hobbies except computers and pool and beer, too far to send a new cue and it might get arrested as an object likely to be hostile if waved.
I saw a duvet cover with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben design but I am not sure he has a duvet, just curls up with his cats and cans I suspect.
I have drawn a couple of sea horses.
After getting the shape from the net I inked and painted them on tracing paper so they were a bit translucent, maybe. Then printed them on cotton to add to a sea scape I have been toying with and stitched them down rigorously.
Sea horses are rather attractive little creatures so I am glad i thought of them and may make some cards as I have lots of extras
Youngest family member was also a fascinating water creature, drip drying, mother thought, while she went to get towels.
When she returned he had found all her creams and potions of which she has many and spread them far and wide.
I can't persuade daughter that just because it says "natural" on the pot if won't also be full of strange chemicals so she is constantly adding new pots of deep "goodness" which of course being young and beautiful she has no need of.
Now she will have fun replacing them all.

London town

2011-08-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Went up to London, for wetter for worse. Fortunately the worse happened after we had returned in the form of riot and loot.

As it was pouring with rain we abandoned the idea of a river trip up the Thames past Kew [a lovely peaceful ride in the sun] and pottered into the Royal Academy instead to see the Summer Show.

It claims two thirds of the work is by non Academicians, but the august person's works are so big and so tired it doesn't seem that way. Mostly the "other" work is shoved ceiling high in the smallest room with no natural light.

I only found one Textile - by Miranda Argyle. A metre square of beige linen stitched in thick cream silk with repetitions of the word HEARTBEAT. It was strange as I could see other words, HE, BEAT, ART, THE, EAR........dunno if this was intentional. I am drawn to text in my pieces but this may be years of teaching, maybe art should speak for itself.

Tracey Emin [RA] had a neon high on a tall wall, so I nearly missed it saying "I whisper to me past, do I have another choice" which I find evocative. Older I get the more I look at my past and my past looks back at me!

Cornelia Parker had "Endless Sugar"
hanging from the ceiling, many many silver plated sugar bowls squashed under the steam roller. A bit thought provoking, but not much [maybe old customs of polite society reduced to meaninglessness - plated silver a phony basis for respect].

I think contemporary art should haunt us, not just a quick wave in passing.

We got on the tube to our rackety hotel at Kew which is in a lovely little area, a little middle class enclave outside the walls of the Gardens - a small green, old residential houses, S*arbucks and an excellent Bookshop. Very comfortable.

The hotel is now gastro, so excellent food, but the rooms were cheaply "smartened up" some years ago and are now quietly falling apart. I slept not at all as I couldn't drag my feather pillow round London and none other will do.

Next day I met Ruth and we went to see Tracey. Outrageously enjoyable. Never realised her blankets are so Big. The whole of the Gallery was filled by her stuff, so I was glad to see it was a solid exhibition, if embarrassing at times. She dwells a lot on masturbation, lots of monoprint sketches and one huge screen that animates in rollicking fashion her legs as they leap and lunge as her hand works.

Really good stuff, but most of the guards are men and I found it difficult to ignore them as I gazed on theses female concerns and they gazed upon the women looking. I didn't mind the men looking at the exhibition, but the thought of the guards, there day after day, the exhilaration of her expression long since dimmed by habit watching the women come in and react.................

In the afternoon, which by now was very hot, we went to see the new British Library. A huge new structure, there was a Mervyn Peake exhibition and an internal glass tower of ancient books and other marvels.

Caught the train home, exhausted - apres moi la deluge - apparently.

eel and bird

2011-07-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

The weather has been so grey and my mind so dark RP decided the only way to save his sanity was to get me out into the fresh air. [Day before I spent the day lying on the bed listening to the cricket and growling.]

So we went to see the Suffolk Craft show, which was as ever very skilled and various. Sometimes I find something to buy to push the money I earn from my efforts round the circle a bit, but altho there was lots to admire - it was all big and expensive. No room.

So we toddled on to the Eels Foot pub for lunch. As I was feeling reckless I had 3 sausages, 2 eggs and chips.The Eel had a big boot for the inclement weather and I had socks in my crocs. So there. It's a fine old pub just before Minsmere bird sanctuary. for some unknown reason the weather decided to be kind so we pottered on amongst the reed beds.

We saw about 2 birds, possibly because it was mid afternoon and they were sleeping off their lunch. Or maybe the creepy golf ball that is Sizewell Nuclear Power Station, in the middle distance, deterred them.

holly

2011-07-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

Retired Person was foraging in the garden, trying to instill some order when he came across these holly berries. So attractive, but are there two different fruit on a holly?

Feeling prickly myself [pathetic link but I am in weakened form] as yesterday was one year before the Olympics apparently, ear to ear media coverage, and I am bored already. I am sure it will be exciting when it happens, but not yet!

Also the medical finger is now to be pursued by a camera next week, I feel a bit dizzy at the thought. Have to eat boiled fish and white bread for 2 days, and then drink 3 lites of salty type water. Pass the Valium.

I notice a proliferation of the Oxford comma amongst my words lately. I was always taught no comma before and, and but, but, an argument has erupted about this comma not known to me before, and now we are becoming friends.

Breaking news Someone has broken into the local museum and stolen the horn from Rosie the rhino. Strange. Not sure why we were home to a stuffed rhino in the first place, she did look very bored, as you would be if you were stuffed, as no doubt I am going to find out.

let joy be unconfined

2011-07-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

These are my Gaiety Girls for the next show in September. The exhibitions is called Concepts and Meanings so I have blathered on about Joy and togetherness. Goodness knows if they will be accepted.

I made them empty headed, feeling that when one is really joyous thoughts are not very coherent. Perhaps I should have called them Ecstasy [take that Spellchecker].

I am not in favour with the Great Panjandrum + committee that runs the group.

We have regional groups under the great ?umbrella and my group keeps suggesting we should also do smaller regional exhibitions, which we set up ourselves. This is not acceptable as we may not keep up "standards"

I have said before how much I hate committees and groups haven't I?

Well when they don't agree with me anyway.

I wanted to submit my "apologies to Tracey Emin" piece as it fits the title so well. However I showed it at a small village show a year ago and Everything in this next exhibition must be New.

I was so tempted to sneak it in, but the nervous energy I would expend worrying about being accused of deception decided me against it. Shame, I doubt it will fit in anywhere else in the area. The village were rather alarmed last time!

Why do some peeps revel in rules and some people hate them?

back to front

2011-07-18T03:34:00.000-07:00

I am stitching this for the next show, but discovered, as so often, that I preferred the back. Doubt the jury will however.

Stewarded all day on Saturday for the current exhibition, drove there in a storm, drove back in cloud bursts, bored all day. Maybe I should change my life.

Lots of bods came in from the rain, and we sold lots from the shop ["inspiration packs" and small items, but only good old Fossils and the Reflections piece pictured in earlier blog have sold so far from exhibition room.

Partly maybe from the pricing war members had, which has resulted in some works going [or not going actually] for £400 or £600
The venue is good but we are unknown, so unless there is an budding Audrey Walker or Alice Kettle amongst us i doubt we are worth collecting for big bucks.

There is still a lot of talk that each work took weeks to create, but it is not piece work, if we catch an individuals eye that's good. I was pleased to get £175, that's a lot for anyone to shell out.

I wouldn't have sold at all if I had more wall space, but then I am a smug retiree with a couple of pensions coming in to support my habits. As long as the country doesn't go broke of course.

If we were in London, or other big city, we could sell for more [have to with 100% commission] but a wet afternoon in Suffolk countryside, maybe not.

And maybe we have to be a bit more adventurous in our work, more aware of the zeitgeist..........

Some of the ex-Young British Artists have moved this way it seems, doubtless they can still bring in a small fortune for a video installation or melted plastic dolls but they are out of our league.

Maybe the reverse of my work is worth a small fortune!!

bummer

2011-07-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

These are some of the works at the exhibition and the other is a Hollyhock and bumbley that is all Nature's own. You can choose which you prefer. I have started a hollyhock piece, but it is a sad reflection and as for the bumbley I wouldn't even try..............

I go back to steward on Saturday so hopefully will get more pics.

Went to hospital today for a check up on why I have an ache in my bum, after what the doc did with her finger I now have a reason to complain. I suffered [a little] so I thought i would spread the pain!

The fun time that young Rupert M is suffering must also be a pain in his bum, and well deserved. Such larks!

country pleasures

2011-07-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

Sadly yesterday RP's car decided that it needed immediate medical attention, but being a thoughtful old car it declined near enough to the local garage to chug onto the forecourt, where it expired with a cough and an amber flashing oil light.
Leaving it in the warm oily embrace of the mechanics we had to decide how to get home.
Phone ma and get rescued, wait for the 2 hourly bus [due in about half an hour or so] ...........brightly I suggested we walk home.
We had come out for a walk after all.
Nearly three miles down a country road, lots of interest in the hedgerows, quite a few obliterated furry and feathered creatures. Death defying encounters with white vans, tractors, lorries .............
We just beat the bus to the outskirts of the village [late as usual] arriving home sweaty but unbowed.
Today we have an extra member of the family, Jpeg, a very enthusiastic black lab [is there any other kind?] to walk for a while. Her owners are off for a few days, so we are dog sitting. She is eight and built like a pile of bricks with gleaming little brown eyes peering out of her huge head looking for food. Any food, anybody's food.

Fossicking Fossils has sold, which is a bit of shock, especially as it is to another member of the textile group.

Somehow selling to someone I know still doesn't reassure me that it is of value. A total stranger being willing to pay for it is much more reassuring.

Still, this way i will be able to go and visit the piece at their posh cottage in Cley, as long as the sea erosion is kept at bay. [or in the bay].

chew the cud

2011-07-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Retired Person's birthday treat was to drive to Bedfordshire and join the queue to a Model Railway exhibition.
Lots of battered old figures safely in their boxes.

Makes a change from my stitcher groups, tho it did occur to me that it was somewhat the male version. We had booked into a 14th century coach house, expecting to be actually sleeping in some kind of motel annexe, but the room was so dark and small we gathered ourselves onto our hind legs and walked out. Very grown up.

Fortunately we found a brighter whiter hotel room in town and could stretch out and watch A Murray losing at the tennis.

The next day should have led us to a nice hotel and similar, but we had run out of chutzpah and eventually after hours trolling round country lanes found ourselves back home. I get so Bored just sitting there, Retired Person is quite happy as he is busy "doing" something [driving]. I am an ungrateful cow, but at least I am back in my barn.

Delivered my stuff to the meeting prior to exhibition. So boring and yet stressed at the same time. I was either sulking or getting shouted at for interrupting the co-ordinator. Guilty.

I quoted Nietzsche as "we hate the thing in others that we fear most in ourselves" which raised a laugh at least.

Read a smashing book this week [cheapo paperback - Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray. It was good to have something to read that was a bit more meaningful than my usual crime but it has left me a bit mournful.

Better not to think really. Trains and stitching, stay in the box where we are safe. Not shaken or stirred.

2011-07-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

Finished the Family Tree.

Looks Ok, a bit less like a lollipop.

I am going to hang it like this, i.e. with out any background. It is very light and hangs from a green gardening stick thingy attached across the back.

I stuck it all onto some craft vilene to give it a bit of gravitas, the kind of stuff used to give bags or belts some stiffness.

made by hand

2011-06-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Trundled up the A14 to see a small but perfectly formed exhibition of Patchwork City and Guild work. As you can see patchwork and stitching [embroidery] have moved so close together they are almost incestuous. A Quilt is defined by stitching together 2 or more layers and these days the stitching is probably the focus.

This heavy duty example was by Clive, one of the few men partaking, and highly valued as rare of the breed. He has an excellent eye and an adventurous style so he will go far, pursued by adoring acolytes no doubt

There were a couple of traditional quilts, which colourwise were very enjoyable. But the quilting fabrics are specially stocked to mix and match now, which has somehow taken the excitement out of finding materials that work well together.

Barbara produced this rather poetic vision of a forest. She was so delighted to have actually made a completed project, from a standing position. She had never really sewn before, and felt she had never really made anything before. So satisfying to see anyone with that glow of achievement.

This one was based on research into a brickyard I believe, and glowed with gorgeous colour.

This birdiewasn't anything special, just happy.

stitched up

2011-06-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

I am afraid the three fossicking fossil panels combined against me and are now one. Went and sawed off a bit of dead tree to hang them from [well Retired Person did the manly work]. There were three dead elms down by the river, bleached white and bark-less by the wind, but we could only reach the lower branches so not quite as dramatic as I envisioned, but maybe they will clean up.

Here are the four books, each with a page of each of the 24 members. I realised after hours of faddling trying to get something interesting from some printing on fabric that actually i should have chucked it and done four fat ladies instead. But you know how it is, hours spent - so hard to chuck.

And this is the Family Tree, very much work in progress. I would like to stitch a wise old saying about trees...fruit....women.....on the trunk, if anyone has any suggestions. All I can think is "the fruit never falls far from the tree" but not sure is it is sufficiently gnomic.

more cold comfort

2011-06-17T08:49:00.000-07:00

It is so cold and wet today, I have on jeans, socks, long sleeved T, cardi......knickers and glasses to complete the set, and I am still chilly and disgruntled. Can't possibly put the heating on, it is Flaming June.
Have been finishing the stitching on Fossils, and trying to pin them straight on a backing piece. Growl, I am not good at straight. Ta for the positive thoughts, I need all the buttressing I can accumulate, as do the Fossicking Fossils.
Have an idea re a Family Tree........thought i might cut up into leaf shapes some prints of the usual suspects and, and add some lacey leaves, and make a tree thingy. I keep reprinting out old pics and then getting stuck as to how to move on. Matriarchs from the past glare at me and I wilt.
Told the exhibition committee it might be ready by 7th July, as I haven't actually started, in a scissor snapping way, that doesn't seem likely.
Auntie Cinders tells me to put on another jumper and get on, doubtless they were colder and miserabler in the war, so no arguing.
She has been having a new gas fire fitted, but they lost the original connection bit, so could not proceed as it was obsolete etc. Finally found it on the mantelpiece, Auntie had looked for a candle holder and found the exact round metal thing.
Haven't got anything to read either. Finished Fifth Witness, Ok if a bit irritating, and the new Donna Leon. Thought one of the plot devices a little unbelievable, but I have no doubt she found the story of the crime in a newspaper somewhere.
Spent some time thumbing through Kindel, what a lot of books, most of which I have not heard of. When I read the reviews it is like looking for a comfortable hotel, many dissatisfied users.
Watched the end of Shadow Line last night, not sure I understood who was doing what to whom, mostly shooting each other, but there was some killer acting.

hot day

2011-06-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

I live near a fairly small "market" town; I was going to say we don't have much of a market any more and likewise not much crime.

Then I remembered the recent serial killer.

Anyway this was a quick smash and grab that I stumbled across this morning while wandering around looking for something to edge my fossil strips. [I merrily cut them into 3 long strips without leaving margin allowance] so need tofind a way to finish them off.

The robbers presumably grabbed some expensive looking watches that are usually smugly laying on their velvet cushions in the window. Not sure how they got away from the hue and cry as it is a pedestrianised zone, but I guess if they are dastardly thieves they may break other rules too.

I finished the 4 books I have to make for the next exhibition.

We each had to make a sample of work 2"x2" some notes about our prowess and 4 attractive covers. Not my favourite occupation, so the stitching looks a bit sulky. We are charging £15 and pooling the money between us, haven't booked any away days on the proceeds!

Pic will follow but Retired Person, who does the technicals, is a bit sulky too. It is hot and feels like there will be a storm. He has been trying to expell the grass that cemented itself between the flowers in the drought and has got rather irritated, understandable.

So a grumpy couple.

The cat is happy, it is hot and he is asleep.

fossils

2011-06-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

Thought it was about time I looked at some stitching. Small persons don't leave a lot of gaps in the day. I am/ was working on a piece for a Time and Tide exhibition, so thought i would do fossils.

I have three skinny panels now - not really sure how to present them. I made them by rollering paint and stuff over a lace doily and moving it about to make a background. Then printed some fossil type things and sort of stitched around. Everyone seems pleased with me that I have made something subtle for a change. Poo.

This stitching group is having a fit of the knipshers about what to price our work at. I suspect they think i price too low, but I do want to be affordable. They had a big meeting where they agreed we should charge more I think, I dunno I didn't go.

"Hell is other people".

I once worked at a psychiatric Unit and the chief assured us that "Life is other people". Hmmm perhaps.

Tempest 2011 Highlights

2011-06-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

This is my son, he's the handsome one, mostly withou a cap. Their pool team have won it seems.

2011-05-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, of course, he got his head stuck in his potty. We had to cut him out.

evidence

2011-05-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

no place like home

2011-05-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Back now from sea-side holiday with DD and GG. Lovely weather but mood swings from squally to moody, mostly because young people these days seem to live their life on Facebook and there was no WiFi or even phone signal.
Even GG was disadvantaged as the TV signal was crap so no CBeebies and only 4 snowy stations, g'ma had to watch Eastenders thru the blizzard. I saw far too much of Spiderman and Mona the Vampite DVDs however.
Also! the beach was very stony which led GG to demented aerial warfare, so we travelled in-land to castles and lakes with swans.
Castles were appreciated muchly but swans were also in aggressive mood and knocked g'ma over when I was trying to show GG how they wouldn't hurt him.
Returned early to the comforting presence of technological toys and real + virtual friends .
Aggers the cat is not amused, he preferred the quiet and regular meals provided by next door.
Test Match started today, delayed by downpours, Aggers thought it amusing when Aggers the commentator was drenched as he watched the toss.
No comments please.
Auntie Pauline in Canada [87] joined Uncle Ron last night. I don't think they will get on. Ron was very slow talking High Noon Gary and Auntie P is where I am supposed to get my impatient tongue from. She is the youngest sister, so some comfort to ma and Cinders that they are winning.
Ma has gone up to London to inspect the Olympic Stadia today, you can't keep her down for long.

say cheese

2011-05-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

song

2011-05-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

90 years

2011-05-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

It all went fabulously well and I have the aching neck muscles to prove it, I was rigid with nerves.

But great grandma, me, Daunting Daughter and Glorious Grandson [+ Retired Person of course] had a celebratory lunch at Jimmy's rare breed farm restaurant and walked the environs without mishap.

Jimmy provided a disgusting little cake for the 90 year old to blow out her candle and we all ate lots of Meat and highly coloured creamy things.

The walk round the estate was lovely in the afternoon sun, lots of little piglets and goats and chickens running around having a good time - for now. The nonagenarian led the way all round then refused afternoon tea and went home triumphantly clutching her cake. We all flaked out a good job well done.

2011-05-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

The Glorious Grandchild has landed. We have been sleeping in my work room. He and Daunting Daughter are upstairs still asleep.

I am trying to work up the emotional strength [and physical] to go up and wake them and get everyone out the house in time to pick up mother for her 90th birthday lunch. Wish me luck.

taking the bins out

2011-05-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

So the Bin-man has finally been binned. For what good it will do, and probably a lot of bad. There's a lot of legalised murder around, but i guess there always has bin. It's all very sad and totally outside my control, even if we get AV voting. Which we probably won't.

It seems to me that most men favour first past the stupid post and women are more inclusive, but I may be wrong. Picking up daughter and GG on the day, so must remember to vote, fore or aft.

We spent the weekend at a textile printing workshop, very amiable and peaceful.

in the main, tho tutor wanted us to make strange little vessels which I wasn't up for, tho others were braver and persevered with the origami like folding involved

She did show some stitch samples which I liked however.

It has been relentlessly sunny so it seemed a shame to stay in the village hall for two days, but it seems there is more to come. Poor dry garden. Son reports that San Francisco is fine too, which must be pleasant, but he has split up with his girlfriend so he is not enjoying it much. If only we could organise our off spring properly, either that or live in blessed ignorance like my parents preferred.

Daughter may get to see some bluebells if she gets over her jet lag in time.

Alternative Royal Wedding

2011-04-30T10:11:00.000-07:00

For those who didn't get to see the Great Day, this is probably more fun. I did sit down and watch Kate and Wills become the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and even sniffled a bit at times.
The Abbey looked magnificently Gothic, but a little strange with trees down the aisle. I suppose Charles had to have someone to talk to.
The fascinators were amazingly huge, sitting behind what with the trees must have been very arboreal.
Apparently when Charles comes to the throne, if ever, he won't be a Charlie, it is thought to be an unlucky name for a king, so he will be George VII.

fairly bright

2011-04-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

After the daffs we now have the blue bells,down the bank in the garden around the poor pruned apple trees, among the grass and on walks thru the woods.

and the wisteria is beginning to flourish.

I am not, I have a headache. I am extremely grumpy, if I was flower I would be a dark, manky weed tunnelling along under the ground and popping up to spoil the show.

We decided to break out this Easter Monday and toddled along to the next village to go to the Fair. I envisioned lots of ice cream and winning a monkey for the Glorious Grandson who will soon be amongst us [flower and weed! as he is now two and quite a handful].

Apparently monkeys come second only to dinosaurs in his universe, grand-ma will come way down when I start laying down the law...............

However the fairground was teeny, just a roundabout, 4 or 5 stalls , a bouncy castle [already deflated ready for a quick get away next day and some twirly machinery that was already turned off. The local kids seemed quite happy whizzing round - but no ice ceam and no stuffed monkeys!

It has been such a lovely run of sunny days I shouldn't complain, I wouldn't if I didn't have a headache. And Dr Who was crap.

released into the wild

2011-04-19T03:13:00.000-07:00

I have been devouring books lately. Fortunately the library van is still chugging round every 2 weeks and the Wetterstones in town hasn't been closed yet.
Just as well as their advent closed all the other Indy bookshops in double quick time a few years back.
Finished The Rapture by Liz Jensen yesterday, she writes very well, richly and somehow in the "now" dunno what I mean by that. It just seemed her characters were living in a world I recognised, that is before it all went eco-catastrophe and religious mania..............but even that built on strains of behaviour and science I had heard of. It is set slightly in the future and goes a bit block buster at the end, but i did enjoy her intelligent approach to the madness.
Before that I read Mystery by JKellerman, absolute sensationalised rubbish.
I was so annoyed with him, that when I joined the Book Crossing website, his was one of the first to give away.
It is very happy contrivance for me. I have so many book cluttering up the house, even tho i do download quite a few, I do still prefer the actual pages.
With the Book Crossing wheeze I can just register them on the site, leave them somewhere and hope that one day I hear back from peeps all over the globe..................[well around here anyway] that someone has picked it up to read.
The other giveaway was The Gate at the Stairs, is that right, a novel by Laurie..........someone. It was a slow burner but in the end I enjoyed it. Of course I didn't want to leave 2 junk thrillers in the same spot, too shaming.
We went out to have a corned beef hash lunch at the Victoria, a country pub near us today, so i left behind my two prepared books - with Book Crossing labels to explain, stuck inside.
As was inevitable, a woman came puffing out after us to return them, just as we were making our Le Mans getaway.
So i had to explain the principle of releasing books into the wild.
Hopefully it will get to be a more slick operation.
In the past I have given books to friends [but do they really want them] and down to the charity shops [too much heavy lifting thru a pedestrianised zone] so this could be the answer.
I know the library is really perfect, as one has to return books but I am too impatient to get the new releases.
Have been to Wetstones already and replenished with The Sentry; The Last Werewolf and best of all the new Fred Vargas.
Yes, alright, they were doing 3 for 2.

blossom dearie

2011-04-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those sunny Spring days; no doggie to walk, but we went round the Long Fields anyway. We are learning to walk out without Hattie. Not our tree, it belongs to farmer up the lane, blossoms wonderfully every year and dares me to be depressed - about anything.

The magnolia is out again, too many flowers to count now, but cold windy day has made it easier yesterday

Our poor pear trees were cut back over the winter.

They are fighting back, but look very sad at the mo.

Goodness knows if they will have pears. Guess they will have a few just in desperation.

paper nylon

2011-04-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yes the petticoats were "paper nylon" as Gillian says.

As I remember it we just used to soak them in hot water into which much sugar had been dissolved and then they drip dried on the washing line.

Dunno why we didn't use starch.

They used to stick out beautifully under the full skirts until the body heat from rocking and rolling melted the sugar again and we and our petticoats returned home somewhat limp but still sweet sixteen.

I have a pic somewhere but will have to add it later I guess. It is not very dashing, just me in black and white standing in my nana's back garden looking embarrassed and maybe in a fullish cotton skirt if I remember rightly. [Found it - only one petticoat i think]

I expect I was about 13, far too tall and with defiantly curly hair that led to me being nicknamed Golly, in those un-PC times.

My mother insisted I brush it back off my face, i hold much against my mother but that was one of the deepest crimes, she told me I would look awful with a fringe. Since leaving home I have never been without one.

stitchings

2011-03-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

This hand stitched picture was on the wall of the Dorset house. I don't know if it was done from a transfer and instructions, it was certainly old.

I thought the variation of stitching in the clothes and scenery was really effective. It was also such an appropriate pic for the area. [double click on pic. to see the detail]

I enjoyed living with it for a week and thought i would bring this souvenir home with us.

I heard that I have sold the Dance IV piece at the library exhibition, this is good news as i wasn't at all keen on it.

I promised myself I would pull it apart and try again once I got it home, odds on I wouldn't, so it would just niggle.

So double good that someone else will take it home and hopefully enjoy it.

I did

2011-03-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some "research" for my Open University assignment today. I have to do a bit of autobiography, so have chosen 1960 as a time of CHANGE. Hooray. I likened one of the boys at school to B Fury and when checking the dates, to see if they were close, I came across this video. Oh Boy, as we used to say, often, did it bring back memories. We girls used to get dressed up in very full and swishy home-made wide cotton skirts [at least 3 metres of fabric], supported by many petticoats [soaked in sugar to make them stiff], wide black elastic belts [with silver metal clasp] and pony tails [unfortunately my hair was short and very curly] and fore gather at each others houses on a Saturday afternoon to dance - together. I believe it must have been an early rehearsal of the mating ritual..........................

2011-03-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

Corfe castle, everywhere we go it is grinning down on us.

The sun has been shining, blue skies, lovely scenery it is like a dream of summer. I expect to wake and find I am nestled drooling in damp leaves and mud.....presumably sucking a magic mushroom. But no, it is real.

suffering for art

2011-03-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

On the way down to Dorset, for a few days away, we stopped off overnight in exotic Basingstoke. thought we would never make it as we got stuck on the M25.

Sailing round the clockwise ? loop we scoffed at the traffic jam taking root on the other side, and then passed miles of emptiness as that side of the motorway was closed because of an overturned car transporter.

As we were doing so well we decided to stop off at South Mimms services for an early lunch. All went well till we tried to rejoin at the roundabout.

What we didn't realise, was that this was precisely where they had closed the motorway, so all traffic trying to get on anti-clockwise was backed up to hell.

We spent an hour and a half stuck on the roundabout, all we wanted to do was go clockwise.

I nearly had apoplexy, no idea what was going on, no information. The driver is a persistent man and believes that in time all will work out, I tend to have a tantrum, it gives me something to do.

So it took 6 and a half hours to get to wonderful Basingstoke rather than a couple.

The satnav took us to the postcode, but no hotel in sight. Big Bad Basingstoke has a one way system, we now know it well, too well. At least half and hour rotating.

Next morning we went to the reason for all this faff, - an exhibition by Alice Kettle - worth every trial and tribulation.

Huge panels of her work hung in this excellent little museum gallery, the colours of the figures so stunning against wildly machined backgrounds.

Often she puts rich threads on the bobbin and stitches them from the reverse [silks would be too thick to go through the needle] mesmerising work, and maybe some clues for me and my background problems..........the gallery stewards liked the work, but not the wildly staring blank eyes "Zombies" one muttered.

Guess that wouldn't go down too well at home.

Pics can follow when I get back, not allowed to take photos, but 2 excellent catalogues can hopefully be scanned.

Saturday we drove on to the coast to this rather posh house we have rented for the week, cheaply because the weather is cold. So far the sun has shone every day.

daffs

2011-03-17T04:11:00.000-07:00

Sploshed about a bit with a new box of textile paints. Then failing inspiration gave it a good seeing to with the machine.
Maybe I could work it up into a piece for Concept and Meaning exhibition, at a pinch. Who amongst the curators would dare argue [no-one really knows what it means]

Perhaps do another piece with a thin adolescent looking in the mirror and seeing a fat image.

However as usual have no idea what to do with the background. Maybe cut them out and put them on a background but "one I have prepared previously".

As usual nature does it better.

Pigeons don't quite fit on the bird table but they do their best.
Mr Pheasant is still sheltering in the garden, where he is most welcome, except that this week I filled the other bird feeders and dropped some seeds on the grass. Mr P strutted over to tidy things up, and in the process trampled at least a dozen daffs. Bloody men.
Keeping thoughts close to home as can't bare to think about Japan, Libya, Bahrain. Is it the end of times, no just usual chaos with everyone a bit scared of how many daffs they would trample if they try tidying up.

building

2011-03-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Five of us [not the Famous Five or even the Jackson Five, obviously] went to see an exhibition of paintings by this gent who used his paint tubes to draw long lines and make reeds.

So textural, us stitchers loved it.

He was a friend of Francis Bacon [always a dangerous habit] but when FB denigrated his exhibition in the 70s, our man gave up the brush, what a shame.

The artistic muse is a fragile spirit.

We had a very nice lunch in the cafe out the back and then had a wander round the new Arts centre which seems to have managed to squeeze under the wire before everything goes on Ration.

It is apparently the Essex version of a Guggenheim.
We lost a building in town last night as some clever person decided [allegedly] the the local Muslims should not take over a redundant church, and so burnt it down. We do have an awful lot of churches, all those wool merchants
adding to Norman edifices, there must be at least a dozen in town. All very lovely.
There are 3 in this small village, none of them lovely.
However this burnt one was only a Victorian brick built one so no great loss, and maybe a nice new mosque and minaret will rise from the ashes.

The morning call to prayer will raise some hackles tho.

hanging

2011-03-03T06:07:00.000-08:00

Can't resist showing the GG on the phone to moi.

He isn't always this angelic. tho when we were Skyping [daughter and I] after a couple of tantrums and heels drumming on the floor, she drew him a dinosaur and then he sat on her lap "drawing" away for his fascinated g'ma, {"see how well he holds his pencil!"]

A high spot; a low spot was hanging the exhibition at the library yesterday.

Most group members wisely handed over their precious work and skedaddled.

As the tallest of the five small volunteers, I ended up precariously teetering on a tall ladder trying to hook the picture rail [it is an old library, probably originally a Victorian school i guess] for two and a half hours.

But exhausted triumph was short lived when the librarian returned and asked us to move everything around [2" to the left?].

We exited with a merryish wave and left poor J to accompany the librarian round again.

She claimed that for insurance purposes we had to personally put up the work in case it fell and injured someone. Thanks

In the end librarian agreed that she would move it if J just touched it last.

Hilarious, poor J was there for another 2 hours "touching".

tripping

2011-03-01T08:43:00.000-08:00

Went to the annual Textile Show.

It was the last afternoon the reason I suppose for fewer stalls and no demonstrators, but still colourful.

Felt sad for some of the stalls where stitchers had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to produce work and stuff to sell, but weren't looking very busy.
May be the same for me when we put up an exhibition at the library.

I have two pieces for Sale and two not. Doubtless browsers will show unexpected taste by not lusting after those for sale, but instead showing interest in the ones I actually like.

The library is round the back, one way streets of the small market town and I wonder if I will even get my car and cargo in the vicinity before closing time.

We have about 30 pieces to hang [by about 10 artists] high above the book shelves on the duck blue walls. All of us are possibly past the stage and weight when we should be teetering about on ladders, but doubtless won't admit it.
We had a nice roast dinner/lunch at the pub at the end of Devil's Dyke in the village of Reach

I particularly like the church with the double doors. Presumably once a school seperating the young persons before they got up to mischief and dedicated to St Etheldreda who is a new on on me.

In early Anglo-Saxon and Viking times, Reach was an important economic centre. Goods were loaded at its common hythe (wharf) for transport into the fen waterway system from at least 1100. Reach was a significant producer of clunch, a chalky stone; a new wood has been planted on the old clunch pits, where chalky cliffs are visible from early quarrying. Reach's use as a port continued until about 200 years ago.
Reach Lode, a Roman canal, still exists, and remains navigable. The village church, originally Holy Trinity School Church[1] and latterly called St Etheldreda's,[2] was built in 1860, on the site of the former chapel of St John. The ruined perpendicular arch of the old chapel is visible behind the new church.
Etheldreda' was an East Anglian princess, a Fenland queen and Abbess of Ely in the English county of Cambridgeshirewho decided not to grant her second husband conjugal rights. Despite having been married once before, it is said that St Etheldreda (also known as St Audrey from where we get the word 'tawdry') remained a virgin

Thanks Wikipedia

At the exhibition I liked these very small scenes I think of the local docks which are to remind me that small is sometimes beautiful too.

exit stage left

2011-02-28T02:47:00.000-08:00

Mostly the funeral was annoying. A gathering of the tribes, all old, grey and ..........grey.

The vicar bloke at the crematorium spoke well and conjured up the wraith of Uncle Ron from the war in the desert, motor bikes in his black leather helmet pulled firmly round his ears. Only turning to a car, it is claimed when it became illegal not to wear a proper crash hat.

Thru his engineering and electronics jobs and up to date with his many clocks.

His son cried when his dad was referred to as his best friend [only friend muttered in my head]. We were sat behind and I wondered who was this little dishevelled lady sitting crying next to son [far left] then I suddenly realised it was my big, impregnable Auntie Cinders [in blue].

It was hard to see her gazing at the coffin in front of her, just crushed.

But that is what funerals are for, once we were all out in the cold again, curtains demurely closed around Uncle Ron] the tribes spent what seemed like hours chit chatting about what they had been up to since the last funeral, while I looked on feeling angry and guilty at the same time.

Uncle Ron lives stubbornly on however, as G**gle Street Map was down their road last year and captured him in typical mode fixing his car.

growl

2011-02-23T02:54:00.000-08:00

It is cold, wet and grey and so am I. I suspect I feel much like the latest pic of the Glorious Grandson, perhaps with not quite so much attitude, or jam.

Maybe more jam would be helpful.

Paradoxically stitching is steaming ahead, I guess being stuck in [in all senses] frees the mind to actually do something practical.

Agamemnon the Cat is following us around closely purring which must mean something is wrong. Guess he is lonely without Hatters. He is vomitty too - don't know if that is a comment or a symptom.

Should have gone up to London today to see the Threads of Feeling exhibition at the Foundling museum - some of the fabric tokens mothers left with their babes in the 18th century in the hope they could identify and reclaim their children in the years to come. http://www.foundlingmuseum.org.uk/

Probably not really in the state of mind to withstand the inevitable brooding that would follow. Exhibition closes on the 6th March, maybe I'll struggle up there on my Old Ladies Train ticket before then. Doubt it.

Can't find a book to read either. Blacklands was my last success, excellent read if your nerves are tough.

Have chucked a succession of library books, and worse ones I have invested my Xmas book tokens in. The library van is still chugging round the villages every two weeks, doubtless it will get cut in the Big Society even tho it is manned by volunteers. No library left to service it. We have a Save the Libraries arty exhibition next month

Possibly readers will pour in, probably not. We are not a country known for revolution but we sure as damnation need one now. Library readers unite you have nothing to lose but your books.

Had a book recommended - The Existential Detective by Alice Thompson, looks from the blurb to be a bit bleak, I probably need something a little more cheery..........

Uncle Ron

2011-02-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

Uncle Ron died this week. Like the clocks he loved he finally ran out of tick.

He was nearly 92.

Auntie Cinders [93] is bearing up, she has lived in their home for 55 years and I reckon she will stay if she can.

I don't know if she can keep all his clocks ticking and chiming, it is quite a manoeuvre winding them all up each week.

Uncle Ron was a very singular man, with his own teasing sense of humour and determination to do things his way, at his pace.

He was in the desert war, in the army, from which he learnt to love motorbikes; finally they graduated to four wheels.

Every summer they would decide where to go on holiday, and the very morning of departure he would invariably decide to strip down the engine and explore every widget till he was satisfied. Often they left a day late

He played the piano by ear, vamping with his left hand. He liked kids.

He played Scrabble and card games with mother, Cinders and anyone else they could rope in, till the early hours.

He demanded soup with his dinner and custard with his suet pudding or spotted dick. Cinders has arranged for Meals on Wheels to call now, finally she can stop making Bread Pudding.

Ian is their only son, he has most of Ron's eccentricities without the charm.

fossicking about

2011-02-13T05:41:00.000-08:00

Still working on another three dancers. A friend told me that if this is Africa the light on the moon would be on this side as they are ...............in Africa.

I was impressed until walking home last night under a clear black sky, I saw old moonie reflecting in exactly this same direction. Guess it doesn't matter, it is meant to be phantasmagorical after all.

Have also been working on the matriarchal side of the family, I want to merge the pics in somehow, probably should slap some emulsion on it or something.

The table cloth was a gift and it feels a bit informal to cut it up, but I may take some of the squares behind and put them on the front and put some more white fabric behind the pics........and then machine madly.

Mother suggests just framing them individually, she may be right but that is not what i want, if only I did know what I want, I really really want.

The Time and Tide title for the summer exhibition is coming along quite well.

I painted a lace doily and printed with it and through it to make what turned into three panels.

I am trying to restrain my habitual exuberance and do something more subtle.

The doilies resembled ammonites [by luck] so i am doing fossils.

This is a print of Ida, a small 47 millions year old mammal.

So far i am pleased, which is unusual, not as smug as it sounds, as it happens so rarely and will doubtless end in whimper rather than a bang

exclaiming

2011-02-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

Went to Cambridge on Tuesday, lovely sunny day, which was welcome as Cambridge can be very cold and windy.
We were looking to buy a new sofa-bed as daughter complains, when she visits, that the present one cripples her. Side effect of down sizing.
We decided not to be undersold and went to Jlewis and purchased a very low tech pull out brown thing. Doubtless she will say it is hard, but at least the struts won't cut into her hip. However now she is a working girl she is demanding we visit her, - maybe the money would have been better spent on a plane ticket....................except I hate flying.
She has somehow managed to take time to go to the Tuscon Rock and Gem fair with an admirer and GG. The latter is probably not so admiring at the mo, as she is now Manager of a creche and he doesn't appreciate not being the one and only, so he is biting! Better than packing a side arm I suppose.
I remember biting when I was a kid, the joy of that clenched jaw, but i think I only bit myself, or maybe I graduated to that when victims began to complain.
No.1 son is going to yet another wake of a friend whom, it would seem, has drunk himself to death at 36! merits another punctuation mark I think.
They had a White Trash wake combined with super bowl party as they decided the two teams were not interesting enough to have a special theme.
Class warfare alive and thriving in the states, surely not.
I have been going to stitching groups with well brought up and polite persons, so am feeling a little white trashy myself.
However the stitching is in a good place for once and my Poem has got a good response so far from tutor.
First line "Searching through the pockets of the dead" goodness knows where that came from, I heard it somewhere, but couldn't find it on googlies, but it is one heck of a start!

planted

2011-02-03T08:39:00.000-08:00

Hattie the dog returned to us in a small but sturdy box, as she has been cremated.
Hmmmm.
Strange but true, at least we feel we have completed the job now as we drove out to a posh Plant Nursery and bought her a "rampant, semi evergreen?" rose to mark her spot, next in line to the 3 cats and Delta the dog, her lovely predecessor. Clara the chicken is on the other side under the pear trees.
One would think you would get used to this kind of thing.
The rose is Rosa mulliganii , white and banana scented flowers! Requires sun and well drained soil. Ours is very well drained and on a slope so that should be OK, only glitch might be there used to be another rose which died of old age nearby, and too late we remembered you are not supposed to plant another rose in the same place, so hopefully Rosa will be OK.
Now we are wondering what to do with the freedom, maybe a quick trip to warmer climes, possibly not the pyramids this time. One day hopefully when everything has settled into a glowing democracy. I am ashamed to think that I didn't really realise they were under military thumb, tho so far the army seems to be trying to be neutral.
When I was teaching I had a pupil who was the son of an Egyptian diplomat [such things happen in North London]. Mohamed was having a deal of trouble coping with the new language and a fairly lively comprehensive.
Obviously his dad sometimes helped with his homework, and I felt Mohamed was obviously bright so I recommended he come out of the learning difficulties stream [it was a while ago] and enter a class of his peers in the hopes he would catch on more quickly. I left that year so never knew what happened but did get a nice commemorative wall plate enthusing about Nasser from his dad. Felt a bit like I had been bribed, even tho it was reward not an inducement.
Maybe Mohamed is in Tihrer square at the mo giving voice to his opinions. Hope he is OK, he was very quiet in class.

PS the pic is of our rose as it hopes to be one day. This one is in the Sissinghurst White garden.

sights for sore eyes

2011-01-31T04:53:00.000-08:00

It's raining catkins, and we have the first snowdrop in the garden, so life is returning, slowly but suddenly.

Walking without Hatters is a strange experience, I chunter on as usual, whether there is anyone to listen or not, but there is no lithe figure bounding ahead or snuffling behind.

We hit the tide just right to see these waders down at the hard. Think they are sandpipers in amongst the oyster catchers and redshanks.........maybe. Where are the binoculars? never where I am.

Adam

2011-01-30T14:46:00.000-08:00

This is more like the real colour.

arting about

2011-01-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

Fortunately had already arranged a Day Return to London to see my lovely friends Ruth and Adam. So that took my mind off sadnesses for a while.

Since a spotty teenager I have been besotted with Epstein's sculpture and the Modern Sculpture exhibition at the Royal Academy gave me the chance to see Adam.

Even more dramatic from the front. He is so gorgeous, huge in honey toned marble, I wanted to lick him, but Ruth [who is usually up for a lark persuaded me to desist]

Ruth, recently moved back to London, is 82 and walked my feet off. She was trial running a new posh wig, it had got a bit lively by later in the day.
We especially liked seeing a Hepworth inside a building for a change. Altho the artists like their work to be seen out in the elements, it is actually engrossing to see it dominating a smaller space [and warmer].

Damian Hurst's Eating Outside wasn't much of a shock having formerly made friends with his shark and sheep, most of the flies have died and pile grotesquely on the floor even tho they have recently been refreshed with new steaks to suck.
The pics are all from their website by the way as they wouldn't allow photography and the catalogue was pants.

Queen Vic on the left is looking down her nose with full "we are not amused" at the plastic contemporary version of Genghis Khan on the left hand side. The Royal mound is marvellous, so solid and pompous but with such a cheery gold frippery above her that at first I thought it was ironic, guess they may have sarcastic responses bubbling under in the mid 1800s

I guess the reason I loved the exhibition so much was the clever curating that juxtaposed
ancient [from Easter Island; Ancient Egypt] and modern and for the first 3 rooms it was all accessibly figurative
Even the Eric Gill's could be appreciated if one didn't allow ones mind to wander to his abuse of the daughters he carved so delicately.
Lots of artists have been omitted from the show. I would like to have seen a Rachel Whiteread Elizabeth Frink maybe not a Gormley [don't take to his wire figures] and won't go far to see the gore of the Chapman brothers.
Gilbert and George are already on show else where.

Of the modern stuff I probably like this Switter? hut best, it has a vaguely textural feel. There is another in the front entrance which many walk by not noticing it as "Art"

Behind the Academy there is another exhibition of Art Fashion Identity

These felted tunics took my eye and more disturbingly they were showing that video where in 1965 Yoko Ono did "Cut Piece" where the viewers were invited to come up and cut of pieces of her clothes. Which of course they did. Very chilling and not in the cold sense, but there again it was cold in that it made my blood run cold, as they say.

There was another video loop where two naked people stood in a doorway, man and woman facing each other and persons in the room had to squeeze between them to get out of the gallery.

My skin afterwards felt as if I was wearing this pin dress, very prickly and ...........cold.

The Sixty Minute Silence video made in 1996 of a formal pic of a people dressed as a phalanx of police was a much warmer and funny experience, especially when one of then fell asleep and had to be nudged by a "superintendent".

Lovely trip, thanks Ruth.

hattie the dog

2011-01-24T12:40:00.000-08:00

Sad news is that Hattie the dog had a bit of a stroke on Friday. We nursed her over the w/e but she got no better and although she was obviously still willing in her mind her poor old body had had enough.

So today we had to take her to the vet.

RP carried her in, and I stayed with her at the end. She was happily chewing a biscuit as she left us.

We miss her very much. I am so angry, she was a perfect pet, a bouncing joyful part of the family.

in memory of Nigel

2011-01-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

One of my stitching groups is faced with a Regional Challenge. We are part of the SE Forum of stitching groups, so each has to concoct a collage type thingy of aspects of one's region. We discussed at length and have about 20 possible areas to develop. One that caught my eye is pargetting, of which there is quite a bit in Suffolk.

So when in town this week I took some pics of the local Ancient House, with my new camera lens. Dropped the last one and broke the focusing motor whatsit.

New Year Resolution Do not hang camera on door knob any more

Do more sketch book work.

I quite like this one and may have a go at an Sample. The other Suffolk trademark is Suffolk "pink".

This was the tinted whitewash that used to painted on the cottages to refresh them each year. Some say that the pink tint was achieved from crushed fruits and berries, others that it was bulls blood and some red wine.

These were taken by Felting Needle
blogger.

I especially like this simple mark making

There is also some rather sweet wood carving

adrift in Norfolk

2011-01-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

Before we wended North I started this piece, possibly to cheer the grey day.

However as it is quite large it is a bit too chirpy so I have taken the ladies off and put them on a darker background..............and added hair.

Not sure Picasso would approve. Now of course I am stuck in exactly the same place as before, what to do now.................the ladies were stuck to the background before, having peeled them off they are now merely tacked on, so I have to think of a way to stitch them down I suppose...............oh dear.

Whilst in Norfolk I solved the problem by taking lots of balls of wool with me and crocheting a big squarish "throw" from the ever reliable trebles. Half done so I can revert to it tonight when I am sick of poking the above.

Millions of pink footed geese fly over head clacking away, camera can never catch enough of them, probably they are actually chuckling, especially at all the twitchers anxiously twirling their long lenses and not having much more luck.

Hattie the Dog can still do a tight turn at speed, but she did flag a bit after the long walks. Given her unreliable rear end RP took her out 4 times a day to make sure we maintained our £100 deposit, [rather than hers] so she really had a work out.

The cottage had 4 televisions! living room had a 42" and bedroom a 32" - frightening. We have one 28" at home. Rather than march around with Hats I watched a lot of very colourful snooker or read Xmas books.

The Reversal by Michael Connelly was a return to form as they say.

Three Seconds by Roslund and Hellstrom was an intricate tale of how long it takes for a missile launcher to crash into the prison hostage before the taker can move and hide in the ventilation shaft. Guess how long? Hope I haven't spoiled it for you. I could have left them behind on the traditional shelf but they are both spanking new hard backs so I will try and loosen my hold and pass them on from here.

From the shelf I read a Lisa Scottoline, a sort of slightly tighter Stephanie Plum type tale.

One day we went to Blakeney to pick up a new cup for RP as we had broken the last one. The church there does a nice line in fine bone china mugs, and the man does like to stick to his traditions.

From their shelf I plucked Sarum by Edward Rutherford the epic yarn of Salisbury from Ice Age to recent times..........1344 pages. I have found the Stone Age hard going but hopefully it will pick up.

on TV

2011-01-05T06:25:00.000-08:00

Took a box of Xmas amaretto biscuits to textile group today as part of New Year generalised good wishes, now I have tooth ache.

Is there no justice. Usually I take a packet of crisps and watch everyone else get fat, but the festive season got to me and I tried to be nice.

New Year was quiet, watched the fireworks on TV; before that passed the evening watching In Ception also on TV.

Strange film, sort of metaphysical and wham bam thriller at the same time. Far too much bamming and not enough exposition about getting into the 3rd layer of the dreamers subconscious. Never really believe Leonardo de Caprio either, to me he is stuck as a puny teenager even with a beard.

Have been lusting over the Swedish Wallandar films tho, sub titled on TV, the guy is fat and blond but somehow extremely ...........ooomph And then there was the new Zen series on the TV, I don't care if Rufus didn't look or act at all like the book, he is beautiful.

It is my Mr Spock syndrome that is my undoing. These intellectual bottled up types, very wowy.

xmas is over

2011-01-02T07:55:00.000-08:00

Daughter, flying without a safety net as usual, sent me these slippers she had made by felting a sweater. They fit perfectly and I feel like an amiable panda padding around in them. I have often admired people who can do this kind of thing, daughter knows no fear. I would never try, being convinced they would never fit etc.

Another plus, after comfort, is that unless I stitch leather soles onto them i can't go out to the bins. Oh what a shame.

Tragically the parcel I sent her and GG hasn't arrived yet.

Also the Christmas Cactus has flowered on time, maybe it waits for the snow. It's a nice splash of colour.

Everything outside is a very muddy brown, except for the holly berries. I didn't get round to making a holly wreath for Xmas.

Mother insists that the day is now definitely longer, being past the solstice. Doesn't do much to cheer me yet. The fairy lights are all we can rely on for a cheery glow.

The birdies seem to be back, goodness knows where they hide to survive. Now it is milder we have the tits and finches scrabbling on the feeders, so tiny and fragile. Gulls and pigeons bullying each other for the bits of ham and bacon on the Van Gogh.

The cat doesn't even lift an eyelid preferring to sleep by the radiators.

I have knitted RP the back and front of his boring grey sweater if it doesn't fit it won't felt, even if I was brave enough to try, as he chose cheap acrylic wool.

Asked Ma to do a sleeve as I thought she would welcome something to do, of course she just interpreted it as me needing the help to get it finished before Next Xmas. I swear she doesn't have a positive thought in her ancient old noddle. No wonder my generation are scared to try anything challenging. Boo Hoo.

She stomped home off home clutching the wool and the remaining mince pies, I guess Xmas is over.

Dino and friend

2010-12-29T02:39:00.000-08:00

Happiness is a warm dinosaur

mixed Xmas news

2010-12-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

Sparkling bright but freezing St Stephen's Day. [Apparently Boxing Day is the first week/working day after Xmas.]
Have horrible bullet hole in my left shoulder blade, well that is what it feels like. I guess it is some arthritis type thing and seems to zing excruciatingly between shoulders lately. A hot water bottle is the only relief known to woman.
Xmas Day went well, if you like the peaceful kind. Wrinklies all turned up and ate and sported themselves in front of the roaring fire, with Aggers the cat. The fire didn't actually roar but it did send out atomic heat from the primeval age when the trees first hit the swamp.
No TV, as Retired Person's retired father is deaf and can't/won't hear without the hearing "loop" installed. RP's retired mother took the opportunity to do a long Hattie walk with No 1 son while I sat and knitted RP's jumper. My ma regaled RP's father with chat, most of which he was blissfully unaware of.
There is now far too much turkey, chocolates and biscuits in the house.
I did discover the joys of a whisky mac, which made everything seem even cosier. Also have invented a Guiness/lemonade shandy which pleases. [I stay away from wine because of headaches]
All the offspring phoned/Skyped and warm words were exchanged. GG was seen pursuing an electronic dinosaur round the house. It was almost as big as him.
I remember [dire phrase] being presented with a giant plastic clothed elf doll when I was smaller than it and screaming the house down in fear. GG is made of sterner stuff.
He also has a giant bag of giant lego which may prove constructive once he stops tossing it at the dinosaur.
No 1 son had finally got off his bum and rented a holiday house near San Francisco with 7 other stick insects [messengers in lycra] and was actually sounding happy, which was encouraging.
RP's son lives in Bristol but not near where the poor young woman got deaded, I presume she was murdered, either that or the golf was particularly boring. The sight of her anguished parents appealing for her return was unbearable.

2010-12-23T07:32:00.000-08:00

Ah ha sold Autumn.

But not the Daisies; in-laws gave me the frame. Maybe I should give it back, filled.

They are threatening not to come for Xmas in case they get snowed in with me. Can't blame them really. But who is going to eat all this turkey?

I have also finished my 2200 word short story and am ready to free it into the ether.

Hard to push that button in case I get a better idea. The number of words is more significant than the plot sadly, as counting them has taken up far more of my energy.

I do not like short stories, I don't usually read them and when I do I chuck them aside at the end twist with an exasperated Pah! So have no great hopes that I have broken the barrier with this little tale.

Amazon finally coughed up with my book and a recipe book for no.1 son. It is published in America too, but they have run out so I had to spend more on the postage than to buy it, but I was determined.

Did the food shoppery today, a large over flowing trolley full for maybe 3 bored peeps plus dog and cat.

RP had to buy new wellies today as his have sprung a leak. Bog standard Green.

When I was young [younger?] there were only black ones, they seem to be no more, unless you go very posh and polo style.

I should have taken the opportunity to replace mine and thus add to the collection of strays in the shed, but I am distracted by all the flowery ones that abound so am hanging on to see if I can find some.

Not that I am going out again until after Xmas, I am going to light the fire and read my book[s]

Bette

2010-12-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

Hattie took me for a walk this morning.

And we met this fine cat.

The RP was not with us as he had to go to Bette's funeral. All I knew about "Betty" [as she was in my prosaic mind] was that she a rather anxious old lady who had once sold us her 4 oak dining room chairs when she downsized to the next village.

Now I find she had a rather rebellious youth, wore a green pill box hat even tho her father disapproved, migrated to Canada, came back when her kids had grown up and wished she hadn't.
Shame we don't swop our stories until the funeral.
Maybe she was called Bette because she looked like Bette Davis, her given name was Alicia. Can't ask her now.
As Hatters and I returned we found Bette's last resting place outside the church door as they sung hymns inside.

Fortunately they had dug the grave before the -7 temperatures of last night, so now she is secure under a blanket of flowers.

Perhaps I should look out a nice photo of my rebellious youth and leave it accessably, plus a list of songs. White Stripes, REM................
Bette went out of the church with Elvis and Peace in the Valley. Good taste in hats and music.

snow white

2010-12-19T04:22:00.000-08:00

Last night Auntie Nature did this.

I understand she was even busier in Scotland and possibly the West country?

Fortunately the bread machine made this, so we should survive.

I am enjoying the change of scene which requires no travel [except Hattie hike] but is a bit cold.

sign in here

2010-12-17T03:41:00.000-08:00

This is my experience of Beccles, a home to our latest exhibition until 21st December.
However Mr Wickedleaks will probably have a different view. He has to sign on with Mr Plod at the Plod Station in Beccles every day, to prove he is still here under Mansion House arrest, with or without condoms.
It was amusing that the big important judge set such store by the strict rules by which Mr S can be set free in our vicinity..................he must go to the police station every day, wear a tag etc.
Sadly the city courts perhaps don't realise what happens at their cosy retreats.
The the nearest police station to young Julian in Bungay only opens 3 morning a a week.
Thus he has to make the journey to Beccles, as Mr Plod will be there every week day afternoon for at least two hours each the afternoon, if he isn't out patrolling.
At weekends there are no police apparently in either town except the ones who will have to drive over from somewhere else to his country cottage and check him out for themselves.
Of course snow is forecast.....................and most of the grit and sand has been used up.......
.

expedition north

2010-12-14T15:02:00.000-08:00

These are pics of some of the work at our latest exhibition. There are 12 in the group I think and we each put two items in. We trundled up today on a beautiful sunny day [but so cold] to see what it looked like.

The Gallery makes good use of a defunct building once owed by one of the evil banks. So an imposing portico, but then many steps and stairs as the rooms are honey combed thru 3 floors, maybe Bob Crachitt worked there once, some of them are so small Tiny Tim would have filled one.

Our room was just the right size for the works, white walls and bright sun thru the window. Couldn't ask for better, oh yes i could, someone to buy something.

The Gallery is run by artists from whom we rent wall space at low rent, and is partly staffed by volunteers, a good idea all round.

I would have liked to wonder the streets and potter in and out of a few old shoppes but the Retired Person had lunch and a pint on his mind so we had to skedaddle. It is good he comes, and drives, so I have to let him have his fun too but sometimes it is easier to go out with the ladies - as long as they don't talk endlessly about their operations [cataracts are becoming popular] and their grand /children
except mine of course.

We stocked up at the posh supermarket on the way back as snow is forecast later in the week,

Having bought a Xmas pudding I guess I must accept that Xmas has started.

winter timetable

2010-12-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

The Retired Person has started his winter hobby, Now it is usually minus degrees outside only the parsnips are benefiting from the cold.

Fortunately the oil man cometh today so we are at least warm as we bend over our respective cutting boards.

Keep in mind it is an "N" gauge railway line, so these buildings are very teeny tiny, requiring a scalpel for the operation.

no decorations yet

2010-12-13T05:51:00.000-08:00

Daughter has started the tradition of making a separate birthday cake for GG.

Here he is eating it with the aid of a small dinosaur.

I have just had a bowl of veggie soup for lunch made from the last Butternut Squash from the garden and some parsnips. I am allowed the latter now the freeze has frozen, repeatedly. Apparently they taste better after a frost.

It in no way improves my mood however. The hoar frost down to the river looks gorgeous but I chose to hoover in the warm rather than opt for the walking Hattie option.

She is still enjoying her walks and food but is increasingly blind deaf and possibly daft, being 13 & 3quarters. Last night she did a whoopsie this side of the back door, so the house now smells of disinfectant and short temper.

Xmas cards have begun limping in. Have posted mine with difficulty as the Post Office decided unilaterally to close between 1 and 3, I arrived at 2.30.

Tried to use up some time at the village fair in the village hall but it was more of a inside car boot sale, I already have too much tat.

The local MP answered Him Indoor's missive about the dire state of closure of public houses which wasn't very useful on either side.

However I could use his official address to encourage the MP to vote to support the Early Day Motion 1171 trying to help the poor beleaguered people of the Congo tomorrow. Their village halls are not so cosy and their post office is never open.

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

2010-12-13T03:12:00.000-08:00

Really enjoyed this tho it makes me cry too, thanks Annie.

the ladies

2010-12-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

Glad to see Aphrodite is being returned home to Sicily, wish I could go with her, it is cold and grey here, and so am I.

Nice to see that Susan Philipsz won the Turner prize for singing under bridges.

Just finished reading Mo Hayder's latest crime extravaganza "Gone", very tense making.

So far, the Ladies have it.

2010-11-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

Winter has arrived. I am cold and I have a cold.

Nobody is commenting, very few are blogging.

I give up