I woke up cold this morning. The first time for many months. I also have a planned dip in the sea. Now I accept that I am fully in the Autumn Zone.
When my bed feels snug and the thought of a cold swim feels like madness.
Sunrise has yet to occur, although not a deal breaker, some sunshine would be most welcome.
Yesterday the sun made a most welcome visit to my morning dip.
Which was all very energising for the day ahead. Which is the point where reality steps in. Yesterday’s dip was timed to fit in perfectly with the day’s chores. The first of which was a Vermin survey at a tennis club that I help to run.
The club overlooks all my swimming zones. Proximity to the sea means this could be perfect Real Estate for rats. However we have a very diligent and effective Rat detective who ensures we have no long tailed members using the club on a regular basis.
Mabon is a modern Pagan name for the autumn equinox which occurs in England at 7:19 tomorrow the 22nd of September.
In this image Mabon turns her head slightly to face the colder/crisper days of autumn. Mornings at this time of year can be glorious so I have surrounded her with warm colours, with just the chill of what is to come on her face.
Harvest Festival used to mark this time of year when I was a child. But as a working adult, who worked in a daylight free environment, the passing seasons and their boundaries of solstices and equinoxes passed me by. Life as an artist and dog walker makes me far more tuned in to the seasons moods.
This boundary is the one I dislike the most. Anticipating shorter, colder, darker days. However Autumn itself is a lovely time of year. Mists and mellow fruitfulness and Pumpkins.
Always Pumpkins
My harvesting this year has been almost entirely supermarket based. I love big, fat, juicy figs. Fresh ones, straight from Mediterranean trees are my favourite. After that I have to settle for ones that are labelled ‘large’ in supermarkets or market stalls. Mediterranean figs would laugh in the face of that description of large. Here is my diminutive haul from yesterday.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that I have the kind of mind that wanders. Last night I should have been concentrating on the words and music for an upcoming performance.
I don’t read music so concentration is vital. But where was my head? Off on a completely pointless ponder.
Goodness me, doesn’t the vein in that marbletombstone look like an artery?
Odd anatomy, but it could just be a right coronary, circumflex artery.
Needs a stent though.
Real Coronary artery that needs a stent.Does this Marble need a stent?
Now a sensible head that needed to concentrate would have stopped there. But no.
This could be a bespoke, graphic headstone for someone who died of Right Coronary Heart Disease.
What animal would have a right coronary artery like this. Or any other artery for that matter.
Is there disease further down?
Then in a moment of bonkers serendipity we started singing about Postman’s Park.
A little bit of London obscurity to read in the link below.
And here’s to the memory of Thomas Simpson, Whose life was sacrificed, Rescuing skaters from High Gate Pond When they fell through the treacherous ice.
These are the heroes of everyday life, Their stories may not reach us all, But in Postman’s Park are the tales of their strife, Displayed on the plaques on the wall ‘neath the awning.
Now young Sarah Smith was just seventeen, When her inflammable dress caught fire, Rushing to help her friend in distress, She created her own funeral pyre.
At Battersea Sugar Refinery, Thomas Griffin met his fate, A boiler exploded and scalded him raw, When he went back to look for his mate.
Now William Drake was passing Hyde Park, When ladies he saw in distress, Their horses were bolting, he leapt to their aid, And that was the cause of his death.
Now William Donald, a railway clerk, Was drowned in the River Lee, He was trying to save his friend from the weeds, But created his own tragedy.
And last but not least is Percy Edwards, An officer of the law, He lost his life in a gaseous pit, Rescuing those who’d gone in before.
…
Postman’s Park is where I sat as a teenager, anxiously waiting to see if I had been accepted to train at Barts Hospital in London.
It is also the place I escaped to on occasion when a busy day in the Cath Labs at Barts allowed me five minutes in the sun with a sandwich. Cath ( Catheter) Labs treat and diagnose heart disease.
And where I sat as a woman on the cusp/precipice/adventure of retirement from Barts, wondering how on earth life had taken me on an unplanned full circle.
Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.
My epic fail occurred one Christmas when I was batch cooking sausage rolls. Enough to feed a substantial quantity of festive guests. I had a large range style cooker and every shelf was filled with unctuous sausage meat enrobed with the best flaky pastry that supermarkets could sell. 30 mins cooking time was the perfect timing to pop to a neighbour for a tiny Seasonal drink. Unfortunately, the neighbours didn’t do tiny and I didn’t do portion control or observe my 30-minute time slot. An hour passed in a twinkling and I was full of festive spirit ( gin). Once home I was in no rush to rescue my baked goods. They were already past anyone’s judgment of edible. When the oven cooled down I swept them into a carrier bag to feed the birds in a local park after Christmas Day. Off to the park I went with a gaggle of over sugared children. I handed over the bag of sausage rolls and paid little attention to the bird feeding, just taking some mental breathing space. Somewhat irresponsibly I had weaponised children and was not paying attention. Each tiny bite-sized sausage roll was a rock in the hands of small children. Birds scattered, fearful of their feathered lives. Other parents and park visitors judged me as I realised that for the second time in 48 hours I had failed to adequately assess the sausage roll situation.
Nobody remembers that I did clear up the mess, no birds were actually harmed and that everyone had a fabulous hour or so in the park.
Every Christmas when a sausage roll passes the lips of any child or adult who has knowledge of that day. Somebody pipes up with the legend of me killing birds in a local park at Christmas time with over cooked sausage rolls because I had drunk too much gin.
All other years my sausage rolls have been fabulous. Nobody ever mentions that.
My poor sense of taste and smell, post-COVID, means that my lifetime favourite foods have changed. Seasoning, unusual flavour pairings, and texture are the things that bring mealtime pleasure on the days when I cant really taste very much and the food world resembles soggy cardboard. This question was timely today as I popped into Marks and Spencer to buy a new madcap product.
Who knows what gustatory delight Caramel Sauce with Marmite will bring? The Original Salt and Pepper Seasoning would certainly have been beneficial to the chips in the top picture. They were the epitome of cardboard
We did a regular dog walk around Sutton Harbour and The Barbican yesterday. A one hour dog walk, with time for sniffs etc
Both are hugely busy harbours with a constantly changing cast of seafarers and tourists on any day of the year. This weekend is a massive Sea Festival and everywhere is heaving with people having a good day out.
Live music fills every corner and spills across the harbours at high tide. Merging and blending. Drunken choruses of Robbie Williams tracks, merging with the rhythms of sea shanties and Church bells.. Hen parties with high heels on cobbles and men observing, holding pints and opinions that are not worth repeating.
These harbours have been bustling hubs for centuries and I would say these photos , taken in the midst of the happy hubbub could have been taken any time in the last 700 years. Dogs would have pee’d on the lobster pots as Hugo did. People would have been reflected in puddles. People would have made tracks.
Birds would have swooped over water.
So these calm pictures do lie, because they were tiny calm and unlikely moments, taken in the midst of happy people, crowded together intent on having a good time.But by excluding nearly all human detail, they are timeless.
Time for hands on creativity has been a bit short recently for good reasons and some tedious ones. I keep my creative head ticking over by doing digital art and reading about arty stuff that interests me. Visiting exhibitions too. Always a sure-fire way to get me back on the creative mojo. September also, always feels far more like a fresh start than the turgid dampness of January. I’ve been thinking about how to recycle or repurpose unsold artwork. Collage is a big thought. Not just from my own work but from some of the high quality tourist/ lifestyle magazines that can be picked up in arty places.
The picture above was not a conscious effort of creativity. I just packed up a scalpel and some old colour sketches of my local streets and went to meet fellow artists at a coffee/ cake/ and create session. I didn’t know what I planned to do but I had given the matter some thought.
Then 24 hours later I read this fascinating article. If you have the time please read it. It is not the article that made me ponder but the image that prefaced it.
Is it just me or does it seem hugely insulting to illustrate an article about creativity with an illustration that just shows men?
When I should have been reading and inwardly digesting something that really interests me. I just want to punch the smug white male and his white, white coated cranium sub – conscious allies. Maybe punching is too gentle. After all, I have a scalpel and I know how to use it. I note however that when the white coats did the craniotomy all they found was an empty void.
Whoever thought this picture was a good illustration for a great article should have given the matter more thought. Maybe slept on it or gone for a refreshing walk…
Drawn to the Valley ( Plymouth) came to the end of an era in August. For three years after the Covid restrictions Drawn to the Valley met once a month for their Creative Table event at Ocean Studios.
Members from all over the Tamar Valley met to create together, share information, and plan exhibitions.
The exhibitions were fabulous.
And the Private View parties were full of happy artists and their friends
So What Next?
For Ocean Studios, developers will be creating new homes. A beautiful artistic space, gone.
For Plymouth Drawn to the Valley, we have a new location.
Devonport Market Hall is our new location for our monthly meet ups.
Creative Table will be held at Devonport Market Hall. 10-12 every second Thursday of the Month in the Cafe at the Market Hall. All DTTV artists and makers are welcome as are non-member friends.
Friday already and a fabulous bouncy bob at high tide.
Nothing starts the day better than a challenging swim in a very well-understood and respected bay.
There is a turn in the weather so on our return I decided to do some autumn chores in the yard. I was energised for action by the splash and bounce of the sea.
Before loading the garage with summer paraphernalia I collected a stored portrait. A friend and I plan to have a good old natter about the experience of having our portraits painted. My two were painted 10 years apart and I have never before viewed them together.
I had no idea they had both chosen almost identical colour palates.
Seeing them together and again is a curious feeling.
If I posed now the hair would be grey, the black garment would be a swimming costume and the deep jewel red would be a towel or robe. Cold water swimming is my superpower, I wish those younger women had done it because it really gets me through the tough days. And those two younger versions of me had some really tough days.
This painting has never sold. The other circle project ones went on their way to new homes and this one went into the garage. Maybe the title didn’t work.
Sweat.
Maybe a hard sell but it reflected the many feelings that being sweaty can create. I looked at it yesterday in its plastic shroud, pondering on its future. Then this morning it appeared on my Facebook feed as a memory of 7 years ago.
Time to unwrap and rebrand.
I might slip into autumn unwillingly but these transitional days are full of getting back to routines or establishing new ones, after the languorous days of a well-spent summer.
I have an urge to turn this picture into an image of a bursting pomegranite.
Pomegranites are one of my favourite fruits.
My own photo archive holds some lovely pomegranite images.
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