Three solid days of Spring sunshine and it was time to raise the level of our yardening. The last six months or so have been about moving plants in containers into their most comfortable positions in the new yard. A chance event, the delivery of some free seeds from the local Primary School pushed us into greater action.
Most of our container plants have survived well, despite doing well some of them are not so suited to a blisteringly hot, coastal yard and need rehoming. The free seeds spurred us into action as the plants needing rehoming were in a container that was perfect for a bee corridor.
So far so sensible but somehow things got out of hand when we popped into a garden centre for some anting compost. The tiny project inspired by some free seeds suddenly involved reinstating a 2 metre long raised bed that had been lawned over with artificial grass by the previous owners.
Many plants and hours later we have a beautiful new border and some cute plants.
Which was not the plan at all!
The neighbours, meanwhile, look on in disgust, nothing worth eating at all
Feeling like a fish out of water is a common feeling when considering Social Media. Like most people I was lured and then fell headlong into Facebook and Instagram when they first launched. Then by complete accident I became responsible for the ‘ public’ Social Media face of a large art group in London. In that curious way that humans do I became known as an amateur expert, long before Social Media management became an actual job that people learned. I’ve always thought that in group situations you either chose someone for a job because they put themselves forward for it, their ego emblazoned on their foreheads like an accurate pigeon strike.
Others, like me, get chosen, almost by accident because we have a tiny nugget of experience and no one else really wants to do it. Social Media was never part of my actual day job. In 14 years I’ve done some SM learning but in reality I remain a dabbler while Social Media has marched on gathering glossy Social Media managers, influencers and all sorts of other job titles that baffle anyone in the real world.
This week I popped my amateur and now Plymouth based Social Media head out into the real world of Social Media and attended courses provided by Cosmic.
My amateur head feels less amateur now. My digital hand has been held, first in a group and second in a one2one session by a lovely man called Adrian. I know what I’m doing OK at, I also know where I am falling a little short. Adrian has placed his digital hand on my virtual back and pushed me well and truly out of my comfort zone. Personalities need to be revealed, videos need to be created. Tutorials need to be created….
What I learn for an art group might bleed into my blog life. You have been warned! Two tiny videos follow that definately show that I am a dabbler by nature. The unboxing videos of a new set of paints all perfect and glossy and a three month old tin with very clear signs of dabbling.
I’ve just managed to finish another visual/aural/real world and sensation mind map. This one created at dawn on the Vernal equinox on the Thames at Pangbourne. Since learning this technique on a recent course with Tansy Hargan I am beginning to find this colour mixing, meditative shape creating style really useful for making notes of the 3d experience of outdoor painting.
These were my quick notes.
And here they are together.
Far from being a completely perfect landscape this painting expresses the highlights and my irritation at sharing the early morning peace with a man still drinking from the night before. Almost the highest high point was the dawn chorus, something that accompanied me from the camper van down to the flood meadows on the banks of the Thames. The pinky gold colours are a representation of that sublime early morning sound of birds waking up and singing. Bird song filled the air and enveloped everything I painted. Really the inebriated man takes rather too much of the image, but in truth he really pissed me off.
Not because he was drunk, he was just a bit too much in my face, perching on ‘my’ bench when there were ten others available, asking stupid questions and scuffing his over white trainers in the dust beneath the bench. I’m sure he had no malign intent. The same cannot be said for the swan who approached for snacks, but the inebriated man skipped off on uncertain feet as the hungry chap approached, so a hungry swan became a good thing.
Water colours do not appear on a swans ideal diet so he, just like the drunk, waddled off. Leaving me at last to the pastoral scene that I had got up so early for.
Spring is finally here, it was good to be up early to see it arrive.
Early morning wanderings, naked toes for the first time this year and a proper ponder. Dorothea Ltd is a very unusual name for a historic piece of cast iron street furniture. I had a lot of time to ponder some odd things on my walk today. The dogs took the business of sniffing out other dogs peemail messages very seriously, so there was lots of time for pondering the small stuff. Dorothea Ltd turn out to be pondering golddust. Please follow link.
Have dogs, will stand still a lot, is the motto of my day. Fortunately I had pre planned some supplies to keep me fortified on the walk.
Sunrise reflected as a Pain au Chocolat
The walk was one I have shared many times on the blog but these highlights are purely generated by prolonged sniffing locations.
Fabulous reflections on The Barbican, Plymouth.A cafe sign has been removed showing a more nautically focussed business from the past.
What more strange things have my dogs given me to share with you?
A doorway into the sky.A very complicated image that curiously mimics the random Union Jack on the next building.Bold Primary Colours in morning sunlight.
So there we are, my visual notes from early morning, prolonged dog stops. I have no idea what information they gathered this morning. Information gathering exhausted them. Both fast asleep for hours on our return.
The morning after the weekend before. Birthdays and Vernal Equinoxes in Pangbourne.
It was all going on this weekend, living our best life by going to an actual party, eating and drinking a little too much, dancing on carpet and finding new friends amongst the old.
The dogs had a sleep over in Wimbledon with an actual Womble.
The dawn of the Vernal Equinox, and also the morning after the party, found me sharing nature within a pastoral scene of a Thameside, water meadow, with a gentleman who was finishing off his night before. He was anxious to share his love of nature with me I was anxious not to reciprocate. Not quite the mellow meditative experience I had planned when waking in our campervan to a glorious dawn chorus. But Plein Air meditative painters do not always have the world to themselves, even at 6:30 in the morning. My other companion was definately perkier but no less inquisitive.
Fortunately my quick, abstract sketch/ colour note was of no interest to either of them, the swan honked a bit and wandered off, all too aware the sketch was inedible. The befuddled gentleman had no understanding of my visual Venn diagram, believing I think, that his inebriation was a good deal worse than he could have imagined. He was unaware he was not welcome in my picture and certainly not on my bench! The Venn Diagram was explicit, I thought.
Sketch finished I unwound myself from the slightly frozen pose I had been adopting. As I thawed out I realised a scamper back to civilisation was required as a wee made itself known and I was all too aware that I was not alone in the countryside for any more informal seeking of comfort.
We were not up early enough to see this wonderful misty sunrise, but not too long later. Hugo, Lola and this weeks man of the week Ralph all had a good scamper on the beach while a couple of bobbers set forth for a low tide swim
The other bobbers present kept their clothes on and their body temperatures toasty.
I’m also collecting Bobbers in action for some future paintings.
All this sunshine set us up nicely for the drive to Wimbledon. A drive that was somewhat enlivened by Ice Cream from Otter Valley Farm.
Our bladders are the deciding factor on stopping on journeys. In truth Otter Nurseries is a little close to home but no one should ever drive past such gorgeous ice cream regardless of bladder status.
There has been a curious circularity to the week which has been radled by a virus. Mostly exhausted, I have also had some lovely, in person face to face but masked up and at a distance conversations and some zoom or Video meetings. Lovely Ralph wearing his daffodil was part of the Video gang, he didn’t really play an active part in the commitee meeting but he clearly is aiming to be Chairman with this fabulous pose of authority. After yesterdays blog with my photo of the resting bee, Ralphs’ mum sent me this picture with a rescued bee which she popped into a daffodil to recover his equilibrium.
The stand out theme of the week has been the non- Covid virus and its debilitating symptoms. It is on the wane now leaving me a bit bunged up and still without any taste or smell. My amnosmia and phantosmia are on going. I’ve given up cooking from scratch unless under supervision. Early in the week before I realised that I was more than just a little taste and smell impaired, a chilli dish that I produced caused quite a response in other people but for me the only response was the stinging of my gums. I am quite lucky that the phantosmia for me is not too negative. At its worst most foods taste slightly mildewy or just stale, but for the most part I taste nothing. It has been a great week for drinking all those unusual teas that seemed like a good idea in the supermarket, that then languish in the cupboard because they have all the allure of fresh urine. Last nights curried chicken was not strong enough to register anything, my gums remained un tingly and I thoroughly enjoyed what I thought I was eating which was fresh Mango.
My drink of choice has become ginger beer, the more gingery the better. Normally I can be a right lightweight with ginger beer but this weekend I will be heading to the Afro- Caribbean shops to buy virtual firewater. This is the hottest I managed to get in the west country. Depicted as a colour doodle.
Not a scintilla of heat in that! Talking of heat, I kept my phantosmia of burning wood and tar to myself whilst working at the museum, it really was better for everyone that way.
One more Ralph to send you on your way this Friday. I’ve not really been taking many pictures or been quite so out and about but whatsapp is a wonderful resource of other peoples pictures
Morning mist cleared, yesterday, to reveal a very blue day, all fresh and twinkly. We had plans to catch a ferry to the local park which is just across the river in Cornwall.
A very low tide and being the first customer gave me the chance to take this photograph of the sweep of the slipway. Four of us had planned a combined dog walk, we gained an extra dog as another friend has succumbed to the dreadful non Covid virus. So Ralph joined us, very much dressed to have a blue day.
We were early enough to see the heat rise from a freshly manured flower bed. Surely a sign that Spring is here.
Also a sign that writing a daily blog can affect the way you respond to things. The fountain should be the star of this photo but I am more thrilled to have captured the steam rising from the flower bed behind.
A day out with dogs can have its moments and the dogs took off, unleashed, into the formal gardens where a gardener shouted at us for their bad behaviour. To be honest it could have been a recorded warning as we never saw the actual gardener at the time. So intent and camouflaged, was he, with his bush trimming that the only evidence of the man himself was his fury.
The whole incident must have un nerved me because after that I failed to take any further photographs for the blog and it is a spectacular location. Our walk was always going to be shorter than the location deserves as a trip to the dentist was planned and a friend was coming over for the afternoon. We have decorated three rooms since she last visited and she has undergone a few medical procedures so stairs are currently not her friend. So we employed technology to show her round the upstairs rooms.
Another friend was supposed to be presenting the interior design improvements but probably won’t get a call any time soon for real TV work, as waving and clambering in the bath does not make particularly slick viewing.
Still photography may have done the job more effectively but would not have caused quite the same levels of mirth and merriment.
Sunday already in what has been an unusual week. We should be just returning from a city break in Spain. However our new passports failed to arrive, we had both planned for this unlikely event by making, but not discussing, Plan B’s. Mine was to take a city break in Britain, Hannahs was to decorate the spare bedroom . Hannahs Plan B won the vote which made for an unusual week because I was able to attend two meetings that I had sent my apologies for.
The book club meeting had the potential to be a little awkward as I had not read the book as I had not anticipated being there. Fate however was very kind to me. As I arrived people were unusually standing outside the venue and looked very pleased to see me. Mistakenly they all thought I had the key. Since I knew I shouldn’t be there, I felt smugly confident that I was not the key holder. I joined them outside and we all looked expectantly at the next arrival who surely must have the key. Once we were all there, it was plain the key was missing in action. Book Club was officially cancelled. What are the chances of that! I didnt have to admit to not having read the book. The key was later found in someone’s book bag.
Meanwhile I was hatching a virus, not something you want to take on a holiday. More Novid than Covid I could still go about daily life and we sourced stuff for the redecoration of the spare room. Largely trying to re-use, re-purpose or recycle. We did one trip to Ikea for some hanging rails and one trip to the local Scrap store for fabrics. We will finish the room later today so pictures tomorrow.
My other meeting was a gathering of artists to natter, drink coffee and plan for future exhibitions. Artists were encouraged to take a small piece of work with us to do whilst nattering.
For a while I am sticking with the meditative mark making and colour mixing that is being taught on the course I am doing. Even in the midst of great quality conversations I found it was quite easy to ‘doodle’ with colour and shapes. The top picture is the whole thing. I decided to depict the meeting in colour. The central motif was my coffee cup full of gorgeous multi-flavoured black coffee.
Around the coffee cup I doodled the twelve attending people. 11 artists and one art lover. The art lover, a lovely man called Nick was depicted slightly differently from the artists , I just used two colours for his part of the picture.
Everyone else got more shades of colour and were a little more entwined depicting exchanging of ideas. Some people get larger segments than others to denote that in any meeting you cant always talk equally to everyone.
With just a little digital tweaking I have turned the whole thing into something quite different. I have superimposed the black and white image over the coloured version. I always make a digital black and white copy of any picture, it helps me assess colour balance and tonal changes before the work is finished. I can’t quite work out if this image expresses the energy of the meeting, or, indeed, the exhausting elements of this weeks Novid *virus.
* Novid , a nasty old virus that consistently tests negative for Covid-19
This time last year our precious Cornish garden plants had been in their containers,for moving house, for nearly six months. Ready for a pre Christmas move in 2020. The transaction was long, with many pitfalls along the way. Right now they have all spent 18 months in containers despite many of them not being considered suitable for container growth, we have only had one casualty. The house sale contract was only actually completed late in September 2021, not a time when we could do too much about them. Another whole winter in containers has done them no harm and this weeks brief sunshine has brought out some blooms from under planted bulbs.
This Buddha got a major head injury in the move but has grown, over winter a fine wig of succulents to cover up her caved-in temporal and parietal bones.
Two pumpkins from October have also survived the winter and are bringing colour to our yard. Despite all the recent storms, we are due another one today, Spring might well be just around the corner.
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