Tuesday 18th October - Boggle-eyed, but the October Newsletter is complete

 I spent a huge amount of yesterday sitting at my wonderful new workstation. At the moment I so enjoy being in this corner that I look forward to an excuse to settle down to some work, or, for that matter, play.

To my left on the shelves beside me are some sketchbooks, and the tray with paints and brushes. All I have to do is bring an old mug of water and I'm ready to go!

(Those wires and that long shiny black metal arm are to do with using a cheap kindle fire as a second screen when I am teaching the piano)

In front of me is the garden, looking glorious in the sun, the bees busy in the salvia, nasturtiums glowing like  - like - nasturtiums.

So it was a real pleasure, not a chore at all, to sit at my new desk and finish the October 'Print and Post' Newsletter. It is there! In the pages to the right of the blog post. I also got most of the November Newsletter ready; my aim is to put a page up at the beginning of the month in future.

October's takes three sides of A4 paper to print. I am aiming to keep each newsletter to around 3-4 sides. My idea is that you can, if you want, print it and post it so someone who isn't on the internet but who would enjoy the sort of chit-chat that goes on in these types of blogs.

The photographs, text and wonky drawings are all my fault work; I don't pretend to be a professional in any other these categories. 

Do please let me know what you think... (and if you spot any typos....!)

 

Thursday March 10 - Getting EVERYTHING done?

 No, not quite everything. 

I still have a couple of hours left before bed time at about ten o'clock, but I have just about reached The End.

I sat in bed this morning, doom-scrolling through the news and twitter and finally managed to put down the phone and think about the day.

I've started writing 'morning pages' again this month; just one page in a small notebook to get myself started.

Today it turned into a 'to do' list.

I need to

• do my exercises
• send letters to two friends
• do yesterday's writing course ( a short 5-day course from Writers HQ)
• write up three piano lessons from yesterday's teaching
• tech two piano lessons today
• Host a zoom starting at 8.30pm
• read a couple emails 
• Bible study time

I ought to

• hoover some part of the house (it all needs doing!)
• Practise the Bach piece
• Finalise my design for this month's postcard project embroidery  

I'd like to

• order some variegated embroidery threads and buy a small block of beeswax
• sew a line of the 'Try a stitch Tuesday' series
• Write a blog post

Fourteen items to get done between 9:30 am and 10pm- do-able

But then I got on and

• watered the seedlings
• filled the bird feeders
• wrote feedback to a student on a video recording they sent me
• responded to several other emails
• remembered to phone a member of the family 
• checked my bank statement for missing lesson payments

and fourteen items became twenty, just like that!

Well, it is half past six, I am typing a blog with the fingers on one hand while eating pieces of pizza with the other hand - both hands when I can. I have completed

EVERYTHING in green.

The last item; 'host a zoom', will happen in two hours, and up until then I am Clocking Off!

It hasn't been all busy busy;

I have been in the garden a couple of times to admire the crocuses and spring patio tubs

I have opened the window on my Lent calendar; Owls (these would make a good embroidery!)

with the scripture 'I am an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places' from Psalm 102, 6-7.

 

They look utterly doleful; I think they are not happy about being stuck in the ark, when they would rather be in the wilderness.

Here is my (possibly) final sketch for the embroidery. I will probably redraw it a couple of times and choose the one I like best.

It is based on a mix of 'Cat Amongst the Tulips' by Angela Harding, from her book 'A year Unfolding' 

And this birthday card, sadly with no artist name on it so I am unable to add a credit.

Tuesday 1st February - Looking back, looking ahead

 I'm not doing 'New Years Resolutions' this year. I decided to start each month afresh, with a 'wish list' rather than resolutions, and see how I got on.

So, January;

Did I learn the new piano pieces? NO! And I didn't do much practice either. Ah well. I did make a start on the Jacques Ibert 'Little White Donkey', and it wouldn't take much effort to finish it. I think I'll carry that one forward.

However I did finish the mitten (memo to self, next time DO use a smaller needle for the ribbing) and also a pair of socks, my first ever. 

I am amused to see that laying the socks on top of the printer for the photograph has resulting in me awarding myself a star! 

The socks have pointy toes; I did graft the toe end of the RH sock but had the sock in the wrong orientation. Who cares! I am going to use them as bed socks, which is one of the reasons why the legs are so short. The other reason is that I wasn't sure if I would have enough wool.

I did finish the other two projects; a cowl (now chopped up in the compost bin, memo to self; DO NOT knit things like that in pure Shetland wool, far too itchy) and the little white Christmas ornaments, now stuffed with lavender and reposing in my sock drawer.

Walking happened - and I now that I have discovered I can convert 30 mins ballet to approximately half a mile of walking, I shall make faster virtual progress around the Ring of Kerry.

Weight-wise I ended the month a couple of pounds lighter than I started it - in spite of the Christmas Chocolate stash, home-made macaroons and rockish scone-ish cakes, pannetone, and other delights. 

So, looking ahead...

Finish learning the Little White Donkey,

Make another pair of socks in finer wool and try and get the green jumper going again (it's stuck at the moment as I work out what to do next. Following a proper pattern would have made this much easier!)

Do more drawing/panting

Walk more, now that the weather is improving

See if I can end the month a little lighter than when I started it

That's five items on the wish list. Plenty.

The new picture at the top of this blog comes from when we took a short break in Tewkesbury, oh so many years ago now. Maybe it was 2014. I notice the month is April, but it was bitterly cold when we were there, more like February. The dragon lives at the bottom of someone's garden, facing across the water meadows and the River Severn. We spoke to owner; she had commissioned it as a memorial to her husband, who came from Wales. 

Here he is again, for people using their tablets or mobiles to read this post;

 

   

 

Wednesday 21st July 2021 - Taking a line for a walk

 

Paul Klee Quotes;. 

A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.

A line is a dot that went for a walk.

Battle - Gefecht
https://www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum/news/2019/object-of-the-month-gefecht-battle-by-paul-klee.html

Here's a snap-shot of the opening sequence of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue from the film Fantasia 2000. The cartoonist obviously felt the same about music; 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie-TS-BitnQ

and so do I, which was why I was so pleased to see this. I love the piece, but I don't care so much for the rest of the cartoon. I have heard that Gershwin hadn't finished composing the piano part on the opening night, so made up quite a lot of it...

Knitting feels a bit the same; taking the end of a ball of wool for a walk

This is going to be a pot-holder, according to the pattern instructions and the picture. The fuschia tail is where I cast on, and then by some kind of alchemy and incantation I seem to be creating a square spiral. I'm now knitting the last couple of squares so that there will be nine in all, and then I need to wash it violently in hot soap water to make it all felt up into a felted up square. We shall see. Here's the picture on the (free!) pattern.

I have had three goes at doing the spiral one, but haven't managed to get past the fourth row yet. 

I spent this afternoon immersing myself in you-tube tutorials to sew your own tee-shirt, using a favourite old one as a pattern. You place your favourite tee-shirt, folded lengthwise, and take your pencil for a walk around the outside. Seems simple enough... and then you have to consider the stretchy neck band, and how to sew stretchy fabrics with a very basic sewing machine, 

I think I've absorbed most of the instructions, top tips, do's and don't's, one-directional and two-directional stretch etc... so maybe tomorrow I will take a pair of scissors to the skirt I bout about ten years ago but have hardly ever worn.

I want to let all the information settle before I start, so I went and took the hose for a walk, watering the garden after another baking hot day. 

Tuesday 24th November - Distracted

That would have been the word for today if I had chalked one... but I was too distracted.

There's rather a lot going on at the moment, but hopefully things will become calm, sort themselves out, settle down, become clear, in the next few days.

It's nothing life or death or scary, just to many things to remember, think about, deal with, all at once!

I've snitched this picture from the internet

   Some of the things are to do with music teaching - suddenly being bounced into running an on-line music exam yesterday, for example, some are to do with houseworky stuff, some of it is because my head is buzzing with art ideas and they are not ready to go from head to hands yet. Not forgetting the anenome corms that I want to plant in that patch of flowerbed that I haven't cleared yet...

Thursday 19th November - Don't Panic

 

It is not my birthday and I won' be 19 years old, or even six years old.

Today's word was prompted by the arrival of an email with this picture in it;

and the question 'would I like some?'

Cake????

Of course!

I've just had a slice while sorting out stuff on the internet and it has cheered me up immensely. The Very Good Friend delivered it an hour ago, and I handed over mincemeat and also advent tea lights and the remains of the mincemeat fruit cake I made yesterday. 

I think we got the better of that deal.

I didn't manage a walk today - by the time I had got up and sorted myself out there were other things to do and then it was lunch time.

I did cut out some lino print leaves, and print them on a background that I had prepared earlier;

very happy-making. I just created three leaves, and then splattered the printing all over the page.

I've also started ordering Christmas presents...... oooooooh and a new pair of shoes because my old faithfuls have stretched into boats over the years. Horrors! It appears that Hotter gave up making this style about three years ago and the only pair they have left in the recesses of the warehouse are size 7 extra wide... I was tempted, but sense prevailed and I have ordered a similar style (fingers crossed) in chocolate (it was that or black - my other shoes came in blue or red or burgundy or green or boring brown or black - sigh) and in the proper size (5E, if you really wanted to know).

Lots of deliveries to look forward to!

 

Wednesday 18th November - Keep Going

 

My grandmother, I think it was, used to sing 'Keep right on to the end of the road' but I couldn't remember any more of the song. Here it is on YouTube with Harry Lauder.

It is exactly the sort of song one associates with Patriotism and World War 1. Anyway, this is the phrase that inspired today's word, after slogging round the block today. Maybe it would have been easier if I hadn't already finished off the windows that I cleaned yesterday (there's always a smear or two left) and done my stretchy exercises, and quickly dealt with a couple of emails... and if there hadn't been such a strong headwind snatching my breath away...

Anyway, I did 'Keep right on to the end of the road', in this case, until we were back at the gate again, and felt all the better for it as I knew I would.

Most of this year has felt a bit like the song...

In other news I have been making lino print labels for the mincemeat that I intend to give away;

I would have liked the heart to be a little bigger, but, you know, one moment's inattention... good job I'm not a brain surgeon is all I can say. 

I should have been writing up yesterday's piano lessons but... h well. I have just now caught up with yesterday's lessons and all but one of  today's lessons Some of the time that should have been spent writing up was used in rearranging EVERYTHING around the piano, so that I can have  tablet and the laptop involved in the zoom; tablet on top of the piano for facing into, and laptop to one side with the whole of the keyboard in shot. This is to try and save my neck muscles; I can't get all the keyboard AND my face into the zoom screen, and so I have and achy neck from sitting in a peculiar scrunched up way to bring my head down into the shot.

I do have three zooms a week that last over the '40 mins for free' limit (I'm too much of a scrooge to subscribe) so will have to cope with the weird head position for those, but at least the other 9 zooms will be more comfortable!

The Christmas cactus has been renamed Advent Cactus - it's even a bit early for that.

 

    

 

Sunday 1st November - so it starts with a star

Here we go again with http://nablopomoguideunofficial.blogspot.com/

Aim - to post to your blog every day for a month...

I've decided to create a list of hopeful and positive words for every day this month, and today's word is 'star'

specifically this one, which overlaps nicely with #inktober, as it is the first of an Advent sequence that I started yesterday

I also started lino cutting yesterday, having been turning over the process in my mind for several weeks, from design to cut to print

It's very much a 'learn as you go along' activity - you can read and read and ponder and imagine, but in the end you have to make a star-t.

One tutorial recommends making rubbings of the design as you went along which is an Excellent Idea. Already I have discovered that I needed to have done quite a lot of things differently - like not transferring too many designs at a time as they just get smudged, and not placing them so close together in an effort to make the pieces of lino last.

Never mind. I'm looking forward to creating the first prints in 50 years. 

November, even with the lock down, is looking to be a month of adventure. 

Tuesday 26th May - How a cup of coffee and a croissant...

...can magnificently improve mood and temper...

after the previous outbursts against That Man Who Should Have Known Better...

It's been a while since a last blog post - partly because I have had telephoneconversations or zoom chats with many family and friends recently. I expect there is news - but I can't think what. Mostly about flowers coming out (clematis, nemesia, snapdragons) and vegetables growing big enough to eat (lettuce leaves, spinach, radishes).

Or deliveries - now, that's a new excitement. Today we had a le creuset pan and a set of beard trimmers arrive. A few days ago a pair of trousers for me. In the sale! They fit well enough that I shall buy some more. I'm all for mending things where possible, but inside seams of jeans is a step too far. My next delivery isn't due until Thursday next week. One has to space them out.

We went for a long walk yesterday - in 'olden times' it would have been a gentle stroll but I did find it more taxing than in days of yore. We stopped at my father's abode to deliver breakfast cereal, and went on through the path by the river towards a friend who lives across the dual carriageway. The Offsprings may remember this tree;

The banks have eroded considerably in the twenty odd years since wenused to drop you carefully through the hole to the extreme left of the photograph, playing 'Alice through the Rabbit Hole'. Nowadays the way through the huge hole on the right leads to a gentle earthy path leading down to the river. Nowhere near as thrilling an adventure, all the perils of slipping and sliding down the muddy slope into the water are gone.

 We carried on, crossing the golf course (ruined as a walk these days now that the golfers are back, solemnly hitting little golf balls and then having to go and find them by themselves - I thought people bought dogs to retrieve things that disappeared into long grass). While dodging golfers we discovered a pond that I hadn't come across before. All serene and peaceful in the sun.

The wild roses are flowering now;

  

very pale and luminous in the shadowy part of the path. 

Of course, once we turned for home and I realised how far we had to walk back... but we made it, social distancing all the way. 

Otherwise, the days and weeks have been a succession of zoom chats, zoom meetings, zoom piano lessons, knittings and crochetings and drawings and pianoings. I did get out the cello on the Thursday 'clap for the nhs' (that does sound disgusting to my ears, but that's because of knowing too much about what used to be called 'the special clinic' when my mother worked in one). I brazened my way through a bit of 'Salut d'Amour' - the opening theme before it gets all passionate and modulatory - and 'Amazing Grace'.

I've heard that the lady who started the 'clap for the nhs' is thinking that it should stop after this week - the 'exit strategy' was always going to be the thing. In our road we come out and clap and cheer and then chat for a few minutes. 

Ah well. We shall see.

 

Wednesday 21st August - The Week So Far; Monday

Monday - what shall we do?

Go to Tate Modern in London. I knew that we would be too late join in with the Lego building thingy; when we got there a couple of staff were getting to grips (literally) with the slow and painstaking task of dismantling it. 

I didn't ask if they had to sort the bricks as well. It was eerily quiet, compared to the echoing hubbub in the rest of the building. I had half planned to bring along a brick from home; red, or black, or grey, as a subversive addition...

We went round the Takis exhibition. I didn't take photographs, just one sound recording. How one puts a sound clip onto this blog is rather beyond me.

The views from the Tate Modern building are spectacular;

We timed lunch to perfection; having spurned all the eateries at the Tate Modern we went out of a random exit and found ourselves looking straight at a Wagamama. Excellent (if noisy). And even more excellent because we managed to grab a window table. And even more excellenter still; those threatening clouds in the photographs were for real, and this was the moment that the heavens opened and the rain was bouncing off the pavements and we were nice and dry and chopsticking our way through udon noodles and all kinds of bits and pieces.

Afterwards the sun came out and London was sparkling and clean so we slowly walked along the Thames path all the way upstream; through a sort of festival atmosphere all around the South Bank and Festival Theatre area, through the most touristy scenes of seething crowdsI have ever seen in London at County Hall by the London Eye (with hands firmly clasped around bags - it really felt almost like lawless Victorian Britain updated to the 21st century). Then under Westminster Bridge and into the tranquil stretch alongside St Thomas' Hospital. Past Lambeth Palace, and ending up in the cafe of the Garden Museum, right by the Palace. 

A mystery thriller I read came to its dramatic conclusion in the churchyard surrounding the museum; it was written by Jefferson Tate and I think it might have been 'The Last Queen of England', so I will have to re-read it to check.

We took the bus to Victoria Station, all around the back streets of Pimlico, and caught a train home. 

Great Day Out.   

Leo-the-cat was behaving oddly when we got back, pawing at her mouth from time to time... oh-oh... 

Saturday 20th April - Farnham Sculpture Park

This was a bit of a treat in many ways. We collected a ready-made picnic (thank you, Waitrose, for making our sandwiches) and set off.
'Have we been here before'
'No, never, at least I don't recognise these roads... er, or maybe I do?'

Yes, we had tried to visit the Sculpture Park last year, but found the place was mobbed by visitors and we couldn't park within half a mile. This time we were much more fortunate.

This griffin looks s though he means business - I'm not sure he is really as fierce as he is pretending to be...

This little bear, made by a 6-year old, is not for sale!

These sculptures are harder to spot - a number of highly polished pyramids set in a clearing.

There were a number of skeletons around the place - this one is actually doing some work, others were just messing around, riding penny farthings as so on.

I look quite stylish, wearing a hat... 

This was perhaps the highlight of the whole trip...

let me zoom in...

A lizard, about 9 inches long, looking like a fully articulated Faberge creation, beautifully iridescent, slipping across the log and in and out of the bits and pieces on the woodland floor. We looked it up - an incredibly rare sand lizard, and the heathlands on the Surrey Hills is one of the few places it can be found. The sculptures will be there tomorrow and next year, but I don't expect I'll ever see a sand lizard again.



This picture above is from https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/reptiles/sand-lizard - it looked Exactly Like This. That's a Huge Big Wow.

Thursday 12th April - Compton

We actually went for a day out...

The Watts Gallery and Studio in Compton, Surrey, has been on my list for years. It is famously the home of George and Mary Watts; eminent Victorian artists. He was The Great Portrait Painter, and she was The Great Arts and Crafts Designer and also started the Arts and Crafts Pottery in the village.

Oh, rather than me going on, look it up; google 'Watts Studio' or, 'Watts' Gallery' or 'Watts' Chapel' and you'll be able to find out all about it.

We had mixed feelings; it is All So Very Arts And Crafts, especially the Memorial Chapel, that we were a bit overwhelmed. Everything seemed to be in Capital Letters, if you know what I mean. Odd to think that this was exactly the era that my Grandmother grew up in - that transition between Victorian Art and Edwardian Socialism. I have an Arts and Crafts bedroom candlestick which used to belong to her.

On the whole I prefer the National Trust's Standen house, also Arts and Crafts but not so Conscious.

Anyway, I took my paintingy things along. We are going on holday later this year, and I'd love to be able to create a travel journal/sketchbook, but that's not going to happen unless I start getting my eye in now.

Lunch took forever to arrive - a combination of kitchen technology failure and a coach party of Dutch tourists was proabably the fatal combination. I amused myself copying part of the site map into my diary; 

After we had walked round The Studio and The Chapel we had tea and cake. They serve it on mis-matched vintage china cups, saucers and plates; most attractive. The jugs tend to be less delicate, and as for the teapot - well, I couldn't bring myself to include it. A plain round white teapot with 'TEA' printed round the belly. 'TEA'. What else would one expect to find in a teapot? Apart from maybe a gold watch or a dormouse. But there wasn't much room for frivolity here.

I had a go at copying a painting that caught my eye in the gallery;

It was in shades of a pearly greenish bluish grey, and depicted a moment when they were sailing around near Venice in the fog. Maybe I liked it so much because there was no deep symbolism, wracking emotion, moral message...


Today is actually Sunday 14th April; I said the posts might be out of date order. I've finished the first crochet square, and also sewn a bag to keep the ball of wool and crochet hook and next-square-in-progress. I'm ridiculously proud of setting in the zip - as I sewed it all by hand it was much easier than roaring along with the sewing machine and then unpicking at all afterwards. 

Thursday 26th July - What we did yesterday part 2

Before I leave the topic of the V and A Museum, I must just mention this;

the courtyard between the sculpture gallery and the main cafe in the red-brick building in the photo.

By the end of the afternoon the space was full of families enjoying a relaxed afternoon. You can see all the children playing in the large, shallow paddling pool - some in swimming costumes, some in underpants, and some just soaked through in their T shirts and shorts. I waded through the pool instead of walking round - when I took my shoes off, I found the paved area was too hot to walk on in bare feet. The water was luke warm - delightful - and deeper than I thought, so soon the hem of my long dress was soaked. No matter. It kept me cool as I walked round the rest of the museum, and my feet had dried off before I needed to put my shoes on again.

What a lovely, lovely place for families to take their children to! Free entry, toilets, cafe, seating, shade, sun, paddling pool - no wonder so many people come. And if they should pause and look at  some marvellous object on the way in or out, so much the better.

Oh, and I meant to mention this statue, close by the entrance to the courtyard, in the sculpture gallery;

Thetis is dipping Achilles into the Styx, (all except his heel, of course)

Achilles doesn't seem to be appreciating his mother's efforts. See, read the information label;

"The heads of Thetis and Achilles are portraits of the client's wife and baby". What a sweet idea.

from wikipedia re Thomas Johnes:  (he seems a Good Egg)

His marriage to his wife Jane, a beautiful and highly intelligent woman, brought great happiness to Thomas. They enjoyed a close relationship, sharing an interest in improving Ceredigion and a love of Hafod.

Their first child Mariamné was born 30 June 1784. Johnes was completely besotted with her and was closely involved with her upbringing. No expense was spared in her education; tutors from all over the world were hired. He shared an especially close emotional bond with Mariamné. He was heartbroken when she preceded him in death on 4 July 1811.

His son Evan was born in 1786, during the time his wife Jane had laid the cornerstone of their home. The boy died in infancy.^[4] 

Friday 6th April - In search of lunch

We went in search of lunch by the sea; The Bluebird cafe in Ferring seemed very appealing. Many, many other people, with hundreds of dogs and thousands of children seemed to agree with our choice. So we left and headed for Arundel, and  found monumental traffic jam. So we zipped down a convenient lane signposted 'Poling'. There we found no pub, but a minute village (population 174) with a cold, damp, but interesting church.

The font (possibly Saxon, as is the earliest part of the building) wooden cover with painted panels which opens up like a cupboard.

There is a framed record of the Radar station at Poling during world war 2.

But no pub in the village. So, now very hungry, we returned along the lane (Poling village is at the end of a single track dead end) and found the traffic jam just as we had left it. So we crossed over to go back towards home. At Clapham roundabout we doubled back along the old road and stopped at The Fox. Yes we could have food if we ordered quickly. Two portions of whitebait and one bowl of chips suited us just fine.

Meanwhile, more about the birds; we have a robin nesting in the ivy. It rushes back and forth with huge leaves in its beak. I need to look a bit more closely to spot the exact place he goes in. I'm quite pleased with this drawing, but it took more than ten lines;

so here's another scribble sketch, of a scene that may come true later when it is Much Warmer.