The infinite Magnolia Blooms of St Mary’s, Barnes.
There is a memorial bench set under this magnificent Magnolia in the graveyard of St Mary’s. I don’t think my parents ever set foot in Barnes but this would be the perfect spot to have scattered their ashes.
Red Hot Magnolia
Growing a blooming Magnolia was a red hot topic in their marriage. My mum loved them and my dad didn’t seem to be able to ever grow one that bloomed. The thick clay soul/soil of North East Essex was not kind to Magnolias, or at least our small corner was not kind.
When they died their last attempt at growing a blooming Magnolia was beginning to show promise, buds appeared, but dropped off before they could open. Many years later I was stalking my parents old home on a property website and observed the tree looking very healthy in the garden. Maybe it blooms I thought. The house was for sale again recently, the Magnolia was gone. Replaced by a climbing frame.
And so the birthday weekend moved on from Comedy to Culture. Yesterday’s birthday boy moved on to more serious pursuits and we , his tiny familial audience perused the coffee shops and Charity shops of Barnes while he rehearsed.
In St Mary’s Churchyard. Barnes.
Not just about human culture, the dogs were treated to some most excellent canine abstract art.
Dog piss patination.
Not the only culture the dogs got to experience. The wonderfully friendly people of St Mary’s and Barnes Music Festival encouraged us to bring the dogs into the church for the concert. I cannot imagine what was going on in their heads while watching one of their favourite humans waving his baton and creating beautiful sounds from other humans. They were, at times, spellbound, watching intently and turning their heads to try and make sense of what was happening in front of them.
Blog #1234, what a fabulous number. I had better make this blog worthy.
We went out, out last night to a nightclub in Reading for Comedy. The Comedy was a bit hit and miss, but we were not sitting in the front row, which is always a blessing. In fact in a surreal twist the only place we could find to sit was a snug area with sofas. Or should I call it the snog area, which it would almost certainly have been when I was last out, out in Reading.
The sofa area did not protect us from being the butt of one comedian’s jokes.
Sample sentence below.
By resting our butts on the sofa the comedian made us the butt of his jokes.
The audience was divided, in his witty mind, into the under 30’s, the Waitrose set. Waitrose is a posh supermarket, and the elderly, on the sofas.
A crude and inaccurate stereotype as I was the only one over 60, we sometimes shop in Waitrose and 50% of the sofa sitters were under 30.
The Elderly sofa area is reflected in a glitterball.
But we were not about to disagree with a Comedian. That path is where danger lies, I have been there before and my indignant research on my work computer the next night, got me locked out of the work system while I was doing an on-call shift. I had to make the call of shame to the overnight I.T man who really didn’t care that my words were probably commonplace for psychiatrists and psychologists. I used that as my excuse for the research.
Should you wish to try this at your own workplace, look up Coprophagia and Coprophilia.
We were out to celebrate my brother-in-laws slightly over 50 birthday. It is also my dad’s birthday and he would have been 95 were he still in this realm.
The last time I was ‘out, out’ in the Reading area I would have probably been risking some paternal crossness for being away from Essex for the weekend and he didn’t know where I was or who I was with.
I pondered this in between comedian sets, in fact one comedian was so bad I pondered it during the set. I just couldn’t quite remember my last Reading encounter. And this is where the older human brain is the joyous thing it is. The minute I woke up this morning the name South Hill Arts Centre floated to the top of my pointless, pondering pile.
So where is no longer a mystery but the who remains somewhat less clear, I can narrow it down, it would have been a musician that I had met at a live music gig at Braintree College of Further Education. I await my older human brain to fish the name of my companion from my squishy cerebral cortex, sometime in the next few days.
So there we are, 95 year old Dad in another realm. All the info you needed a very long time ago.
Keeping on track for being ready for an art exhibition ahead of time should be easy. The tasks are well known and never change once the creative process has been completed. The jobs I am talking about are the ones successful artists never have to bother with because with great success comes a team who swoop up the mistresspiece and do all the tasks that get the work from Studio to Gallery.
I laboured for two hours yesterday framing a tiny piece of work. The job became compelling. I shut off the reality that there are three more identical tiny pieces of work to be framed. I shut off the cacophony of mental litter that came with a new endeavour I have signed up for.
Now I am not saying that I wouldn’t embrace being a very successful artist with a team behind me doing the non creative stuff. But there is some calming magic in doing something hard for me, that others could do better and quicker. Because somewhere in all that concentration I had a creative brainwave for the future. On track you might say.
In defence of my inquisitive nature I would say I never slip from curiosity into prying.
These steps had been away to be refurbished over winter. I was curious to know if they felt any different on their return. They form a vital link on the South West Coastal Path near my home.
The sound of my feet on the metal structure has changed very slightly. More importantly a favourite circular walk has been restored to me. Curiosity satisfied.
A prying person might demand to know exactly what Civil engineering and refurbishment tasks have been undertaken.
Curiously inquisitive, but not in a prying way.
For curiosity’s sake I flipped these two images. I don’t think I can begin to describe how uncomfortable these stairs feel to me running in the opposite orientation.
My phone is my on-the-go note book. Photographs and screenshots remind me of all sorts of thoughts that need to be followed up. I try to clear up my archive on a regular basis, trying really hard not to delete any gems. I have also been having a radical digital Spring Clean of the images stored on my phone. Only time will tell if I have been too brutal.
Monday started bright and early with a swim with the bobbers.
A new bobber joined us, the first in a long time to commit to regular bobbing after her first dip in Firestone Bay. She is wearing the green hat. Brave to join us when the water is almost at its coldest of the year. Brave to agree to join the Bobbers WhatsApp group which carries eclectic messages, only 50% of them stick to the topic of cold water swimming.
I took photos for stereotactic image making later in the day.
The exhibition season is nipping at my procrastinating ankles.
My evening was spent making images as above. Walking my dogs and finding the most beautiful Magnolias and watching TV and finding a friend on screen.
The rest of the undocumented day passed off without need for notes or photographs. Happily all dull tasks and domestic admin were achieved with a sense of a list well achieved.
I believe my confidence levels are at about the right place. But I would say that wouldn’t I?
Like many people I am a little in awe of hugely confident people but I am wise enough to know that massive confidence in others is built on foundations that are often less than desirable or wealth and status.
I am a lover of moderate confidence x compassion and interest in alternate ways of doing things. With a specific ratio of 35:65
35 being confidence and 65 being all the other elements of thinking, including doubt.
Clearly I sit comfortably on this ratio in my own opinion. It doesn’t mean a 65% lack of confidence. More like 65% opportunity to learn new things, see a different point of view or be flexible.
These images are 35% of my creative output of the last 2 months. The other 65% will never see the light of day but that 65% made these what they are. Less is more in confidence and creativity.
I sense that I have hit visceral Spring in the last couple of days. Caught between Climatological Spring on the 1st of March and Astronomical Spring on the 20th of March. I am both behind the game and ahead of it at the same time. Actual Spring Cleaning occurred yesterday. I am on the steps of pastel colours and fresh greens that ultimately lead to summer.
Summer and Winter Solstices are the big ticket events but I think I prefer the softer transitions into Spring and autumn.
Visceral Spring is an entirely emotional and personal response. The point when layers of clothes become intolerable and my feet protest at the thought of socks and boots. Visceral Spring is not without discomfort. Toes in sandals are nipped by 1 degree temperatures and cold winds find their way into spaces where thermal underwear is missing but that discomfort is my small celebration that winter really is behind me, and that is a good thing for a winterphobic soul. Even one who has done her very best to find the positive in the dark months.
Time to lay a tribute on the steps towards Spring, Summer and Autumn. Longer days and sunlight.
Last night the bobbers went out, out. To a silent disco under the watchful gaze of twenty ships figureheads.
One more ready to party than most. For once the bobbers did not get their clothes off in a public space but danced the night away until they had no more moves left in any cell of their bodies. For a change there were no frozen boobs or toes.
Just sweaty ears from the headphones and aching knees from lives well lived.
We were there to celebrate International Womens Day. But beyond that we were out with our tribe. A group of people who built a tribe of cold water swimmers, who came together initially 2 meters apart, to exercise by swimming in the sea at least once a week during the Covid Pandemic. So much water has washed over our bodies and passed under the metaphorical bridge since the first British Covid lockdown which started 5 years ago today. But Bobbing with Bobbers has been an accidental scaffolding that has supported us all into the post-Covid era with friends to do mad stuff with.
P.s One Bobbers exercise tracker said she danced for more than 6 miles.
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