green and pleasant

Today we had to organise a bit in the morning as I wanted to get the dragon Tshirts into the post - flying towards the g'sons, which hopefully was achieved.
To celebrate we sat outside Costa's hoping the sunshine would last. A woman approached asking to share the table, I Hate that, it feels so encroaching, but decided to be civilised and smiled a welcome.
But then she said did we mind if she smoked, this dragon raised her head and she retreated.
She found a berth at the next table, so we still got some of the benefit of her smoke, where she noisily complained about the anti-smoker laws. We had some empathy as we have to sit outside because of Hatters but didn't let it show.
We are both ex-smokers, now the smell of smoke makes me ashamed of what I must have put others thru. I used to roll my own with liquorice papers, it was the ritual I missed as much as anything.
My son smokes even tho he whizzes about as a bicycle messenger up and down the hills of San Francisco, his lungs must be really confused what with the tobacco smoke, traffic fumes and .....fresh sea air. He keeps stopping and starting, he says now he has paid his taxes he has 40 dollars for the next two weeks, eat or smoke, let's hope he makes a good decision.
Daughter and son inlaw gave up for the babe, when they were young they used to harangue me, but now I am only allowed to be encouraging.
On the way to car I bought Alistair Campbell's Diary in hard back for a quid from a charity shop, it will be an alternative fantasy for when I finish D Brown [who is really annoying me at the mo].



We went up to Symonds Yat, very calm and pretty, and green - no smoke

walkies

Lovely sunny day, we took a long walk along the river.
Hattie is a happy doggy, she approves of this holiday tho she does point out that one can take lots of long walks at home without having to drive for 4 hours to reach them.
We tell her to shut up and keep walking; lots of other dogs walking their owners too
The beach is stony and muddy, covered in dramatic seaweed that I think was described as "black gold" in a TV programme where they talked about how it was once smoked? and sold as fertiliser, not round here I don't think.

I am still reading the D Brown, it is interesting about America's Freemasonry origins; it is amazing how little we know about different cultures and why they are different, how their concepts are formed and developed.
It seems that although we are constantly bombarded with information, so much of it is irrelevant to growing our understanding of each other or ourselves. The furore about the American Health Insurance Bill and the NHS for instance is a case in point. The history behind and in front of each would be useful to clarify understanding, but it seems politicians can't afford to be open and talk about what is really important.
Goddess knows how we will ever sort it all out, it seems like most people know in their hearts what is needed but we have no idea how to reach it.
I read in the local paper that our anarchist march on Saturday culminated in tens of young persons throwing pies at several large banks in Bristol...........hmmmmmmmmm later hundreds of over heated young persons [different ones I presume] queued to see Peter Andre at Asda, there is a message there maybe, maybe not.

sun shines

A lovely sunny day, walked Hatty the dog along the parkland above the river, meeting and greeting many doggy friends.
Half an hour drinking coffee outside Costas reading the Saturday papers, then RP walked Hatters home while I floated guilt free round Waitrose, till partner returns wafting shopping bags having collected car and a sense of mission.
We haven't got a Waitrose at home so it was refreshing to have everything in a different place and purportedly of a superior quality.
Lunch on the lawns of a rather nice riverside pub, only annoyance a bloke on my left - so full of himself he felt it necessary to share every opinion.
Should confine himself to blogging, or the Plinth.
The marina nearby was very nouveau riche, architected nests of colourful, ingeniously shaped and turreted housing arranged in cosy little squares and courtyards. .
I imagine one has to check the plans closely to make sure your new home had a view of the water [mud] rather than the backside of someone else' fantasy castle
The rest of the afternoon was spent snoozing and reading Mr Brown. His book is indeed a thriller if a somewhat daft one.

Bristol

This house we have rented for the holiday was very clean, lots of pristine white paint and furniture and cream carpets throughout. The oven however apparently escaped the attention of the previous tenant's.
Chef was not amused.
The carpet is beginning to shade to grey with the generous application of doggy hair so we shall have to break out the hoover before our next set of visitors.
We have had stepson here for last few days,and today we went with him back to Bristol, it is a lively city, somehow more relaxed than London. I am always happy when I am back in London, especially my familiar places North of the River.
Today we were South of the River?Avon/Severn as I wanted to see an exhibition by the Gordano group of fifteen artists from the South West.

[lots of melted tyvek]
This one was dyed with Woad. I tried this once myself and got this same innocuous shade, which at the time was disappointing, but in this situation is was quite pleasingly calm. Surely the Ancient Britons obtained a more dramatic hue.

Stepson was curious as to how these felted faces had been constructed, but there was very little information about the work or the group. Their website is still under construction.
We pottered off thru the city - an anarchist group was having their annual march with black and yellow balloons and more police and riot vans than marchers [incl. at least 4 on horseback]. They didn't seem dangerous, seemingly being composed mostly of vegans knitting in solidarity for Palestine.
It was a lovely sunny day, the parks decorated with horizontal young persons chattering on their mobile phones, I was so disarmed I bought the new D Brown - well I am on holiday. Stepson found it all very tiring, has gone back to work for a rest.

sun, sea and smoke

Today we went for a day trip to Weston super Mare, I remember spending a week there as a kid, with my parents. Being an only child I was bored silly after a few days, but finally found that the sand was perfect for making relief sculptures of faces and animals. No sign of that today, tho I saw a notice of a Summer Sand Sculpture competition that I had sadly missed, but I suspect that others skill levels may developed over the years.

The vast sandy beach is still there, but the poor old pier has suffered.





Now it looks like this,
shuttered and guarded.

This bronze relief reminds passers by of past glories

It was fairly grim in the town really, even tho the sun was shining. The wind was blowing in true British coastal fashion and the very young and very old [not many in between] were sheltering, clutching their packets of chips and hats with grim determination.
These kids, who perhaps should have been in school, were practising their back flips, but I only caught him on the way down.

Pottered down onto the beach today, largely sandstone, brown sucky old river mud, lines of black seaweed and almost fluorescent lichens. Found one trainer [rejected] and one bicycle seat - so thoughts turned to Picasso......... banged out the wildlife secreted in the spongy underside and put aside for another day.
Did wonder if we would come across the wet cyclist, but fortunately not.

Clevedon Pier was a surprise, such a fragile but elegant structure, made by the Victorians in Cast Iron.
Piers are in such trouble these days, we have seen Brighton's West Pier a burnt out shell, and the main pier survives mainly on the Fairground terror ride on the far end.
Southwold Pier has fascinating automatons including a weird clock but is threatened by the changing tides which are undermining the coast.
Hastings pier is just Shut. It was bought by a company but they now seem to be about to go bankcrupt.
Clevedon pier has absolutely no attractions except itself and the Pagoda TeaShop at the end........ and the anglers club...but when you look more closely the planks are studded with sponsored brass plaques, which pay for the upkeep of the Pier..
Most of the plaques are Birth, marriages and Deaths, many of the last.
It's a bit depressing, like when you stagger after a long walkies to sit on a helpfully placed bench, only to find it commemorates someone else, deeply missed, who also loved this spot.
Makes one feel uncomfortably temporary/disposable.
.
But quite a few of these plaques were amusing, sweet or straight strange.

there be dragons

Today we crossed the river into foreign lands via the beautiful Severn suspension Bridge. Toll £5.40 but that covers return trip too. I have vague memories of when I was a little kid being sat on the fence of the old Severn Bridge by my father being jolly - I was terrified.

I guess this is the old bridge, we stayed away from it
We headed for Tintern Abbey, lots more left than usual after Henry VIII had his wicked way, basically it seemed they knocked off the roof and supporting pillars so it wouldn't be replaced..
This seems to be the extent of risk in the abbey these days

A double click reveals all

It was a lovely day and I got a Tshirt for Coffee Spoons g'son and mine [they both may need to grow into them.
.

light and white

The bedroom windows are quite dramatic


The dining room - with candles, but who has matches these days



This graceful white bird flying away from me is a Little Egret .


There it is - on the other side of the pond. Last time we saw one of these we were in Egypt.

We can see the Severn Bridge from here, it is rather beautiful white and graceful like the egret, if you have the binoculars to see it, of course we have left ours at home.

East to West

So here we are on the other side of the island, but not as far as Wales, tho we can see it across the river there.
RP drove us [Hattie the dog and me] 230 hot miles across country, storming round the M25 is no fun, so instead we took in the rural roads skirting round Milton Keynes, Bletchley, Oxford till in the end we had to drop onto the M4 to get to Bristol and on to Portishead - overlooking the River Severn.
Oh my Goddess I am turning into one of the wrinklies having a "routes conversation" .....with myself.
This is a three storey town house, quite new, a neat column of tiny rooms obsessively and exclusively decked out in black and white. It feels like being in a bad film made in the ?80s, 60s? but the sharp ethos includes Wifi and two [yes count them] black evil flat screen televisions, with more than 4 channels. Usually holiday cottages are lucky to have one creaky TV in colour.
The view from the balconies across to Wales are stunning so I hope the sun continues to shine in the morning so we get the full effect.

amoebas are us

Listened over night, as I couldn't sleep, to Obama's speech about changing the American Health Insurance System.
Now, this afternoon he is commemorating 9/11. Both depressing, tho hopefully something good will come out of both.
We were on holiday in Cornwall when we saw the TV when we returned from a happy trip out in the sunshine - to see, what at first, i thought was a disaster movie.
When I realised some of what was happening, looping thru again and again, we made frantic phone calls on our poor little mobiles, such a seemingly fragile connection, to our kids in the States. Neither were in New York but at the time no-one knew for sure what was or was going to happen.
I note Coffee Spoons is reading old magazines about the Second world War. We have g'dads big red mock-leather books here [badly flood damaged] binding together magazines about the First World War.
I have started and now stopped reading a book about Churchill/Stalin/Roosevelt at Yalta; too much detail of unbelievable cruelty as armies crushed and re-crushed Poland, to want to continue.
But, although it is all ghastly and we may end up wiping ourselves out as Margaret Atwood suggests in her new book, I still think in the main we try hard.
We are just animals, in the paper today it says even amoeba betray each other!! so each time one of us does a generous thing it is a tick and I will cherish it as long as I can.

making a mark

Arrived safely in Cambridge, the gallery looks quite nice but not on the main drag, so we may have to "drag" people off the buses as they trundle past. Saw plenty of passengers peering out of the top deck windows down into the brightly coloured gallery windows.
initially we were made to feel very Female/useless as there was no electricity,the fuse box looked forbidding and there was a note about the air conditioning having blown a fuse the previous day so we called for the electrician.
Fortunately he was the jolly artisan sort, made it work and left clutching a poster. I nearly said "for your wife" i was so mired in the little woman role.

This lion was a protective male symbol for the rest of the day we ladies stewarded. I remember I once as a kid drew a card for my parents anniversary where my dad was a lion and my ma was a thistle. Hmmmmmmm.
I really like these "vessels" and actually have her book, but so far haven't managed to read the instructions sufficiently well to exploit the idea.

M was stewarding with me, but became incensed very soon when she spied that they had hung her four pieces in the wrong order and charged the wrong price. Whoops. As work was screwed to the wall it wasn't something that could be rectified. Goodness knows what happens if someone wants to buy something and take it home. Fortunately there was little danger of that as we took 50p [postcard] before the lights were turned on and about a 310 I would reckon for the rest of the day.

We were closed in the afternoon tho, for a Private View to be opened by Mary Cozens Walker, textile artist, easily recognised as her husband and she are both members of the RA and he paints her and himself in "amusing" situations.
She said some nice things about being true to ourselves as artists which is all very well but I would guess that many of us feel we are so many people/roles fighting or conniving for survival, especially of the identity that makes time for "making" as opposed to making do.