If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
I really don’t have the skillset to open a shop but I know absolutely what it would be and what it would sell. Books… Cakes… Coffee… Art…
It would be in the old waiting room of a railway station and would flex as the day/days progress. Early in the morning I would sell coffee and croissants to commuters. By 10 am the cakes of the day would be delivered and people who wanted books and a place to gather would start to come in. The sun is always out and people sit outside overlooking trains or countryside. By 5pm the book browsers are gone. Some evenings in the month cooks rent my fabulous kitchen and create ‘Pop-up’ events. Similarly poets, musicians and comedians rent the space to perform intimate gigs to knowledgable audiences.
My space would be a community hub and by owning it I would meet eclectic and fascinating people every day. My idea of perfection.
Daylight through my pocket, the one with my phone and optimism in it.
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
Optimism is the most important thing to keep in my pocket, along with my smartphone.I don’t quite understand the point of pessimism. I am not rude enough to cancel pessimists,they have some valid views and can be interesting to talk to, but draining at the same time. I am pathetically optimistic although completely accepting of the serendipity of life including the, sometimes unpalatable, negative aspects.
Another genuine and unplanned pocket picture of optimism
I have no idea when I last updated my Facebook Avatar. More than six years ago for certain. I have paid her very little attention. Today I was surprised when she popped up next to a comment I was about to send to a friend.
I have morphed into my Avatar without even trying. I own those glasses, white t shirts and a Chartreuse Cardigan.
Twenty years ago this was her.
Nothing more to be pondered. I am a woman who ditched a Basque for a cardi !
It was a strange and mournful day, first thing this morning. Grey with sea mist and slightly damp. But then I walked past a memorial bench with a sad bunch of flowers marking someones 60th birthday.
How lucky am I to have passed that milestone and to pass this bench every day when the person commemorated never got that far. So out of a strange and mournful day came so many reasons to be cheerful.
Paul Simon drearful v Ian Dury cheerful.
I am somewhat lost in selecting my tracks for a private Desert island Discs event This is a project some years in the making. The list stretches beyond the 8 tracks allowed by the original radio programme.
The list has stayed substantially the same but if I could dictate I would like twenty tracks. I may try to negotiate. Today I made some brief notes for each of the twelve tracks. Unknown until now I think there is a theme that reflects my glass half full attitude to life.
In my life a fair old bit of rain has fallen and, as for many of us, some days can be dark, but my music choices show that I have always allowed optimism and a certain degree of pretence to be my tools of choice when dealing with the tough stuff.
Psychogeography and Pirates. Monday found us mingling with Pirates at a childrens book day and wandering with other peoples memories in a park. The success of a book day/ meet the author event is easily measured in our house. We have our own, newly designed Pirate Flag in the kitchen and as a family we are encouraged to greet one another with a single word salutation delivered in the gruffest of voices.
” Hearties”
We spent the morning with Childrens Author Claire Helen Walsh. The location, next to the sea at Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club was the perfect setting for her two chosen books that took Piracy to new levels of surreal.
We played tennis with biscuits to test their relative aerodynamic qualities and then built a rocket.
Planks were walked and survival was rewarded with eye glasses and dubloons. Unicorns, dragons and aliens arrived and our glorious sequined, pink Jolly Roger Flag was designed and created and now hangs in the kitchen.
Later in the day we went to Devonport Park where the adventures of the mind continued in an adventure playground full of cargo nets and timber. The timber, of course, would have previously been ‘Shivered’
Devonport Park is hugely popular but has only recently become a regular location for us. But historically Hannahs grandparents met there, the park was known as a place for chance encounters of the old fashioned sort. For Hannah it was always a family favourite location. The many memorial plaques found in the flower beds record the many other people whose lives and loves were touched by the peace and tranquility of the park. I suspect the cargo nets and timbers will call us back more often now.
Surely the sign of a good book event, we are still living in the imaginative world of Surreal Pirates who briefly took over a tennis club.
This is the very best sort of reading to start the day with, curiosity in book form. Since leaving the committee of Drawn to the Valley last year, I have had very little to do with the nuts and bolts of organizing the current programme of events. For local readers there are two more days to visit the Summer Exhibition in Tavistock.
This book is a joy to read and shows exactly how far Drawn to the Valley has come from those dark years of the Covid and post-Covid complexities of running a fairly large arts organisation in a geographically widespread location.
After 5 years as a member of the organisation these pages are now filled with the work of artists that I have met and shared creative journeys with. Many of them are my friends and teachers.
The page below shows how successful one of my projects has become.
Creative Tables has spread over the length and breadth of the Tamar Valley. Started to bring artists back together after the isolation of the Covid Lock-down in Plymouth. Creative Tables now operates monthly meetings in several different locations.
This book also shows how one life feeds into another as some of the people in the exhibition photographs are also bobbers and one artist has painted gig rowing the only team sport I have ever loved.
I was never quite so glam in my rowing days. Another curiosity for me is which piece of art will tempt me at Open studios. There are many walls in my house with work by Drawn to the Valley artists.
Curiosity is a superpower, it can take you to the most fabulous places even when sat in bed with a cup of tea and a fabulous brochure.
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
I find this to be rather a curious prompt for Jetpack to set. A random act of kindness, in my opinion, is an anonymous and unheralded event. I absolutely believe that kindness is a super power and that a little bit can go a long way. People who are inherently kind,are my kind of people, the other, opposite sort of people are best avoided or treated with caution. I also believe in kindness to myself, and that perhaps is the only random act of kindness I am prepared to go public about.
Toxic people with their own agendas are a sad fact of life. No amount of kindness can dent their self-belief or carapace of malevolence. Often they wear a cloak of charm or even generosity. The older I get the more I give myself the permission to mitigate their behaviour by simply disengaging. This is one of the absolute bonuses of being a self-employed artist rather than a salaried person in a big organization.
As a kindness to myself avoidance becomes a positive.
Here I am on my regular, dog grooming day, spot. Wembley Beach on a day with sunshine, the first day of good weather for weeks. To celebrate I bought an unusual but gorgeous snack to accompany my habitual cup of tea.
This product is an unctuous flavour bomb. I may start making them at home. It went down very well with a cup of tea.
The tide was out so rock pooling was the activity of choice. The trouble with rock pooling is that discovering creatures hidden under rocks is not the most photographic experience, as any right-minded sea creature quickly shuttles under a different rock very quickly. Sunbeams, however, can easily be trapped for photography.
Photography was on other peoples minds too, as a wedding party arrived to take some memorable images on this beautiful stretch of coast.
But first a more pressing problem, where could the bride and bridesmaids have a wee? The public toilets were a quagmire of sand and other detritus from a busy beach day.
Plans were made, there was a significant delay and then photographs were posed.
And finally a lovely long distance shot that looks like a figurative abstract.
This is a sign of a good Saturday. The Saturday newspaper is still virtually unread on Sunday morning. My only print copy of the week when it remains unread until Sunday. If, by chance, it has been read fully on Saturday then a Sunday paper is purchased. I probably am a typical Guardian reader and am as comfortable with that as any other stereotype. Sometimes people I know personally are written about or contribute to the Guardian. In recent months two colleagues have been featured. One was Maggie Jenkin who does invaluable work solving human mysteries.
Today another colleague is in the spot light. Naming herself as Dr Biscuit.
I have had long letters to the letters page and had them published and art exhibitions reviewed in the pages of The Guardian.
The guardian also has an alternative Obituary service called Other Lives.
The obituaries are of notable but normal people. The Obituaries are written by friends, colleagues and family members. Far from sadness these essays on a life are life affirming. The power of being under the radar of celebrity and yet contributing massively to the positive aspects of society and culture.
I can’t link directly but should the lives of normal people inspire you just google – Other Lives The Guardian.
Let me be honest, the Sports pages get recycled with the pages unmoved in this house but Feast often feeds us for a week.
Other newspapers get read occasionally. Last week the Guardian was sold out so I slipped to the Dark- side and read a Rupert Murdoch product. The Times, it is no bad thing to sometimes go for change but the behaviour of News International Journalists and management makes the Times only a real emergency read. Not because it isn’t good because it is but my moral compass spins uncomfortably as I read it. Also the quality of their paper for their cooking pages is glossy and fragile, barely surviving one cooking moment in my kitchen. Feast goes on for years.
Just a little Saturday extra. I always treat myself to a print copy of a Saturday newspaper, The Guardian. My most regular shop is a Co-op in Devonport. I am blown away that humans have crossed this threshold for the last 233 years. Originally it was a Unitarian Chapel and the fashion for men and women of the time was as below.
My clothing today, while collecting the newspaper, more closely resembles the male style of dress, a pair of exercise leggings, a tight fitting under vest and a loose swinging top.
By 1801 the Chapel had fallen out of use, mostly because Unitarianism was considered disloyal in a town that was primarily a military and thus Royalist town. Unitarians were enthusiastic supporters of the French Revolution. In a Spiritual switch around the Chapel became a Wine Merchants and may possibly have been a short-lived pub called The George.
The building was previously considered to be in George Street Devonport. And now it is a convenience store without actually moving an inch,in Duke street which conveniently sells newspapers on a Saturday. One other shop related ponder. I bought a sequin top to make a mermaid outfit from a charity shop. The young, male, shop assistant looked at my purchase and said. ” We should all try to sparkle every day”
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