I have made a start on my hand painted digital Christmas Card. A Work in Progress production with a working title of Baubles in a Bag. There was an artists gathering this morning . Talking and creating is the aim. I like to have a simple project on- going while I natter. I am puzzling how to get some texture into the paper bag. There is an uncanny similarity to my Apples in a String Bag.
So the baubles are going to have to be in a paper bag, more bag less baubles
Actually a few more baubles are in the bag.
Just one more bauble to paint and I am going to have to commit to painting a paper bag. At the moment I dont think I can paint my way out of this paperbag.
I blame Instagram. I mostly use it for art but I am a very guilty scroller of my Instagram feed.
Who knew, for instance, that you could restyle a cardigan by wearing it upside down.
Which I tried today and it seemed to work. But I sense the West Country mischief fairies saw a woman with her cardigan on upside down as someone deserving of a prank.
Acid green cardi upside down.
A regular dog walk was complicated by very gusty weather a large umbrella and two dogs simultaneously doing a poo. Somehow, I blame the mischievous West Country Fairies, my car keys fell into the autumn leaves without me noticing. Time was already a bit short , I was heading to a Dry Bob to celebrate two bobbers birthdays. But I had no choice but to retrace the whole dog walk kicking autumn leaves to find the missing keys, which I did.
I blame fairies because I have never worn my cardigan upside down before and unbelievably, in a long life I have never lost my keys before. The two must be linked . Isn’t that how superstition and folklore starts?
But the mischievous fairy was not done with me. I went to pick up some ordered library books. All the books I have ordered over the last 6 months have arrived , 7 books in total. I cannot possibly read 7 books in the next two weeks. I may never put my cardigan on upside-down again, whatever Instagram suggests.
There is no doubt that it works, but is it tempting fate?
The mischievous fairy struck again , I arrived home, after another dog walk at the time parents collect their children from the local school. For 30 minutes near 3:15 parking is tricky. I have never arrived at that time and failed utterly to find a space, but today that happened. Awkward because I really needed to use the loo.
Needs must, I parked near the cafe where we had noisily gathered for the Dry Bob, walked in, in my lurid green upside-down cardigan, used their facilities. Knowing that in a busy place only three hours later I would be remembered as a customer of the day. Quite the day!
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
I can’t actually say, as I met either end of the scale professionally. Now for the famous end of the scale it is somewhat comforting to say that the most famous person I ever met was an entirely likable human being. What is less comfortable is that the most infamous person I ever met was also an entirely likable human being.
Along the way of life I have met all sorts, not all of them were entirely likable human beings. Maybe I was just lucky with my two extremes. Doughnuts have been used to protect the identities of the famous and the infamous. Humans and doughnuts are all a question of taste
Inexplicably a pile of books revealed themselves in a clothes cupboard this morning. Revealing books I have hunted high and low for in recent years, not just in this house.They have been missing in action for a very long time. Despite being a woman with several book piles this pile is significant because it holds some books that I would never have given away. I have offered to loan them only to be foiled because they were not where I expected them to be. One of them I wanted to talk about at my book club last week. We had been reading a rather patchy novel about women’s experience in India.
I knew I had owned something better.
Found in the pile only a week too late.
The pile is really inconsistent I cannot begin to understand how they have gathered in a cupboard meant for clothes.
1299 pages a book lost for almost 30 years, I had only read to page 209
London by Edward Rutherfurd has been lost forever. I had always planned to buy another copy and just haven’t got round to it. Put down some time in 1997 when I was a very busy woman. When I opened it at the turned down corner I had exactly remembered how far I had got. No need to read those 209 pages again with just 1090 more pages to read. But as a holiday read it is going to have to be a Kindle.
The other five, all mourned because they were lost.
One last one, more fragile and precious than the others.
The very first book I read, that told me how to draw buildings. An odd choice for a small child but I suspect I was an odd child in a house that was not really child friendly. I also read their encyclopaedias avidly!
Published in 1946 , it belonged to my uncle who lived abroad, I found it at my grandparents house during their once weekly child care. I practiced perspective often, just doodling really. Filling in time usefully and being good was considered a very good thing.
Quite how these books gathered together in a cupboard I have no idea. I am very glad to have them back and sitting comfortably in a bookcase , where they belong
Lets not talk about how I manage my screen time. Lets talk about the person who nodded off to sleep. Possibly reading one of my duller blogs and let their forehead nod or their finger twitch whilst reading a blog this week . 1,028 times! One blog a lot and a lot of blogs just once. Whatever were you thinking. U.S.A I am looking at you…
I am a pondering blogger with a small loyal band of regular readers. 50 Views is giddy. 30 exceptional. 20 about normal.
A few weeks ago someone fell asleep at the screen and I got 200 views on one day. My x axis had to grow, which is all well and good until life returns to normal and my 20-30 readers suddenly look like tiny blips wandering along the y axis. Readership returned to normal and my x axis shrunk accordingly. If returning to normal from 200 was a problem. It was nothing compared to this week’s landslide slippage.
So how do I manage my screen time?
Well I could write more blogs to keep up with my trending rise.
Or perhaps, more sensibly I could get out and about and find some normal low level ponders out in the real world. Once the giddiness wears off of course.
Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.
A recycle, repurpose, reuse and re-home Festival/Holiday weekend, held once a year in the Autumn.
Whole communities could offer their surplus stuff for free or for a charitable donation. Just a pile of stuff on a table outside the front of their homes or at an agreed community space. A whole weekend so everyone gets the chance to both donate and treasure hunt. One person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure hunt.
I am a big second hand shopper. It is the most sustainable way to live, giving stuff that has already had a life some extra years of use. The illustrations for this blog are my latest acquisition. A Gentleman’s Working Kimono Jacket.
The lining
It pairs very nicely with a pair of winter Corduroy trousers that also had a life before me.
The sun rises on my light fitting. Our clocks have gone forward today. Sunrise was at 6:57 GMT, the day will be one of digital accuracy and analogue inaccuracy until we reset various clocks and timers. An hour either way is of no great consequence to us. For one day the dogs are a little discombobulated about meal times, but as they mostly take their cues from us they will soon be back in sync. So today we are all living our best life in 25 hours instead of 24 and sunrise and sunset have shifted by an hour.
Just 3 bobbers , braved a bouncy sea yesterday. 15 degrees in the water and 10 degrees out, made for an enjoyable swim but a very chilly chattering session afterwards. I was unintentionally glam having showered and washed my hair just before the bob.
Glam or not it is not every day that we get to swim with a submarine.
Some people travel thousands of miles to swim with dolphins. Swimming with submarines has less of a cache, but in 2025 we have had both experiences in our little bay.
NRP Tridente
The Portuguese submarine was much easier to catch on camera. No need for arrows to point out the dark shape in this photograph.
Yesterday was a day of planned procrastination. Storm Benjamin was forecast and I needed small jobs on my schedule that could be done anytime so that I could do dry dog walks when there was not a deluge falling from the sky. As a plan it worked two long dog walks with just a jumper and no coat. Summer trousers hemmed, and the sewing machine put away. Two procrastinations dealt with in one go.
Storm Benjamin had taken himself slightly off course and had arrived, at his worst, about 8 hours earlier than anticipated.
He seemed not to have ruffled up the sea too much but there was still enough rainfall to make the day unpleasant and enough sun to make a rainbow.
If the end of a rainbow ever truly existed then this one would have delivered his crock of gold more or less into the tidal pool.
Tidal pool being cleaned.
Excellent planning by our local council as they had cleaned the pool the day before. All that fictional gold delivered into a nice clean receptacle. Too bad I was on the other side of the peninsular I might have been able to pocket a mythical golden doubloon at the end of the rainbow. Except, of course, that had I been there the rainbow would have been somewhere else entirely.
A day of dull procrastinations ticked off. There were numerous others, far too dull to waste words on Excellent walks and mythical gold delivered into a clean concrete swimming pool. A low bar was both set and achieved for the day.
Autumn confetti has no obvious connection to obsequious, but how could I possibly illustrate obsequious.
Obsequiousness makes my flesh creep. Yes, the act of being subjected to obsequious behaviour is uncomfortable but for me it is the physicality of the word. The minute it springs to mind something cold squeals down my spine like a bad chalk move on a blackboard or a dentist drill.
I had always thought the word was onomatopoeic because of the involuntary physical shoulder hunching I feel when I hear it or even think about it.
I am absolutely fine with obsolete.
Obs-o-leet , not a shudder in sight . But the last three syllables of Obs – ee-kwi-us have me wishing to climb 12 feet up a vertical glass wall.
How fabulous is it to be a person of no consequences and not suffer obsequience on a daily basis.
My small word rant is over. Back to Autumnal Confetti. No reason for either really.
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