colour scheme

Us S.L.A.P.P.E.R.S. [Stitchers, Lacemakers And Patchworkers Practise Embroidery Regularly in Suffolk] arranged to drive to Cottenham [near Cambridge] to see their latest Textile show. It is on every year, - a couple of local groups exhibit but more exciting there are many many stalls, attended by encouraging people frantic to sell us threads and fabrics, so we look forward to it immensely.
Unhappily life has a habit of slapping your face just when you are smiling cheerfully, Isabel the tutor who taught most of us to take up a needle with menaces, found her husband dead, and the funeral was Friday.
L was nominated to represent us.
Then M's son who was appearing as Wishee Washee in pantomime and suddenly needed her to supervise the refreshments.
R's daughter decided to visit and could push the heavy furniture into new places for her........................ A offered to take me on Saturday, but I decided i just had to Do It! enough of interference from Fate, however weighty.



The colours were very therapeutic.




The only fat fly in the face cream was that I had a migraine and was in a very bad temper. I had already taken 2 magic pills on previous days and had only one left of the rest of my allowance for the rest of the month, so I staggered around growling clutching paracetamol and watching the clock until i could take another dose - and forced healing cash into willing hands.
I also bought some paper covered wire, quite thick so that it holds its own shape, from which to make more figures or even "vessels". We each have to make one for TAGS summer exhibition. It could be anything from a bowl to a pencil holder i suppose, I am thinking of a pregnant woman with a lid that lifts from her stomach, but what to put inside?
Then there was this Organza stuff that the printer, it is claimed won't eat and get indigestion. And some blue and purple dyed scrim, that was perhaps a mistake, but beautiful colours and cheapish.
And finally a pack of dyes and brief instructions. I have a book but I can't concentrate long enough to get to the end of the chapter.




This is some of what I carried home in triumph after a mediocre lunch at


Retired Person,who had filled the idle hours walking Hatters, disapproves of the beer, but any port in a storm, oasis in a desert, etc.
We drank a toast to Isabel in the hopes that the colour would return to her life in time.

The end of Bob

The construction is finished and there is now more room in the manshed.
Always good news for the woman.

fresh mud

On our doggy walk down to the river yesterday we could step off the usual track and keep going till we reached half way across - without walking on water...........save that for another day.

The causeway we walked down is called The Hard locally, at really low tide it begins to turn into The Soft with squelchy oozing mud which can be very beautiful in its swirls and squirls, but not so lovely on Hattie the dog's paws when we get home.





This tyre must have lived here about as long as me, with similar results.

Cold wet mud is not usually invigorating, but somehow this was different.
I was fed up when we left home, but just taking a 90 degree turn out of the usual made things seem promising again. Which is a good thing as this winter has been so hard, and long.

I am obviously going cabin crazy waxing lyrical about mud.

Bobbed

Retired person has taken up a new temporary career as Bob the Builder.
After buying the Big Tool Box in which to stash his garden tools, [so he can become Shed Man in comfort], he realised he would have to make a level platform for it to stand on [when it is put together]. So after much study and trips to the Manly Shops he has produced the necessary.

Very satisfying.

bouquet

Couldn't resist a snap of the first daffodils, which have been waving valiantly at me from down the bank. They get the morning sun, but also the morning frost - so they are brave as well as encouraging. Clumps of snowdrops all over the place, some are hiding behind my "birthday suit"- with gnomes. It must be protected from frost down there as I expected the terracotta to snap in the first winter, but she just keeps accumulating moss and gnomes.

These snowdrops are along one of the dog walks, every year they storm back, total beauty.
Just to finish on the theme, some of the valentine roses. Forced no doubt, in so many ways, but once they have settled in and loosened up - another beauty.

chish and fips

One sunny day last week we drove to the coast and had fish and chip lunch at the Felixstowe Ferry cafe, famous for same. Now I am on the wonderful statins I can eat what I like.........as long as I don't mind being fat as a barrage balloon.
I had line caught cod [I am sure it died much happier knowing that it was so special, or is it a long line with many hooks, they can be cunning these fishermen] deep fried [oh the guilty pleasure] in golden batter, and fat, hand cut chips, similarly golden and piled to provide a vast crunchy cushion for the fish, - brown sauce of course.
So fresh, so cheap, just as well it is not nearer.
The cafe is a rather ugly shed, with elderly plastic chairs and tables within spitting distance of the shore, where the foot ferry arrives from Bawdsey, and local people park their boats on the shingle.
Last visit was in the summer, we sat outside with Hattie the dog, mostly because the cafe was full - an interesting mix of the old and grey - and rather stout bikers in black leathers and tattoos.
Both visits were made in the sun, one when it beat down with enthusiasm and last week when it turned the heat down to a shy glimmer.

We walked Hatters along the shore to a big grey old Martello Tower from Naploeonic times. No longer do we fear the French, we are together in the European Market, tho not to the extent of changing to the Euro. The Tower is now a home, designer windows, comforting thick walls still withstand the cold. Global warming may play havoc with the landscaped garden however as the sea rises round our coast.
Hopefully the cafe will remain high and dry and deep frying for many years.

children's stories

This is the wall my daughter and I painted in the nursery to welcome grandson. It wasn't my idea, one does not however argue with a lady about to pod.
She obviously believes that her son should be brought up in an atmosphere of teeth [as I once heard someone? say].
She also requested some fairies, one of which you may be able to discern riding the horn. I do miss her enthusiasm now I am home in the land of understatement. If it happened here we would probably have Social Services hotfooting to her door.
Last week we were informed by that august journal The Sun [arsewipe tabloid with a nice line in cheeky headlines] that a twelve year old boy has fathered a child with a fourteen year old girl. The boy looks about 8 and the girl about 40 which adds to the gaiety of the nation.
It's happened before, as with every shock horror.
Last time, in the 90s, the kids eventually got married, still are, still with their twins in the house that they are buying.
Never can tell, unless they now find they can't afford the mortgage in these interesting times.

cold comfort

I am thoroughly fed up and had enough of this cold weather. I have 3 jumpers on and that is not enough, I refuse to wear a woolly hat in the house.
I know Oportuknitty and family got snowed in for days, and emerged sane and intact. I do not have the survival skills.
Perhaps I would not have made that long journey in a leaky boat across the Atlantic to a new life [of course I wouldn't, I get sea sick on the ferry]
We have not even had much snow it is just COLD. The sun is shining - it LIES, when I go out it is still cold.
I have to walk the doggy every day, she doesn't even wear shoes. Where was I when they handed out .............parents who lived in warm countries.
Retired Person is out hacking down rampant ivy. He gets very smug as he repeatedly fills our brown bin and even the neighbour's brown bin. I would prefer a bonfire, but I know my front would be warmed by the flames but my backside would freeze, so i won't play.
The Lace Collars piece and the thing about women working thru the ages in the factory [bet it was cold in there in the winter] has gone off to the Steam Engine museum ready for exhibition in Spring, when the sun will be shining. Will it still be cold tho?
Yes.
ALSO I can't add a suitably picture of me, dog, RP, anyone perishing in this weather because this computer apparently has Opinions and won't pick up pics any more.
What is happening to the world?!

Ah ha yes I can is I use another Browser.

"There's Always Something You Can Do" [Lemony Snicket]

love is a many splendoured thing

So on Friday we went like two bats out of hell up the A12 to Chelmsford. Ruth was driving, she has been driving - fast - for sixty+ years so I talked a lot and tried to keep my brake foot from crashing down onto the upholstery.

Obviously we got lost when we left the A road and tried to follow the garrolous map that had been written more like a novel than a set of instructions by Janette. I am an Essex girl, but we visited parts I never knew existed.

Finally we circumnavigated the various dank fields and villages in our way and ended up at the required Industrial Estate.

Not promising.

We could see our breath it was so cold, however no complaints as the rest of the country seemed to be under several foot of snow, whereas we had to peer out at the almost warm bright winter sun as we thundered Northwards.

The huge hanger we entered was freezing and forbidding, full of chunks of Victorian commemoration stones and lumps of unidentifiable metal which once belonged to something else, and made it work.

Escorted up the metal stairs we found the rest of the gang, plus curator Dot; this was where Chelmsford museum houses some of it's collection, - Dot should check the factories act, no-one should have to work in such cold.

The pics above are examples of what we examined, as examples of Romance in the Store Cupboard [not my title].

In other words tokens of love.

The silk painted postcard tells it's own story. The theme became quite miltary, which was surprising. The Heart Shaped pin cushion was made by soldiers perhaps at the end of the Boer War.

Earlier donations were often not accompanied by notes, except one family that pinned details to their bequeathed textiles in the C18th. There was a tiny cushion, made by the lady of the house from a waistcoat her husband wore when she first met him. Also a small bag shaped like a Bishop's mitre, for what use..............to hold his chess pieces of course.

The pin cushion to be given to a young mother, was definitely not to be given till after the birth as it was ?believed that each pin would be a pain, if it arrived before. It reads Bless the child and Save the mother.

The little sergeant was made by a saddler, away in the First world war, very surreal.

These are the Three [Dis]Graces - work in progress.
I have to upload them on Yahoo because my Internet Explorer won't upload pictures anymore from websites!
Also I write sometimes on my laptop in front of the fire [which is bliss in this cold weather] but the pics are on the big computer in here. The laptop will upload pics from websites, but the pics I need in this case have not leapt onto that machine because I can't remember the sequence to let them get thru the wall into next door room.
Apparently it is a Microsoft problem - so that guy should stop saving the world from measles or whatever for a few mins and get back and sort it out.

This is a work in progress...............I have now stitched the circles on so they are circular,which should help. The pale portraits are of women who used to work in the Steam engine factory in Nineteenth century, printed onto fabric.

The circles are hand made lace curtains from...........various times, when women made lace collars at home, rather than stitched them in strange looking positions at variance to the makers intentions.

The collars were donated by friends [I think most people with trunks in attics or cellars will find a few] and the quilt is an old worn one from the Retired Person's great aunt, either Ethel or Elizabeth, as it is signed with stitched initials in the corner.

We found it in an outhouse when we moved into this house, wrapped round an old musical box of similar vintage to the collars.

The quilt has been patched thru the years with increasing lack of sensitivity as to colour. I would guess the RP's grand dad did the last patching, he learned to sew and knit at Village Board School in the late 1800s. His patches were secure, but rather random. In a way they expressed the quilt history. or her-story and his-story but I couldn't bring myself to leave the navy blue with spots on.

Obviously they covered worn areas and holes which are also evocative, so i have sort of mini darned them with running stitch, without totally obliterating the holes.

Stitching colleagues suggested using the lace collars as picture frames and the whole thing is coming together.

I am still not sure if the end result will live up to the concept.................hazy recognition of the continuum of women who sew, ...........maybe.

RothKOed

Yesterday Maggi and I trained up to the Big Bad City [no not the craven broadcasting medium that won't show an appeal for the sorely tested Gaza people] - we went to London, the Tate Modern and visited Mr. Rothko, or at least his remains.

The picture above lies in its teeth as the background is maroon, not purple. I swallowed my good taste and bought this collection of fridge magnets to remind moi of the power of some of his paintings, tiny silly stickies in the kitchen, huge monolithic paintings in the Tate, seemed cheery somehow.

When I make something I am a throwback to the Modernists, I like to create emotive figures redolent with my adolescent angst.

Old Rothko wanted to get rid of any recognisable representation, or any link to the artist. He thought hmmmmmm.........painting, surely that should consist of paint.

So there we are - maybe 20 years of dragging himself out of an alcoholic stupor [he was still immured in that stereotype of an artist] swishing about with a paintbrush, trying to make us meditate on the qualities of colour on colour, eventually black on black. Somewhat uncompromising.

When he killed himself he was found in a large puddle of scarlet blood, which some have taken as his last statement, but I doubt he really cared by then.

Which is a shame, if he had seen the hoardes of small children yesterday, coralled by bemused teachers, crawling delightedly over the parquet flooring in front of the paintings, scribbling rectangles onto the pages of their sketchbooks, avidly pencilling them in with great enthusiasm, he might have felt happier. I hope somehow he knows.

The Seagram collection, scarlet on maroon, [some of which were already in their own small room at the Tate] now fill a huge room with an unearthly glow.

Other rooms have brown on black and the infamous black on black.

Rothko used different additives to his paint, [like Da Vinci he sometimes used eggs] to give varying and subtle surfaces. The scarlet hollow boxes smeared at the edges onto the dark maroon became mesmerising, against my will.

One Art Lecturer said - to be Contemporary the work should implode the expected scale, [be monumental or tiny] and the artist has to live in the appropriate city, London or New York, otherwise people will not even bother to raise their eyebrows as the walk on by.

Probably the artist should also be touched by the angels/devil as I doubt anyone else could conceive of what Rothco did, make a flat surface - sing.

Shame it wasn't enough for him.

new soul, old soul

It is sunny and my grandson is a happy babe.

Today went over to help out a friend who recently walked out on her husband. Big Mistake, always ask the man to leave!

She is 82, which does not stop her having loads of energy and initiative, but after 6 months renting a drafty cottage while they thought it over - she realised she was going to have to find somewhere permanent to live [he had changed the locks].

They both assumed that the marital home would sell for a fortune, split the proceeds and move on................another victim of the Credit Crunch.

The house remains unsold, with hubby still comfortably inside having his dinner cooked by concerned friends and neighbours.

Divorces take time.

My friend was told she was too old for a new mortgage, eventually she threatened to break back into her former home if he didn't cough up a deposit, the threat worked.

So there she is in her new apartment in the sky, many boxes and no furniture except one chair, one tiny table and one new bed.

In some ways it is encouraging that she is forging on, in another it is depressing that at no age can one relax and think it is all sorted.

Like me she is a textile artist, so the spare room is awash with boxes and boxes of paints, threads, books, canvases, machinery and presses. Not surprisingly she stalled, unsure what to put where, so we had a push and pull till she could see daylight and had a plan.

The apartment block is in an old Maltings, historic on the outside, long anonymous corridors within.

What should happen is that all her lovely work is hung up and around, at least you could tell if you have wandered this way before, but who to ask? Will Health and Safety allow it. "What if everyone does it?" It looks and feels a bit like being back at school.

time line

We sat and watched and cried and laughed with young Barack Hussein - thinking he's right - but do we dare to believe in him, can he believe in himself, or at least in his ability to turn the huge tanker round that is America.

Can Gordon turn Great Britain round?

Oh dear, it is all going to be so difficult.

It was a bit of light relief to see Barack fluff his lines, all that wonderful preparation and presentation but if something can go wrong it will, thank the Goddess. I thought maybe he had stumbled over the verb "to execute" but it seems he just stumbled because he was fed the words in the wrong order.

Such a delight that he made sure of his position by doing it again later in the day in case someone tried to prove he wasn't president after all. My Grandma would have made reference to Fred Karno's Army.

I phoned Daughter Dearest, in Nevada, to get her reaction, and as I should have expected woke her up, she is still on baby's timetable . "Oh is it today?"

Special Son in California was at work, but had popped home to catch a glimpse of the events. His messenger group is a co-op and they are beginning to notice the work slowing up, so that is worrying as he is not sure he has saved enough to pay his taxes. They are all happy to cycle up and down hill all day but no-one wants to take responsibility for the tax returns.

Can't think what I have been up to lately. Retired Person has been happily hacking through the garden and we may have the joy of a bonfire, once it stops raining which may be never.

I am working on this old patchwork quilt that belonged to one of RP's ancient relatives. It is worn into holes with several younger and totally unsympathetic patches sewn over them.

Could have been RP's grand father as he was a a competent sewer and knitter. When he went to school in the village in the late 1800s they were all taught useful skills no matter which gender. I would have said he had no artistic skills given the clashing patches, but when he returned home after the First World War he worked on regaining his serenity by painting several pictures of the countryside round here, and they aren't bad.

I have printed some photos of young women of about the same era on fabric and dotted them among the patches. I have in mind some idea of time passing, but at the moment it just looks like a old wrinkled pinky patchwork, but it is pleasing stitching on a big soft piece of fabric so I shall twiddle on for a while.

I guess that after the first World War they felt much the same as us now, fearful and hopeful. They got through it tho, grandad married, had a daughter.

He became a policeman, only ever arrested one person and was retired on his pension for longer than he policed, as he lived to 92.

Then he gardened morning till night, RP has some work to do to match him.

bye bye Bubble

The good news is this is the first time in my life that I have kept a diary [however intermitently] for a complete year.

The bad news is that Bubble the girlcat [on the right] has had to leave us. The cats are brother and sister, their other sister managed to get run over some years ago. Tilly was white with just a patch of tabby, all three of them had 6 claws on each foot. My son has a 6 clawed cat, Cedric in San Francisco so it can't be that rare, if that makes any sense.

My 2, Aggamemnon and Bubble are about 14 I think, and were both fine, mostly ignoring us and each other unless it got cold, when they would cuddle up.

But last w/e Bubbs started sitting around looking dazed. We both managed to accidently tread on her tail as she was sitting in such odd places, and not moving even at the approach of big boots.

I had to start hand feeding her, suspecting big brother was pinching all her food, but it didn't improve her lethargy so we took her to the vet, and of course it was cancer.

So now she is buried in the garden in the growing line of much missed dogs and cats.

Death is a definite design fault, tho necesary I suppose.

Hunt and gather

Went to my first SLAPPERS meeting today. The Retired Person coped well on his own, it is confusing to be a Self Starter after over thirty years working between the tram lines as a Civil Servant. So he got in his car and did some Retail Therapy, traditional solution, trusted and true - as preferred by Her Majesty's workforce.

When I retreated from the chalkface I bounced off the walls quite often at first, which was upsetting for Hattie the dog, so we went for a walk which helped a lot.

This week 's temperature has mostly been below zero, so the RP has been very welcome, manly stand in. I am a feminist, but although I see the sexes as equal they are not the same. Men are the the Hunters and need their dignity as thus maintained. This Gatherer is happy to let RP's testosterone keep him warm in this weather.

The oestrogen level was high at SLAPPERS with six mature ladies showing and telling. Plans were laid, workshops timetabled and encouragement poured in large quantities over all.

I left in a rosy glow as usual, a sceptic humbled by sheer good nature, which is good for me.

Now the RP has left for his end of the week pint at the local hostelry, a nice way to end a week of work and the start of the freedom of he w/e, except- oh yes he hasn't been to work. Some routines will never be changed.

Yesterday we drove thru the beautiful hoare frost to Hunt and Gather some coal. Altho RP was a proud Boy Scout with all the badges I light the evening fire, it's all part of creating beauty perhaps. So I didn't feel too bad to sit in the car while RP humped 10cwt of coal sacks into the back.

The coal yard was like a page of Dickens, concrete bunkers dripping with freezing coal sludge, white fog leering between the skeletal trees and a couple of blokes trudging around i layers of blackened clothes.

We had 5 women murdered in Ipswich last year, [by the same deranged burk] and one of the stripped bodies was found thrown in the river nearby. It was not a cosy feeling and we got out soon as poss with our bounty.

Now the coal is burning brightly in the grate, the cats and Hatty the dog are stretched out and soon RP will skate back, and we will all share the warmth.

friends of Artemis

It is so cold today, we left the heating on all night for once.

After a week in Norfolk - East coast, East wind - I would have thought I would be acclimatised, but I guess I am not so active now I am home.

Just sent Retired Man out on dog walk on his own, which i wouldn't have done on holiday when I expect myself to muck in and "enjoy" myself. Double glazing behind this computer doesn't seem to keep out the draughts, but when it is warm enough to examine the seal round the periphery i forget the problem.
Now Peterson and the cricket coach have thrown their handbags out of the pram, oh dear, just when we stood a chance of winning the Ashes back. What a fiasco.
Should have gone to my Textile Group meeting this morning, but wimped out because of general icyness, so now I feel I must take advantage of this time to set The New Year into gear......hmmmmmmmmmmm
Lots of stitching to be organised. I have to [yes I do] "interpret" a section of fabric design sourced from the Warner textile Collection. We each get a different copy of a piece of fabric from the collection, and are asked to "Do" something creative it.

This is a competition. Last time I won the category Most Amusing entry, which i think is probably a double edged compliment.
My source is a detail of flowers, big blousey pink roses and chrysanthemum type flowers arching across the page. Immediately i thought of big blousey pink ladies cavorting [as I do] so I have to meld the two in some fashion. I think i can silk paint a scene of ladies within petals, like obese flower fairies. Someone has to!
Then I have to finish off the piece for the Long Shop Museum. I have left some prints of the women who worked there in past times and I would like to do another piece with those and clocks..........loads of ideas. Just lack the lackeys to carry them out for me.
What i should be doing is adding to my Dance Series. I have this wondrous mass of unfelted but combed wool, dyed in fantastic shades of deep bronze which I want to embellish with really fat dancing ladies, but for some reason I keep pushing it to the back of the queue, where hopefully it is marinating.

I have been asked to do one of my portraits of this elderly couple, but they may not last long enough to receive it.

This one I did of two stitching friends,

and this is the back view of the elderly couple, now they want their front done.

Also Artemis awaits..................inspiration, I hope to make something as impressive without becoming too "amusing".

ancient and modern

We are staying in a small cottage described as Grade II listed, altho the inside has been ripped up, turned round and plaster boarded out of all recognition to the builders who put up the row of tiny terraced houses in 1825.

King George IV was on the throne [going noisily mad?] when the first people moved into it's one up, one down, plus privy and wash house out the back.

Now it has another bedroom, kitchen and bathroom grafted on. The only original space is probably the chimney space where the range [cast iron stove] was set. I understand people often used to rent then, and moved up to bigger things, as and when they could afford it, as the family [inevitably]increased. So sometimes they would own/rent collapsible ranges, which they would pile on the cart and trundle up the street to the next home.

When I lived in Carlisle with 2 children [in a similarly extended house] I found it rather cramped. Mr Graham next door thought me a total lightweight [for several reasons], he had been bought up with 8 other kids in his family in the same space.

When I was home tutoring in Carlisle, the mother would stick a shovel in the roaring coal fire and carry it next door to start another in the grate for the lesson. Of course they were Council houses, built to certain rules which made sure tenants had good sized rooms and houses to live in, unlike modern mouse traps. Carlisle had one of the largest number of council houses in the country, was told, proudly. Then Mrs Thatcher enabled tenants to buy, and the money wasn't ploughed back into the system...............

Graylag Cottage, our Norfolk abode this week, is flint faced and maybe from the front looks much like it did nearly 200 years ago. The walls are very thick, we haven't heard a peep from either side, and once you get some heat going it is very cosy.

Out back there is a yard and outhouses and then some fields with horses and pheasants doing sentry duty. There is also a rather nice summer house, but not comfortable this time of year, which is a shame as it is very calm out there.

The road is called Freeman Street as it was a toll free way of getting into the town. During the day it is a road busy with cars, but at night it quietens, the stars come out and the Xmas lights add to the glow.

Twelfth night tomorrow, all decorations must come down or mayhem ensue, so we have to whizz home and make sure Hill Cottage is free from curse for another year.

Today we drove to Holkham Beach and marched through the few spats of snow till we got too cold and bored.This an authentic flake of snow.

These are the most interesting sights on a cold beach






Retired Man and Hattie the dog.






















Evidence of past potterers.

to dongle or not to dongle

Here we are in Norfolk, mostly at 0 degrees [centigrade for foreign readers who use the measurement I was taught as a child] it is bitingly cold.
I am wearing a vest, 2 jumpers a padded jacket and a padded coat, because it is not a nice dry cold here, it is horribly damp and invasive. hattie the dog is obviously dressed and ready for anything at any time.
The much vaunted "dongle" does work, but only if we go to the pub on the hill[Him Who Is Now Retired] swears he has not fixed it thus. It just refuses to receive it's signal down in our cosy cottage by the shore.
We have walked all the byways and beaches within reach in true British fashion, best foot forward - whatever the weather. The sun is a low white disc on the horizon glittering thru the clouds with a raw nervous energy, rarely chasing shadows.
That's it really, long healthy walks, some fairly nice food, regular beers and coffees and the routine migraine that appears whatever the weather, also.
Have read 3 books, really enjoyed American Wife. P complained as it is based on Mrs Bush, and she doesn't know how accurately. I wasn't bothered as I thought it had some nice observations on the compromises necessary in a marriage. Next 2 books covered the necessary strategies necessary to catch your serial killer. I could do with my Mrs Gaskell now as an antidote, but have left her at home.

Figures of Speech

Couple of shiny days keeps good humour aloft at home, but not in the Gaza Strip, or many other places if I could bear to pay attention.

Are they all hot and sunny, does the Northern Hemisphere at least encourage us to stay indoors - and watch old war movies........

Spent some time today trying to clear back the stitching detritus ready for the New Year, many many pins and a varied selection of needles found their way back into the correct place.

In the never ending search to improve on the Venus of Wollendorf I made a very sturdy female, who is now my pin cushion. I can happily stick pins all over her - except the breasts and head. Too close to home to risk any voodoo.

I am making a trio of Big Women, which I May call the Three Dis-Graces, as i find it hard to resist a quip. I would really like to make one 6' tall, but I need a Sponsor! or at least someone willing to give it a home.

If our Big Women Exhibition comes off next year I will at least be able to offer many and varied Tummies, plus a few Pot Bellies from my clay days.

I am desperate to make a large Artemis too, at least my obsessions are mainly harmless, not genocide or ......................

Chrimble

This is actually the tree from 2006, but as we are still using it, I decided to take a short cut. Jo, a friend from the next village, is a willow weaver so she made this for us. It looked much the same this year except it was in the conservatory this time.
Xmas day was cloudy, wrinklies turned up and seemed to have a good time, except ma in law forgot to bring our Xmas presents - but that is what it is like to be a wrinkly, as I am finding out.
Today is a real gift as it is sunny, if with a cold N wind.
Lots of people in their Xmas knits walking happy dogs round The Clamp. Hattie agreed to leave her Xmas toy behind and accompany us, she was also happy to return to said toy and the knowledge that there is still much turkey and ham awaiting consumption when we got back. Always a helpful doggy.
Skyped with young mother, father and baby in his Santa outfit. Lots of snow in Reno.
Son has not yet got round to getting a web camera, so got his phone call passed to his g'ma when the pics of smiley baby arrived.
Son says he and the other "orphans" [those without a partner to organise a Xmas for them] are gathering at the local bar to deep fry a turkey. He thought he would take mashed potatoes, but no means to reheat except deep fat fryer so i expect they will go in too.
I have new scarlet slippers, too soft to click, a dongle so I can get on line when we are away, a silky bed spread and lots of book tokens [once the last lot limp in].
I am reading American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld at the mo, Amazon sent me 2 [my fault, impatient finger] and as i am enjoying it have given other copy to Noisy Friend. Usually we totally disagree on films and books, it will be interesting to see if this one brings us together.
Friend in the West Country sent me an Eco Diary which is very absorbing with lots of sky, earth, flora and fauna info. Very complex, but very simple, hopefully I will finally be able to identify more than Orion's Belt.
Sherlock Holmes play is about to come on the wireless, so shall stitch a bit and listen, except Dylan is doing one of his music pics on this station........................choices.

dark side of the moon

The main colour here in the country is brown. Even tho the ground here is light and sandy the cold relentless rain has managed to transform it into a scene reminiscent of the trenches. The leaves have mostly abandoned the trees and fallen into the thick glutinous mess of decay, glimmering paley in the deep sodden ruts, before they succumb to brownness.

Or is it me?

The full moon was huge last week, menacing close to earth every14 years. It shone into the strange dark shadows of the fields piled high with small mountains of muddy sugar beets, waiting for the lorry to escort it to the sugar factory.

We are, as ever, protected by the holly and ivy, still green. That's why it is used in Xmas wreaths to hang on our doors it seems. Ancient peoples used to believe it must have magic powers to stay green and shiny when everything else had dried up and fallen to the ground.

Perhaps if I got round to making some tomorrow it would encourage Xmas cheer. Have to be red bows tho, as the birds seem to have made short work of the berries.

I shall go and light the fire, that still works its magic for ancient and modern peoples.

In Nevada the kids light a fire in a big oil drum to warm the garden BBQ and cut designs in the sides. I ate so much meat and drank too many milkshakes it seems, as my cholesterol count has shot up from 5+ to 7+.