A trying week at Hepworth Towers

It has been a trying week at Hepworth Towers.

It’s been a bad tempered week - not Dave, but me.

It’s been a dark week - not just the interminable rain, or the horizon to horizon wet grey murk out there, but it’s been like that in my head. I’ve been miserable and bad tempered, and only because I am feeling a little better this morning, am I able to tell you. This long wet winter, coupled with the interminable dreadful news, brought me down so I was intolerable to live with.

Meanwhile Dave has been a patient saint. He knows what it’s like to have wall to wall blackness inside your head, and he couldn’t have been kinder. 

I have not been enthused about painting for weeks and weeks, and I have had no inspiration. That’s why I painted that sickly sweet painting called Cheerfulness. I thought it expressed Cheerfulness perfectly, but I hated it aesthetically.

Yesterday, I did this to it and felt temporarily better.

One of the reasons I’ve been so fed up is that I have had no inspiration for painting. Another is feeling guilty in top of the despair because I have nothing to complain about…I am very fortunate. 

Yesterday Liz came for a coffee and a long walk and she broke the spell of my gloom. After she’d gone I lit the fire, played my sax, tweaked the current, so far unsuccessful, painting, and then lay on the sofa and read my poetry anthology Staying Human.

Dave came home with a bag of my favourite samosas, and we watched The Repair Shop, did a crossword together, and then looked on Google Maps for a photo of the place where we lived when we first got married. Our daughter had asked for the address - I think she is going to look for it (she was a baby there). It looked very different - actually unrecognisable, really - and I had wanted it to look just the same. 

Whatever…I think this poem by Mary Oliver fits the bill this morning:

(It’s not in the anthology I mentioned, btw.)

 

Letter to The Guardian

 

Taking care

In 2011 I went to Paris for a weekend in February with my big sister Kath. 

I like going away with Kath. She likes to walk to places, as I do, and she’s so relaxed and easy to be with.

We went to see the impressionists at Musée d’Orsay, and I can’t remember what else, except the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre. 

We approached via the long, long flight of steps in front of it. And I remember a young man carrying a toddler on his shoulders running down those steps - running down them. And I thought at the time how careless and frightening it was. What if he had tripped? Why hadn’t he seen the danger?

I just came across a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, the poet who wrote that wonderful poem called Gate A4 - check it out here - which reminded me of seeing that man on the Montmartre steps:

Attention

 “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

I just came across this quote from Simone Weil, and it made me wonder if I should read every report that comes out of Gaza and the West Bank. I have been reading the headlines and passing on because I can’t bear to read about the suffering there, when I can do so little about it.

For example, this one, in The Guardian this week:

For example, a report from The Good Shepherd Collective sent to my Inbox this week said that 

Actually, I am going to give you a link to the full report.  

Here https://goodshepherdcollective.org/posts/2026/02/06/several-killed-700-displaced-100-000-without-water-in-west-bank

It makes shocking reading. And it is shocking that our press rarely reports any of this.

Just think about it…the U.K. and Europe still trades with the Israelis, even when they behave like this.

I am sick at heart.

Meanderings

 I have not been to America to visit my lovely family since October 2024. I used to go twice a year. I would love to see them but I am not completely sure I’d be welcomed by the powers that be, because of what I have said online. 

So the family came to visit us last summer, and I hope they will do so again this year.

Meanwhile we talk on the phone. Cece FaceTimes to show me the progress of their latest craft activities, which are numerous and impressive.

For example, their crocheted gloves and numerous bead bangles

Sadly I can’t find pictures of their other larger projects. They recently told me they  wanted to crochet a jumper but didn’t have the right size crochet hooks so they 3 D printed them. They will go far. They learn how to do everything from YouTube, so if they bring in a social media ban in the USA, it will be a problem. 

We chat on FaceTime and play Dress to Impress. We both love this Roblox game, and we talk while we’re playing. 

Isaac called for a chat on Sunday, which was lovely, but as soon as I’d put the phone down I missed him. Wendy called yesterday and the same thing happened. It’s strange that after being in touch I sometimes miss them more.

I am still lacking inspiration with my painting and am trying new things in the interim. I had an idea for an abstract called Cheerfulness and I’ve just finished it, but I’m ambivalent about it. 

On the one hand I think it successfully illustrates  Cheerfulness, but on the other hand, I dislike the flat colours. I’ve just noticed that this is a bad photo…the top balloon should be as white as the bottom one. Hey ho.

I’ve started a new abstract now. Perhaps when the spring comes I’ll start painting grasses and flowers and trees again. Like this:

I made the patchwork cheerfulness cushion I mentioned in an earlier post, but decided against embroidering a slogan on it.

If you have a headache, you can turn it over because the back is plain.

Do you ever become hooked on a TV programme that you know is tosh, and often you find annoying, but you can’t stop watching it? I’m currently on Series 7 of Younger on Netflix. It began well and then in series 2 became annoying, and then in series 3 I kept thinking - stop messing us around! …are Liza and Charlie EVER going to get together? I even googled to find out. I won’t give a spoiler. Thankfully, Series 7 is the last. And a friend has told me two other things to try which are more meaningful…if I can just remember what they are. I know they both begin with P. I could ask my fiend again if I could remember which friend it was… oh! It was my daughter, and she Whatsapped the info because she knew I would forget. Bless her.

So it goes. 

Lest you think I am an utter lightweight, I Will tell you I am reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

I’m going to see Hamnet today. That’s my other culture fix for the week.

Stimulation on speed

My weekend in London had a big impact on me. I’ve been thinking about it all week.

On Friday we spent the afternoon and evening at the National Portrait Gallery, beginning with a free guided tour, focusing on fashion and dress. It was fascinating. Did you know, for example, that the empire line came into fashion as a direct result of the French Revolution? Aristocrats who had been parading around in tightly corseted, extravagant dresses, rejected ostentation in favour of simplicity.

We then went to the rooftop bar for a drink. It’s super up there. You get away from the crowds and have a great view over the rooftops, past Nelson’s column to Big Ben in the distance. 

Daughter cropped out, to preserve her privacy.

The only problem is that you can’t just go for a tea or a coffee. You can have a drink and/or a meal. We had the former.

Then it was time for the main event - The Taylor Wessing National Portrait Photo Prize Exhibition. Gosh that’s a mouthful. 

This I loved. It was fascinating and engrossing. The words beside each photo, telling the story of the particular portrait, were fascinating, and so much more meaningful than the often impenetrable and specious intellectual expositions you see about figurative works of art in exhibitions.

One photo moved me to tears. It was ‘Fatima and Ivana’ by the photographer, Giles Duley. Duley was wounded by  bomb in Afghanistan, losing both legs and his left arm, but he has had both a successful and hugely worthwhile career, documenting the impact of war on civilians. And he founded the NGO, Legacy of War Foundation.

This was the photo that moved me - I’m sorry that it was impossible to take a shot of it without reflections:

I found it so affecting because of the smiles and the manifest love on both of the faces, and of course, because of the horrors of war on civilians. And perhaps because my granddaughter MsX is the same age as Ivana.

In reading up about Duley just now, I found another photo of the three year old Ivana, in a hospital bed, after she’d been hit by a bomb, alongside a photo of a child bombed in WW2:

So much to think about. 

We had a stroll around Trafalgar Square to take in some fresh air

and then we went back to the NPG for tea/supper in Larry’s bar, in the basement, where there was a jazz singer and pianist. It was ace. It was fantastic! Here’s my margarita

And that was Friday.

On Saturday we went on a bus 

The Tower of London and the Shard

Crossing Tower Bridge

to Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Anne Ancher exhibition. Ancher (1859-1935) was a successful Danish painter, a household name in her own country, but little known here. I loved her paintings. And I came away inspired, particularly by her interiors and the way she painted light, pouring in through the windows. The Dulwich is always worth the trip out from London, and this exhibition was fabulous.

The last event was going to see The Mousetrap on Saturday evening. It was huge fun.

You’ve heard of The Mousetrap, haven’t you?

I was telling two family aspies about it, saying “It was first staged in 1952, and has been showing non-stop since then,” and one responded - IN ALL SERIOUSNESS - “What? All through the night? 24 hours a day?” This illustrates the hazards of communicating with aspies. 

And now to paint. 

Ooh, forgot to tell you about the squirrel on the balcony (Het’s flat) ten floors up in the Barbican 

Mud, mist and snowdrops

My best Christmas present starts on Friday. I asked my daughter to go to London with me for the weekend in January (as her present to me) and the thought of it has been keeping me going through these dark weeks since Christmas. Dark weeks of mist, rain, mud and disturbing geopolitics.

Last year she gave me the same present but in February, though when the weekend arrived I had the worst cold of my life (a box of Kleenex a day job) and it took the shine off everything. So since New Year I’ve been staying away from anyone with even a trace of a cold, even the captivating 3 year old MsX. 

Thank heavens for the internet. I saw MsX on Facetime on Sunday rather than in person, because she said 'I am not myself.' 

(she had a cough and a runny nose.)

And later that day I played Dress to Impress on Roblox with 13 year old Cece in Colorado, and in one of the rounds I won! I came first! The theme was 'Gym,' and this is my character dressed in what I chose (hairstyle included.) I was so proud coming top against 8 teenyboppers.

Making the most of every single day is more important the older you get. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I had this particular blog post all worked out in my head yesterday afternoon while I was cutting back the buddleia. Now it’s turned to mush. But that is part of what I was thinking about…that everything turns to mush. 

I mean…from your late seventies onwards, nothing is going to improve, is it? I’m on a downward slope. As my body wears out, my health will get worse, my short term memory will decline even more. I was talking to Isaac about this on Monday and in the middle of a sentence a new thought occurred to me and I mentally shelved it, thinking I’d mention it when we’d finished what we were talking about. And then when we’d finished, I couldn’t remember it. 

Yesterday I was filling in an online form which required my driving licence number, and I kept getting the message that what I had entered was not valid. I tried missing out the letters at the beginning, the letters at the end, but still it would not work. I checked it. It looked right but it was not accepted. I rang up the helpline and left a message as they were busy. Then I checked the number again and saw that I had missed out a number in the middle. Durrrh.

This is not a miserable post, not a complaining post. It’s just a post about coming to terms with reality. In the past I’ve always felt there was room for improvement, room to expand, to grow, to develop. I suppose my painting has improved since I started, in lockdown. On the other hand, three of my favourite paintings are from that time, so perhaps I haven’t.

This is my latest, of Dave:

When you're 12, you think - ooh, can't wait to be a teenager.  When you're a teenager you can't wait to leave home so you can do what you want and not what your parents tell you to do. When I was young, things felt as though they were on the up. Now I'm old, it's different. What's to be done? Vive Hodie. (Live today.) Carpe diem. (Seize the day.)

Dave's carvings 

I know full well it's not a new message.

Yesterday afternoon in the garden it felt like spring. And along the lane, the first snowdrops are out. 

I have to learn to enjoy every day, and not rely on beacons of interest and enjoyment scheduled on my future calendar. I am not very good at it.

 

A rambling post

When I am looking for something short and gentle to read in bed in the morning I check in on Garrison Keillor’s blog. He talks about his daily life, life in general, aging, his travels to perform, and occasionally, en passant, he makes sotto voce swipes at the American president. On his latest post, here, the comments were no longer sotto voce and took me by surprise. 

I have recently been looking for a new audiobook to listen to while I’m painting. I already have Pontoon, written and read by Keillor, which I’ve listened to a couple of times, so being in a Keillor frame of mind I checked out what else he had to offer. This is what I bought:

The title has set me thinking. Do you remember how a couple of years ago I was given a DIY neon sign kit by the lovely Jaine? And I asked Dave to make it into Courage, because I have no fine motor skills and couldn’t do it myself?

And how it became my motto for the year (2024)?

What I didn’t tell you was that I also painted a placard, which sits on my bedroom windowsill, because the batteries so quickly run out on my sign? 

That's condensation damage at the top

Anyway…back to cheerfulness. The neon sign kit could be made into a different word but I reckon that cheerfulness is too long. That’s why I am making a patchwork cushion cover of bright colours and will embroider Cheerfulness on it, and the cushion will sit on my studio sofa, as I spend more time in the studio than anywhere else in the winter, which is the time of the year when I need to be reminded to be cheerful.

I have a love hate relationship with patchwork. I have made four full sized double bed quilts and several baby ones over the years, and they drive me to distraction, because I love the design part and hate the sewing. 

After my Covid quilt…

… I swore off ever doing patchwork again, but this is just a cushion cover. I have started assembling materials from my drawer of remaining scraps, and I rather like these pink and orange pieces I dismantled from a quilt that had faded. The reverse side is not faded.

Watch this space.

Coping with January

Well, I finished reading The Gifts of Winter. The odd thing was that while I was reading it I felt more cheerful, but now I have finished it I feel as bad as ever about January. 

Of course, the world news doesn’t help. And Starmer’s refusal to take a stand on anything that the British people care about is pathetic. He makes me want to spit.

And then there is the weather…we were promised snow and I was looking forward to the world outside the window being brighter, but all we got was an inadequate coating of wet mush. Yesterday, we decided that despite the cold grey everywhere, we’d walk the mile down the Trail to Hassop Station, only to find it closed: presumably, because of the dire forecasts, and the expectation of travel difficulties for staff and punters, they’d decided not to open.

And then there is my current painting, which is taking so long it’s getting tedious.

Dave asked me what was wrong this morning. Had he done something to annoy me? 

‘No,’ I said, ‘definitely not. I was just trying to find reasons to be cheerful.’

Here they are:

My lovely family

My friends

My patchwork quilt 

I have enough to eat

We have more than enough wood for our log burning stoves - thanks to Dave

Our house is cosy

I am in good health

In two weeks time I am going to London for the weekend with my daughter for fun and artistic inspiration 

It won’t always be January 

We’re forecast sunshine for today and I shall go out for a long walk and take a flask of coffee and come home happy

I feel better for writing this…perhaps all I need to do every winter morning is to think of ten reasons to be thankful.