The last public holiday in England before Christmas Day. A day that often disappoints with slightly grumpy weather. Today though, was gorgeous and this panoramic view is like a great turquoise smile expressing exactly how a holiday Monday should be.
I had a swim and didn’t want it ever to end, but superb swims, like all good things must come to an end. The balmy waters of Firestone Bay were just perfect today. There is a suggestion that the weather will turn tomorrow…
And just like that the rain arrived overnight.
Very disappointing weather behaviour. Of course exactly the sort of thing that underlines that the scrag end of summer has established itself as a transitional season and that layers and waterproofs may be needed for all future adventures.
When I wrote yesterday’s blog I had no idea it was the last one of January. Somehow I missed the anticipation of the end of the longest month.
Which is a sign, I suppose, that taking a more positive attitude to Winter is having some effect.
On a positive note we are 2/3 done with the official winter months.
I know I am not alone with my slightly dismal attitude. People wouldn’t write books and articles about positive winter attitudes if winter was all ticketty boo for the majority.
A SouthWest English winter does not look like this.
Fictional/Fantasy Devonport Park
What can I say about switching my mindset from endurance to tolerance?
Seasons are a bit like work colleagues or club members or any other group of humans. There is always one that has to be tolerated, made allowances for and most importantly celebrated when they leave.
So good morning February let’s get this winter malarkey over with.
I may even sign your leaving card with a cheery message wishing you well with your future in the Southern Hemisphere. I will watch and make sure you leave.
I have high hopes of Storm Bert who is rumbling in this morning.
I have never had a bad experience with a Bert. Berts in my experience are mostly clean old gentlemen wearing a hint of Old Spice aftershave. Berts who have fallen on harder times may not be as clean or fragranced but they have always seemed amendable. Bert is a solid working-class name. Bertie is more of a socially mobile name, George VI was known as Bertie, short for Albert.
I would rather ask a Bert to do a job than I would a Bertie.
Right now Bert is harrumphing down our chimneys and making the trees sway. I quite look forward to painting him when he has revealed his stormy personality.
Snow hit Devon and Cornwall Thursday. We saw nothing of it on our little peninsula that juts into the sea. But the effects of it made the day quite a challenge.
Hugo was due some more jaw surgery so we set off early to the vets. No vets had made it into work from their homes on Bodmin Moor or Dartmoor. All surgery apart from Hugos was cancelled. I left him in the hopes of vets arriving eventually.
There are only two major roads that take traffic in and out of Cornwall and Devon to the wider world of everywhere else. Unknown to me one of them, the A30 had been closed at 5am which is why the vets were struggling.
The less efficient of the two roads, the A38, became overwhelmed. The A38 is the road I use for the 20 minute journey to and from the vets. In total I should have spent one hour twenty minutes on the A38. Thursday, my actual total was closer to 5 hours. I could have planned my day so much better.Hugo on the other hand had a blast of a day. No surgery, a late breakfast and ample opportunity for cuddles with veterinary nurses who had time on their hands.
In the time it has taken me to write these few words Bert has gone from gusty to glum. He may not be one of the nicer Berts of my aquaintance.
In other news the festive window dressing is finished. Father Christmas/Santa in a sailing boat arrived. I started making a window feature after seeing them in the back streets of Chelsea and Westminster about 10 years ago.
From the insideFrom the outside
Today I discovered there is a trend for frontscaping a house.
Almost certainly the weather is the thing I moan about the most. Not perhaps to other people, but my internal dialogue is a vivid cacophony of weather considerations. I was not always a weather watcher, but ten years as a dog owner has made me appreciate the value of a walk without rain, or more unusually, a walk without scolding hot pavements. I have three weather apps on my phone. In addition to my dog walking considerations there is also the small matter of sea swimming. You might think that plunging into the sea year round would make the weather largely irrelevant,but storms and rainfall affect safety and water quality. There is also the small matter of changing after a swim. Rain on a salty body makes drying and dressing really tricky. Everything becomes sticky or tacky. Clothes that would normally glide on get caught in mysterious places or cling to the first piece of skin they touch.
Tiny garden weather stations are a thing. Controlled by a smartphone they provide hyperlocal weather information. I am a little tempted to get one. I might moan internally about the weather, but I have also become fascinated and intrigued by how the weather can change my life.
While writing this I realised I preferred the word mithering to moaning. The dictionary suggests there is nothing to choose between them.
I am not by nature a complainer or even a moaner in the normal day to day. But being a weather mitherer has something about it which I rather like.
Storm #3 of the storm season has had quite an impact.
Not perhaps in the way I may have thought though. Ciarán reminded a friend that I had painted Storm Agnes and wondered if she was for sale. She is as it happens and now she is off to a new home.
Storm Agnes
Storm Babet didn’t really impact us too much although she did take out the road to one of my regular beaches.
In the eye of the storm at 2am
I know how I would paint Babet, a voluptuous storm, who caused chaos in an unexpected place with less energy than you would think. A storm directed from a chaise long perhaps.
Ciarán though, no clues in the name . Until I looked him up known as ‘ the little dark one’ Keir-on is how the weather forecasters pronounce the name. Ciarán is doing dramatic, theatrical stuff on our coast. Attention grabbing and flamboyant splashing and crashing on the outdoor lido, the sort of thing that gets you noticed. Hyperlocally Ciarán has been less wildly beautiful. More of a truculent bully, pushing over the bins and scattering domestic rubbish on the streets. Here he is just bashing the steps down to the tidal pool.
I have a little idea how he will be painted now. The little dark storm
November blows in on a storm. Yesterday was dog grooming day. A very recent storm had damaged the road that would normally take me to Wembury beach after I dropped them off for a couple of hours of pampering. The weather was already pretty unpredictable so I had packed a raincoat, a large beach towel and a tin containing greetings cards. I was determined that my dog-free hours were going to be well spent. Weather and the tide, not fate was going to be the deciding factor on how I spent my morning. At the point that the beach access road was closed I took off, up steep valley lanes that were covered in slippery, damp fallen leaves. After two hair raising reversing events I found a car park at a place called Wembury Point.
As I arrived the heavens opened which negated any value my raincoat had, the beach towel was already useless as I was now very many metres up from sea level. The tin of greetings cards it would have to be. So here we have it, confession time.
I am dreadful at sending out Christmas cards in a timely fashion. I have made all the excuses in the world and often opt for the donating to charity option. None of that helps my guilt as the cards from more diligent people drop through our letterbox in December. This year I made a plan. I have bought Charity Christmas cards and some note cards. The note cards can be written at any time, no pressure no deadlines and no excuses. Inside I have popped a small Christmas card bearing the words ‘This may be your 1st Christmas card of 2023’
Creating a specific tin with everything that I need has transformed my task. If I know I am going to be hanging around doing nothing more than scrolling through my phone, I grab the tin and write notes to friends and family. Yesterday 12 cards were written and posted in the time it took for a storm to pass.
I even had one of those moments when a forgotten address just floated into my head when I wasn’t actually thinking about it.
With an hour or so left the rain had cleared enough for me to do a clifftop walk. The area where I was walking was formerly a naval establishment called H.M.S Cambridge. Only a small radar station remains and the land around is being gently returned to nature. The groundworkers making the transformation are not human.
Dartmoor ponies have been moved to Wembury point to gently graze the area back to a more natural state. When I set off on my walk they were all hard at it. But on my return a lunchtime rest had prevailed.
Not only ponies, when I returned to the car park two large refuse collecting lorries had parked up for their crews to enjoy a break with beautiful views. This was absolutely in my favour. As they started their engines to leave I decided to follow them down the narrow lanes. No awkward reversing stand-offs with oncoming drivers on slippery lanes. Nobody expected two refuse lorries to reverse and so, as a convoy of three, we returned to civilisation easily with other people backing up.
Two groomed dogs, 12 notes with cards written and a good walk. Time to get on with real life.
Waiting for Agnes. Storm Agnes is on her way, but early this morning there was a bobber in the water. Taking a dip before the storm disrupts our coastal life.
Just one bobber and a buoy
Just like a storm the subjects for this blog are blowing around in my ponderage. 4 possible subjects all of them small. Struggling to find a common theme and realising that with forbearance and some imagination the link might be the sea.
Tasks for the day
Chores
Dog walks
Make new necklace out of three old broken ones
Sketch a merwoman/bobber taking a strong pose
Dog walks
Chores
Lets not talk about the chores but the first dog walk found a familiar bobber bobbing in Tranquility Bay. Which for now is still tranquil.
I have been holding on to three broken necklaces for some time. I moved them to this house in bits two years ago. Today was the day that I actually reused the best bits from all three. The link to the sea is tenuous but the new necklace is made mostly out of artificial pearls.
My other slightly sea related subject is a new to me accompaniment for toast.
Fishy, salty and lemony it is the perfect wake up for my post-covidly pathetic taste buds. I tried Gentlemen’s Relish but it seems my tastes are more towards the criminal than the gentlemanly.
And so onto the sketch of the day. It seems only appropriate to name her Agnes.
I’m not sure if I often consider temperature as a texture but yesterday my lunchtime walk was filled with unexpected sensations. A high tide had brought up a huge bank of seaweed, which was both crunchy underfoot and softly yielding like a marshmallow. The temperature was hovering at 0 and the sun was starting it’s sharp descent towards the horizon. Both dogs were thrilled. Hugo loves nothing more than scavenging seaweed. Adding his small efforts to a massive pile kept him busy for an hour while Lola and I basked in the sunshine. I was wrapped up very snugly and Lola was as close to me as a barnacle on a boats bottom. Soon enough the ratio of sunshine and temperature made sitting still a bad idea. We had been in a golden triangle,moving took us into the territory of icy blasts whipping fluffy ears back and making me hugely grateful for a felted wool hat
The dogs took the best possible position on returning home.
Just filling in time until the next outdoor adventure.
Small blog about small gains. Our sitting room illuminated by natural light for the first time in 2023 and catkins on our journey today. Life is better with sunshine.
Tomorrow’s blog will be all about the painting which is going on the big, bare, green wall. Once it is painted of course.
Four hours early for an appointment! What to do? Returning home in rush hour traffic, of a sort, did not seem particularly exciting. So I figured out four hours of activities to the east of the city. In no particular order of dullness I went to a rarely visited supermarket and bought a new frying pan. Necessary because our old one had sprung a leak. Creating puddles of Rape Seed oil wherever it rested its bottom. Never having had a leak occur in a frying pan we had blamed Rape Seed incontinence on many other factors before noticing a steady drip of oil spluttering into the open flame of the gas hob.
The dogs then got two decent length walks, one on the coast path and one up a valley before they gratefully fell asleep in the car while I read a print edition newspaper and snacked on supermarket pastry. The hours had passed and I handed over some, still tired, hairy hounds to their canine beauticians. Freeing me up for some sea swimming and book reading under lumpen grey skies and no expectation of heat. Typical English Summer recalibrated from the Sunny Summer Sumptuousness of the past month or so. Four hours early for an appointment, no problem. British Summer Time has finally arrived, the rain chased me off the beach. Like any good English person I sat resolutely as the pages of my book darkened with blobs of rain, playing an internal game of brinkmanship, not wanting to be the first person to run to the comfort of a warm dry car. Not wanting,either, to be a drippy wet mess unable to balance on plastic flipflops made slippy by rainfall in a way they never do with saltwater.
Four hours early for an appointment and British Summertime has finally arrived.
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