We’ll be away!

We’ll be away!

Tomorrow Partner-who-loves-tea and I will be drinking our cups of tea and coffee elsewhere.  We shall be spending Thursday night near Gloucester and the weekend with Daughter-who-takes-photos and Friend-and-son-in-law-who-loves-otters.  Then it is on to Hay-on-Wye.  So I doubt there will be a blog posting for a week or more. (Though who knows – I may sneak one in sometime overnight!)  In the meantime here are a couple of things that are bouncing around my brain at the moment.

Your thoughts please

I have mentioned Moannie before and you may care to know what is happening. Moannie, a virtual friend and mother of Sarah, another of my blogging friends, has had cancer for some time and has fought against it valiantly but with a background acceptance that if The Fates were not on her side so be it.  The Fates, it seems, were not.  Saz has been keeping us up-to-date with her Mum’s condition and it is now clear that Moannie is declining fast.  Fi, a vet from Christchurch said it all really - "You may be a virtual friend but I am I am shedding real tears."

Artists

Every now and then I come across an artist that I absolutely love. It may be a long-dead Master whose work I’ve never seen before or it may be an amateur just doing things for their own amusement or it may be a modern commercial artist or a combination of the two.  I’ve come across one of each category recently.   I’ll leave the old master for the moment but let me guide you towards the two living ones.

 Amy Dover

Steeple – reproduced by kind permission of Amy Dover

Firstly, how about this for a lovely sketch.  I’ve asked Amy to hang on to it until I win the lottery but if one of you gets there first you must let me know and blog (or is that brag) about it.

Please visit Amy’s website and look out for Henrietta, I love her as well.  And ‘Cardboard’ on her first Artwork page is well worth clicking on!

 

Kaykuala

I’m not sure what lead me to Hank’s blogs.  I think he commented on a blog I commented on and because I agreed with what he said I thought I’d chase him down and see what his blog was like.  In the process I found he had an art blog as well as his day to day one.  I was taken with his work because his style is very similar to mine. As a result he has made me itch to get my paints and pencils out of the loft.  Since Partner-who-loves-tea and I have just agreed to try to keep the dining table clear of clutter (at my foolish suggestion)  there goes my last chance of anywhere to have my paints out.

Today’s ‘Lud-in-the-Mist’ quote

 Book Cover by Daniel Govar

“Spiritually, too, he passed for a typical Dorimarite; though, indeed, it is never safe to classify the souls of one's neighbours; one is apt, in the long run, to be proved a fool. You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwittingly giving you for a portrait — a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with every tiny readjustment of the "values," with every modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candlelight, when all the house is still.”

                                                                    Hope Mirrlees.

(‘Lud-in-the-Mist’ sometimes gets compared the ‘The Hobbit’ which was written ten years later. Personally I can’t see much resemblance except that they are high fantasy but I do love one comparison found on Gooigle – “If The Hobbit is a story told by your stodgy intellectual grandfather, Lud-in-the-Mist is one told by your slightly loony great aunt.”)

The shower

After years of p***ing about and six (I think – I may have lost count) different plumbers our shower is working.  At this very moment Partner is trying it out.   

I shall refrain from using a photo to illustrate this paragraph but suffice to say it is a cause for great celebration in the household.

Have a good week, fellow bloglings.