Heatwaves in England do funny things. When we planned our yard to look tropical we never expected it to be tropical. But here it is July 2026 requiring not one, but two sunshades. And for it to be unusable at some parts of the day.
Yesterday we had our warmest ever bob, the sea temperature was over 19 degrees in Tranquility Bay. For the first time ever, Ice cream was the post bob refreshment.
Earlier in the week a trip to the library has an unexpected twist.
A near naked man decided to expose himself to me. Really quite unnecessary and not what anyone needs to see on the way to the library or anywhere for that matter.
What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?
The hardest of ‘hard years’ were the years when my children were very small and both my parents were terminally ill and we lived 300 miles apart. The support of my husband and friends helped me get through it, but in truth, as an only child with no substantial extended family, what got me through it was me. I emerged from that period changed and damaged forever. The damage buried deep beneath many layers of a woman who was coping with whatever life was throwing at her.
Hard years just like good years are the foundations that the years yet to come are built on. The cracks and fault lines caused by the hard years are just that. Cracks and fault lines, good years build strength and stability around them. I know where the cracks are and they can largely be avoided. Sometimes one trips me up when I least expect it. Flying over Australia recently, opened up a crack I didn’t even know was there. Suddenly I was grieving for all the stuff I didn’t do while I was busy coping with all the serious stuff that hard years generate.
Thank goodness we are not required to mourn missing out on serious stuff when life is all tickety boo. That would be a counterproductive cycle of thinking.
Although in fairness there are quite a lot of people who love a good wallow in their own and other peoples misfortune. Soul Suckers.
If your glass is half empty, top it up a bit.
Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall Song by Ella Fitzgerald and The Ink Spots
Into each life some rain must fall But too much is falling in mine Into each heart some tears must fall But someday the sun will shine Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts When I think of you another shower starts Into each life some rain must fall But too much is falling in mine Into each life some rain’s got to fall Too much, too much, too much is falling in mine Into each heart some tears must fall But someday the sun will shine Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts But when I think of you, pretty baby That’s when another shower starts Into each life some rain’s got to fall Too much, too much, too much is falling in mine, oh yeah Into each and every life some rain is bound to fall But too much of that stuff is falling in mine And into each heart some tears must fall But I know, baby, that someday that old sun is bound to shine Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts But when I think of you, pretty baby That’s when another shower starts Into each life some rain’s got to fall
These lyrics are about a failed romantic relationship . But I have always hung on to the notion that eventually, after the hard bits of life the sun will eventually shine again. It always does.
For this reason I like in particular these 4 lines from the song.
Into each life some rain must fall But too much is falling in mine Into each heart some tears must fall But someday the sun will shine
What goes into this file ? Anything that I believe deserves the title. What went into todays picture? The answers might surprise you. One of them surprised me!
Two photographs. A standard tidal pool shot and my feet in a paddling pool.
I like my shots of the tidal pool uncluttered by other humans. One on the beach and two swimming is the perfect number. My feet are in a paddling pool, as we are doing more granddaughter care currently because my daughter broke and dislocated her shoulder. We bought a pool to entertain the small person in a heatwave, in the evenings the pool is the perfect place for feet.
I used an app called PortraitArt to turn my feet into a portrait. A paid for App.
Then using Snapseed. A free App, I stuck the untouched pool photo and the foot portrait together using ‘double exposure’. Manipulating them to get a pleasing image that matched my imagined image of sitting comfortably with my feet overlooking the pool. The reality is neither comfortable or possible. The angles are all wrong and the rocks not particularly comfy.
Then back to the PortraitArt app for a poster style.
Then some touching up using the magic eraser in Google Photos and I have the image I imagined.
Then, and only then do I use Photoshop, just to save my image at a high resolution for future use.
I have been image manipulating for more than 45 years. Early on, in a wet processing dark room for both photography and radiography. Complicatedly, doing specific and very accurate radiography to produce subtraction or multilayered images to aid medical diagnosis. Then digital radiography became a thing and latterly AI assisted imaging. These things save lives.
Curiously as an artist I often use nearly all those skills to create my Hybrid Prints. These things create Art.
So when a ‘proper’ artist or photographer looks at my Hybrid work and says,
” Oh Photoshop, anybody can do anything with photoshop”
or,
“It’s just AI, no skill in that”
I smile and say,
“Really”
My thought bubble is a little more dynamic.
Created using Fontmania a really old App for adding text to images.
But here is the surprise to me. A couple of weeks ago I framed a Christmas gift, a print created by a fellow artist called Ian Purvis. I have yet to hang it but in the evenings when I watch Scandi-Noir dramas on Netflix, the framed print looks at me, desperate to be hung.
My colour choices for my image couldn’t be more similar if I tried.
Detail from Cakstock Viaduct by Ian PurvisResting my feet at Firestone Bay by Me
Which all goes to show that there are lots of things that go into an original image, however it is created. It all comes together in my head, a cluttered and very busy space. I hope that this is my last gentle rant about ‘real’ artists or photographers. Somehow I doubt it.
I am unable to provide a link to Ian Purvis website currently. This will be updated as soon as I can.
Below is an image of him with one of his prints. The same one that gave me my subliminal colour choices.
When I look at the Firestone Feet there are so many influences, accidents, concatenations and serendipity that have been incorporated in this image, alongside skills old and new. I think that just thought bubbling ‘Crack On’ is pretty mild really.
Funny things can spark a creative patch. For me it can be a deadline, a creative itch, or a commission, but this month I am aware that my creativity is directly linked to an ‘artistic difference’
I have been mulling over my comments and the comments of others. I am in the happy place of being content in agreeing to disagree. Now, my happy place thinking may affect decisions I make about which arts organisations I join in the future, but it may not.
But for now I am glad my painting mojo has returned with some lovely energy.
These two people on the beach are not having an argument. They are inspired by the many memorial benches I pass on my daily dog walks. The combination of names on benches who have enjoyed overlooking Plymouth Sound are not always traditional couples,sometimes they are friends, neighbours or colleagues. Names however come and go in fashion. Some pairings may never be popular again. Were my parents to have had a memorial bench it would be dedicated to Joy and Keith. One set of grandparents would be Gladys and Leonard. Or in a different marriage Gladys and Reginald. Not pairings I expect ever to be fashionable again.
This couple sit, overlooking an unchanging seascape. I sat them on wooden deckchairs to enhance the timelessness of the scene. The figures are androgynous and could be any two people of any gender or age or race. Most importantly they could be Edith and Herbert, Sharon and Tracy or Amir and Tulip. Just two people enjoying the view any time since 1886 when the deck chair was first patented
I needed a bit of space to add the quote. So the painting needed a good gap where not much was happening.
The artistic difference was based on a statement that ‘real artists’ don’t use digital manipulation tools that could be considered to be on the slippery slope towards AI .
As part of my creative process I use digital manipulation on occasions, but also get painty and dirty just like any other real artist.
Here my initial sketch and the subsequent watercolour have been digitally combined.
Later on I may work into the watercolour with pen and ink to get a similar appearance.
I do rather love the effect a minor disagreement has had on my creative thinking and more than happy to agree to disagree with’real’ artists. Real or not I have been hard at it today.
Detail of the finished piece. I am undecided about my ultimate presentation. As above with lots of space in landscape format or tighter cropped in Portrait.
We are doing some extra grandchild care while my daughter recovers from a broken shoulder. The yard has gained a new facility. A paddling pool, after a day of frenetic activity the pool is a warm and peaceful spot to write a blog. The early morning dog walk is done and my next commitment is two hours away. One of my early morning habits, a new one to go along with Wordle*, is to read my old blogs written on this day. I have enjoyed revisiting the last few years. They are all like old friends. I am a bit critical of some and wonder if they quite hit the right tone. But I remind myself that they are all about preserving the details of a day. In the spirit of putting my feet up I thought I would share the 7th of July with you all.
July 7th 2026 has some predictable shape. Not thrilling, I will admit, but life is not all about the big ticket items.
A robotic lawn mower demonstration.
Some tennis club admin.
A quick dip in the sea.
Some art.
Of all of the 7ths of July, the one I most enjoyed revisiting was the 2017 one. Brixton East, a fantastic gallery space in London. 9 years later it has disappeared and is now a very swanky venue for weddings, celebrations, photo shoots and product launches. I mourned the loss of the space for artists and easy accessibility to a beautiful space. Sadly in these 9 years it is not the only exhibition space to be reimagined as something different. Beautiful spaces to show art are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Absolutely , chaos is a challenge to rigid thinking and over-planning. Too much chaos is a disaster but leaving space in life for a little chaos can be refreshing and educating.
I particularly like creating order out of chaos. It feels exhilarating, like riding a wild white horse through a swamp and arriving at your destination perfectly clean and tidy, not a hair out of place and perfect lipstick
In my professional life we avoided chaos at all costs with protocols and procedures. But chaos still found us, and pulling victory out of a disaster felt so sweet.
In my artistic life I like to allow chaos to have a space. When chaos produces good results I call it serendipity or concatenation but when chaos does not a thing of beauty make the bin becomes the winner.
I am neither a biker nor a pipe smoker but in my head I like to think that I view chaos with his calm contemplative aura.
Something tricksy to be tamed or something creative to be harnessed.
Sunday Serendipity in Stonehouse. The only plans for the day were an early swim. Demonstrating the things I really missed during the skinny dip of last week.
My gloves! I dislike getting crampy hands and forearms when swimming so red palmed , cocktail length swim gloves are the essential essential for a swim. But skinny dipping is an all or nothing activity so for one night only the gloves were off.
But after the swim we fancied a walk and there was a Food and Craft market close by, where our favourite London coffee is served and where sausage and bacon baps might have caught our attention.
Then it was just a short walk to watch some more Gig racing.
With the perfect viewpoint to see the finish line and see some early victories.
How often is it this easy to watch an International event?
Our eyes were particularly peeled for one team.We used to both row for Rame.
Our bums have been in these seats at the World Championships a while ago. The blisters are epic, and unforgetable.
Soon enough we had to turn for home, even more dull yardening jobs to be done before the weekend was done with us. And more Gig racing on TV when the sun was just too much for us.
Gardening, Gig Rowing, Yardening, Gig Rowing. Saturday was the second day of the European Gig Racing Championships in Plymouth Sound. It was also Gardening Saturday at the Tennis Club I help to run. We could look up from our garden chores and watch gigs racing past our club.
While listening to classical guitar, from Walter who had swapped out his secateurs for something more beautiful.
The afternoon was Yardening time. Not by any stretch as exciting or colourful as the morning session. Some white wall painting and repotting of plants. But the entertainment was the same. This time watching the Gig racing on TV as we sought refuge from the sun.
The drone shots showing us what we know already.
That our tiny corner of Devon/Cornwall is rather lovely.
For regular readers and Bobbers, our normal bobbing area was one of the regular spots where race progression was filmed
Tranquility Bay.Bobbers Steps behind the gigs.
I never managed to catch the tennis club on TV. That would have been a great drone shot especially as the gardens were freshly primped. A project for tomorrow.
Friday was always going to be a full day of creating images. There was a fair amount of digital manipulation to create some images of the previous evenings skinny dip and an afternoon of watercolour and ink work, to depict the wind which is always, to my frustration, the hidden element in all art work. Painting wind is a little project I return to now and again.
In the future I would quite like to add a wind cherub to my wind paintings, those fat cheeked toddlers who appear on the sides of old maps.
Wind cherubs are quite a niche interest, I suspect our local library will not rise to that particular subject in their reference section.
So currently my wind paintings are sans windy cherubs.
Firestone Bay with a South West Wind, no cherub
The day of working in the studio was missing something else too.
A chocolate digestive at work
The chocolate digestive did not work. What my creative juices required was a piece of fruit cake. Not a rich winter version but a pale sort of fruitcake. Often sold by the slice in plastic wrappers at the lower end of the cafe industry. There should always be a cherry in every slice.
Not expecting to appear in public I was wearing an old sundress, no bra and my gardening crocs. A quick trip to Lidl might just provide me with the cake I desired without meeting anyone I know.
This is where the day took a lovely and awkward turn. I blame the blog
Lidl had no cheap fruit cake. I did not meet anyone I know. But I did meet someone I don’t know who reads the blog. A friend of a friend etc. We could have talked about the blog but she really kindly, said that she saw me about often and admired my style. She didn’t mean my writing style. How thoughtful and delightful. We chatted briefly and I did not move from the back of my car. Not a single part of the day’s outfit was visible to her. No illusions shattered and no fruit cake.
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