90 years

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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..........................

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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