Speechless and Powerless

Something’s been troubling me.

Dave and I wear these bracelets. 

He wears the white one and I wear the black one. But when I arrived at Denver airport I took mine off, because I didn’t want to talk to the girls about what the Israelis are doing - how they are a rogue state, committing genocide, bombing and starving civilians, and how they are doing it with impunity.

I didn’t want to talk to them about it because it’s so awful to contemplate and I know that if I had known what was happening at their age I’d have been traumatised. Knowing about it at the age of 75 is bad enough. Every morning I wake up and see the headlines and feel sick. I think about it during the day and it makes me feel sick. 

When I was visiting the Aging Hippie recently - a woman who shares my political views on everything and who hates war as much as I do - I talked to her about this. She said “You talk to them about other things that matter to you - about refugees for instance - why not about this?” And I told her why: because I didn’t want to expose them to the horrors of current world affairs any more than they are already. Should I have worn the bracelet and risked a conversation?

And the fact that Israel can behave the way it does, and has been doing with impunity for over a year is horrific. It’s not as if this began after the hideous and inexcusable Hamas attack in October 2023. Israel has been oppressing the Palestinian people in the occupied territories and besieging Gaza for years and years and years, with intermittent bombing campaigns on Gaza too. 

Israel has been breaking international law for years, and yet the west still sends them arms. What does Israel have to do before the west will finally say “enough is enough” and mean it?

It is a terrible thing to see what is happening and to be powerless to do anything to stop it.

The UK government doesn't care though I am sure the majority of the British people do. What is one supposed to do when one’s government acts against the wishes of its people? They don't respond to letters. They don't respond to demonstrations.

All I can do is give money to Medical Aid for Palestinians:

https://www.map.org.uk/

Or to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal:

https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/middle-east-humanitarian-appeal

Coming home

I had a lovely time away in Colorado with the family, and in California with the aging hippie, but I always love coming home.

I left a day of hot bright sunshine at Denver airport and arrived home to a soggy teatime at Hepworth Towers where the autumn colours are just as lovely as in Boulder.

It was so good to see Dave at arrivals, and when I got out of the car at home after 19 hours of travel, the quiet, familiarity, and the freshness of the atmosphere were sublime. 

Two days later I’m excited about getting back to painting. I’ve ordered a daylight lamp so I can paint past three o’ clock on winter days, and I’ve got an idea for my first painting. 

Photo by Isaac

Today I need to order a stack of books for MsX’s second birthday. She can recite The Gruffalo already. She’s not just bright but she’s a madcap, whether it’s diving head first into muddy water in the garden, or painting her head bright yellow. I see her as an avant garde sculptor winning the Turner prize at 20. I can’t wait to see her tomorrow.

How lucky am I to have a lovely home and family, how blessed am I to live somewhere beautiful and safe and to have enough of everything. 

Goodbye Boulder

 These are my pictures of beautiful Boulder

I am leaving the family today and don’t know when I will see them again.

Will sanity reign in the upcoming election?

How many wars will be going on when I see them again?

This is what is on my mind…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWt1Sk51kg

Granting impunity to lawlessness

Dave’s latest letter to our new Labour MP:

The Government is determined to side with Israel, citing Israel’s right to defend itself, and claiming what it knows to be false: that the attack by Hamas was the cause of the current war in the ME.

 

I fully agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, and I condemn whole-heartedly the unjustified attack by Hamas.

 

But what we see, and see daily, is not self-defence by any definition of the term. We are witnessing unbridled and unrestrained aggression across the ME in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, illegal settlements, Lebanon, and stretching out towards Iran. On all fronts, Israeli forces, eagerly supported by your government and the lucrative arms trade, is wreaking total havoc, destroying homes and infrastructure, razing cities and towns to the ground, displacing vast populations, repeatedly ordering further movement of displaced people, attacking the UN, killing journalists, creating starvation and hampering aid, destroying hospitals, creating a generation of orphans, and murdering civilians wherever they are found. Israel is throttling the hopes and aspirations of an entire people

 

In Gaza, Israel has banned Western journalists, and has killed 128 journalists so far, 123 of them Palestinian. It has attacked UN workers and peacekeepers, most recently this week. While it claims all its actions are precisely targeted, this is only a small part of the picture, a tiny part of the truth. Is it not clear to the government, as it is to the people, that Israel takes no account of civilian deaths which are simply seen as unimportant collateral damage ?

 

With our eager support, the Israelis are creating a desert and calling it peace. They are snuffing out Arab lives as if they are of no significance whatsoever.

 

Why is your government happy to support this unrestrained feral lawlessness that no country other than Israel would be allowed to get away with ?

 

Why is your government happy to connive with Israel’s medieval savagery by accepting and promoting Israeli propaganda about defence ?

 

After long, weary and desperate years of Tory rule, I was hoping for a resurgence of honest government, of principled leadership, of respect for equity under the law. It was clear before the election that Starmer could deliver none of these, and this is proving to be the case. During the years of Tory government, I have felt ashamed of being British. Clearly that stain will continue until we have a government which no longer supports the tyrannical impunity currently enjoyed by Israel, and no longer accepts blatant propaganda as true, knowing it to be false. Your government, led by a politician no less venal and mendacious than Johnson, sadly is not up to the task.

Dave Hepworth 

 

  

Obscenity

I cannot post trivia while Israel continues to act like a raging beast and the West does nothing but send arms. I am sick at heart.

The way Israel is behaving is obscene and inhuman. And our country is party to it. 

On being kind

I posted most of this yesterday and then took it down because I thought it mean. I’ll tell you why at the end.

This is the view as I flew from Colorado to California.

I have been in Redwood City, California, for a few days, staying with the Aging Hippie. I first met the AH at a peace vigil in San Francisco in 2006. The last time I came to stay at her house was 12 years ago: I had to check the blog to find out when it was. 

Here we were then, cycling along the San Andreas fault: a passer-by took our picture.

And the last time I saw her was 2019 when we went on a trip to Northumberland and Mull.

Today we went to the beach and it was fab. 

Doesn’t it look just like the beach scenes in Grace and Frankie?

The Pacific Ocean felt warmer than the Atlantic in Pembrokeshire in July but the waves were too scary to brave in a cossie, so I paddled instead.

Later, I was taking a quick snap of Karen on a bridge when a cyclist stopped and asked if we wanted a photo of the two of us together. 

He was old, and he was kitted out as if in England on a January day and he was wearing reflective sunglasses, and he just had the look of someone who would take ages to climb off his bike and prop it up and get himself sorted out, and fuss, and make a big production of it all, do you know what I mean? So I was reluctant, and looked over at Karen, but she gave me the nod. I think she thought we may as well say yes and get it over with. 

So I handed over my phone and went to stand next to Karen who I’d positioned exactly where I wanted her to obscure something behind her on the far cliffs, and he said “I’d like to get you with the sun on your faces,” and I thought ‘here we go’ and said “No, I want the ocean behind us and this is the place I want. Take it here.”

He said “The screen is dark,” and I pointed out he was wearing sunglasses.

He said “I need to compose it.”

“Just click it already,” said Karen, so he did. 

I quickly thanked him and took the phone and we walked away. 

“Do you think I was too brusque with him?” I asked Karen.

“No,” she said, “he needed reining in.” 

Later I looked at his shots. He had taken three, and two had my head cut off. Was that revenge? 

This is the one that was OK.

I thought about this and felt mean.

I had just wanted to take a quick snap of Karen, nothing fancy, just a record.

This chap came along and wanted to be helpful.

I thought I could tell - by looking at him - that he wasn’t in it for a quick snap and so I was reluctant to say thank you, yes, go ahead.

But we did and I had guessed right - he was someone who wasn’t in it for a quick snap, and we hurried him along.

Later it occurred to me that he might be lonely. He might live alone. We might have been the only people he talked to that day, and here was I being mean with our company. We were on holiday…we weren’t on a schedule. 

So I learned something and am going to try to be more patient/more friendly.

Aren’t I the one who is always going on about the importance of interacting with people you don’t know?

Grandmothers

 I’ve been thinking about my grandmother role.

Lux meeting me at the airport.
Photo by Isaac

Now the girls are teenagers, it’s changed. They no longer come downstairs to my bedroom first thing in the morning for chat and cuddles and screen games. They need every bit of sleep they can get. 

Also, they are out all day from 8 till 4 at school, and there are activities after school such as karate and seeing friends. I don’t spend nearly as much time with them as I did when they were little. I’d play with them and read to them such a lot ten years ago. Now I’m more like much-loved background scenery.

I said this to Dave in an email and he said “Being comforting background scenery is a role in itself.” And he reminded me of what Philip Larkin said of Monica Jones:

This is what I’ve been thinking, and then yesterday after a lovely trip into the mountains with Isaac and the girls…

Paddling in Boulder Creek
Photo by Isaac

Cece and I spent the whole afternoon doing art work together side by side. It was so companionable, and so lovely, and I reconsidered the background scenery angle.

Letter from Boulder

 I flew here on Wednesday.

A house along the street 

It’s wonderful to be with my lovely family.

Photo by Isaac

Photo by Isaac

They are all out - Isaac at work, the girls at school, Wendy on a trip. I am sitting in the garden in sunshine, having just finished reading Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry. It’s dark but also wonderful. 

I’m waiting for it to warm up a little before I go out on my bike.

It’s so peaceful here,  and the trees are so beautiful, and it is hard to imagine the hell that so many people in the Middle East and East Africa - indeed, all over the world - are living in. I am so lucky, so blessed. 

Hot Spot by Mona Hatoum 

The flight here was smooth and calm and the airports the quietest I’ve seen them, which was very welcome to this country mouse.

My usual route is via Manchester and Heathrow, but my flight was cancelled on Tuesday and BA sent me on Aer Lingus via Dublin. This route has two advantages- I don’t have to get up so early in the morning, and I clear US immigration in Dublin and avoid the lengthy queue in Denver.

The disadvantage is that my two tasty apples were confiscated by the immigration guy. And they were coxes! And coxes are so hard to come by these days. I was looking forward to eating something fresh and delicious on the plane. 

You’re not allowed to take fruit into America and I understand that, but the guy was adamant I couldn’t keep them and eat them on the plane as I do on a BA flight. This is because technically once you pass through immigration you’re on American soil, despite being in Dublin airport.

I said “Can I go back there and eat them and then come back to be screened?” And he said “No” with an unsmiling face (you know what immigration officials are like) and held up his confiscated fruit bucket for me to put them in. I could tell I wasn’t going to persuade him so there was no point in telling him what I once told a greengrocer - that eating the first cox of the season is an orgasmic experience. 

Once past the barrier I sat down and checked my phone. Isaac had texted to ask if it was going ok, and I told him about my apples. “I’ll bring you one when we come to meet you,” he said. And he did, and it was big and juicy but it wasn’t a cox. They don’t have them over here.

Well, it’s lovely to be here in the sunshine. Look at today’s temperatures:

I haven’t seen any bears yet but we had a raccoon in the garden this morning.

Photo by Cece

Photo by Cece

Time to set off on a bike ride.

Love from Boulder. 

Stop arming Israel

Yes, my exhibition was super and I talked about it in yesterday’s blog post.

This is what really matters…

When will the West stop arming Israel?

The only hope of Israel stopping its vicious obscene killing will be when western leaders stop wringing their hands, and take decisive action and withdraw all funding and all support and stop supplying arms. 

A lovely weekend

 Guess what? I met a blog reader yesterday. She came to my exhibition at home and it was so nice to meet her! I wish I could have had more time to chat than we did, but there were other people wanting to talk to me. 

I haven’t slept well these last three nights…Friday I was too excited, and Saturday and Sunday my brain wouldn’t stop whirring around visitors and paintings. It was a lovely time seeing old friends and family and hearing them have friendly conversations with people they had never met before. Dave said afterwards “I suppose this is what a party must be like, but without the dancing and the alcohol.”

He was ensconced in the kitchen serving coffee and cake, hoping to stay away from the socialising, but people sought him out. My brother said “Of course they did - he’s so interesting to talk to.”

I couldn’t have done it without Dave. He helped with getting the house ready and he hung all the paintings. He is so much better at display than I am.

I sold six paintings and I raised money for Medical Aid for Palestinians through the sale of my cards, and the house looked beautiful thanks to all the clearing and cleaning. 

I took three videos so you can get a quick shufti.

These are paintings in my studio that were not for sale 

These are paintings on the landing and stairs that were not for sale

These are the paintings that WERE for sale, hanging in the other two downstairs rooms

Getting ready

 We have a problem at Hepworth Towers neatly summarised by one of our ‘kids’ this way: “Every horizontal surface is full of stuff that Dave had made and every vertical surface is covered by Sue’s paintings.”

This means that getting ready for an exhibition doesn’t just consist of cleaning and baking, it’s also about clearing spaces, which means the bedrooms are becoming full of stuff.

But downstairs is looking lovely! Well, it will be when Dave has cleared his piles of books from the floor in the sitting room.

Dave complained this morning that I never wipe the kitchen surfaces properly and that if he died (and so would not be here to clean them properly) they would build up layers of particles of food and look like a social services horror video. He does like to exaggerate…this morning it was a few sugar crystals from the lemon curd I made yesterday.

I replied that if I died the house would look like one of those houses where people had to make corridors through piled up junk.

“No, the house would be a series of workshops - one for stained glass, one for woodwork…one for ancestry research, one for storing my tools, one for…and I’d get rid of the cooker and install a giant fridge just for yoghurt.”

Whatever.

The paintings are now hung and I have to write an information sheet and bake the cakes. The cards for sale are all laid out. All the profits from those will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

I’m getting excited. It won’t be like last time when people sat out in the garden and chatted with strangers after viewing the paintings, because it won’t be warm. But I am looking forward to it. It’s Saturday and Sunday afternoons and if you’re a regular blog reader and you’d like to come, get in touch. One blog reader from another county has already said she’s coming, which is exciting for me as I have never met her.

I still have an account on Twitter (though I intend to leave) so you could direct message me for directions. Or you could send me a message on Instagram. I don’t like putting my email address online. Do come!

Letter from home

 It’s been a mixed week, beginning with the AI-created podcast about my blog that Isaac sent. It was created by a Google product that is still in development, and Isaac knew I’d be amused to see how it worked with my blog as a subject. 

This was my first personal experience of AI and it was an education. I was amused and intrigued while also being a bit creeped out. (There’s a link in the last post so you can listen too.)

I am not a fan of this genre of podcast - an informal chat on a topic - but of course I listened avidly because the subject was me!

After listening to it just once I was amazed that it had landed on the essence of the blog when the material that it had used was my blog from July to September this year, an uncharacteristic period of the blog as a whole. There were three weeks when I hadn’t blogged, and I’d been away from home for two other weeks. 

So how had it come up with the conclusion that the essence of the blog was my focus on the small things of everyday life while being upset by the state of the world? Amazing.

But there were disappointing inaccuracies:

Dave’s letter to the Chief Rabbi was not bridge building, it was a strong challenge.

Dave was not phlegmatic about the lost coat incident. I had clearly written that he “was exuding anxiety and misery.”

I was not over-egging Dave’s or my reactions to the missing coat - they were genuine.

The mention of a tapestry about Gaza in St David’s Cathedral, when there isn’t one.

Those are the four mistakes I can remember. 

Isaac has also sent me an AI produced cast of characters from the blog, which included three people that baffled me until I realised they were three characters from Zuzu’s Petals that appeared in an excerpt I’d included. AI had not noticed they were fictional characters, though a blog reader definitely would have. 

Having mulled the whole thing over for a day or so, it made me feel uneasy. This is a product in development, but even so, the inaccuracies were disappointing. What if the Home Office decided to use AI to assess a claim for asylum that was absolutely justified but inaccurate conclusions turned the refugee down? 

There have been some blissful days of sunshine this week, which have been a gift. I managed to ride in my bike to the end of the Trail for the first time since I damaged my knee. Whooppee!

And another first was going out on my electric bike.

A video I took to show you the view:

I sat on the top of Longstone Edge with my flask of tea and felt so blessed and thankful that this is my life. How fortunate am I to live somewhere beautiful and safe?

On Thursday Liz and I went on the sightseeing bus and this is her photo of the view from the top of the Hope Valley:

On Friday I read the week’s news thoroughly and sunk into a pit of gloom. I am already horrified by Israel’s genocide in Gaza and now their rampant violence in the West Bank, their torture of Palestinian prisoners - some held without charge - and now they are killing civilians in the Lebanon. This last vicious escapade is in contravention of a law that they are signatories to that states that countries are “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

What does Israel have to do before the leaders of the western world will condemn them and withdraw all support? 

I felt so gloomy yesterday and I wondered how to get out of it. It made me think of a recent conversation I had with my younger brother about the disparity of our cushy lives with those of millions of people around the world. We decided we need to be aware of it, to do what we can, to be kind and to try to spread happiness in our immediate circles. Which reminds me of my mantra during Covid - “stay healthy, stay cheerful and try to be kind.”

The quote below is from a display I saw in St David’s Cathedral in July and is a detail the podcast did pick out:

Podcast on my blog

 Isaac sent me something really weird and interesting yesterday. This is what he said in his email:

The AI sampled my blog from July to September 2024 and came up with a podcast I listened to in amazement, because those months this year are unrepresentative of my blog as whole, and yet AI seemed to capture the essence of the blog. 

Listen to it yourselves, and see what you think. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XEOlDAOFahX1oTEaRkYNv9CuuSlqySFL/view

I will tell you what I think in my next post.

Sweet peas ready for the lunch tables at our recent refugee hospitality day

Sweet pea posies for our guests to take home

Genocide in Gaza

This morning I read about three separate incidents of people self-immolating in front of Israeli embassies or consulates, to protest about the genocide in Gaza. 

My heart aches for Palestinians in Gaza and now in the West Bank.

The link I want to share with you is to an article about an artist in Gaza.

https://mondoweiss.net/2024/09/this-gaza-artist-drew-portraits-depicting-a-lifetime-of-wars/

Peace and quiet

We live a very quiet life at Hepworth Towers, and there have been times in the past when I have been desperate for something to happen, times when I have wanted to go away somewhere, or for someone to visit, just because I’ve been aching for a change. 

Not so this year. This year has been hectic, with changed plans and unexpected occurrences, and this summer has been particularly upside down and all over the place. 

When I got back from the sibs reunion after a long and tiring journey on Thursday there followed three busy days, all involving social interaction when I needed to be on my best behaviour.

It all came out on Monday morning. I am a naturally irritable person, but on Monday I was so impatient and bad tempered that Dave told me off, and asked me what on earth the matter was. 

“I’m tired. My brain is dead. I’m sooooo tired. I wanted to stay in bed this morning and watch videos on my iPad.”

“Well, why didn’t you? You’re retired. You can stay in bed all day if you like. Why don’t you sit and read this morning?”

I agreed I wouldn’t go out on my bike, I’d stay at home and potter. I did nothing but wash out my paint pots. They are a huge collection of clear little plastic pots with lids, the kind you get olives or hummus in. When I have mixed too much of a colour I store it in a pot. The next day I might want the same colour I used the day before and there it is, in the pot. But eventually these spoonfuls of paint dry up and the pots need cleaning. It was very satisfying. And restful.

The next day my brain was still tired but I wasn’t in chewing-up mode any more, thank goodness. There was nothing in the diary and that felt wonderful. I could go for a bike ride. I could settle in to normal life at Hepworth Towers, sweep the patio, and trim the cotoneaster that overhangs it. If it’s a fine day for my exhibition at the end of the month, people will want to sit out there and eat cake. 

There’s a lot of tidying up to be done before the exhibition, but this week it doesn’t feel like work, it feels like settling in, like a cat pawing the quilt to make a nice place to sleep.

Yesterday I had a phone chat with Liz and a FaceTime with Het and I started a new painting, and Dave and I walked down the Trail to Hassop Station for lunch and my knee didn’t hurt. It was another lovely quiet day.

I am still picking sweet peas. 

Sweet peas in a jug that belonged to my mother 

Sweet peas in a mug Lux decorated for me

It’s been such a good year for them. I have wanted to keep them going until this Saturday when we have our last Refugee Hospitality Day of the year. I always pick posies for the lunch tables. It’s a lovely job. 

I’ve got all the craft materials ready, there is a large veggie lasagne in the freezer, and I just need to make a flan and a large salad, and I’m ready. We (the committee) have a large fixed menu we’ve arrived at over the years that works very well, and each volunteer brings one or two items on it. All we need now is a dry day, and the forecast for Saturday (on this Thursday morning) is good. Hospitality Days are wonderful and exhausting. After a few days of peace and quiet I feel ready for this one.

🤞

Away with the Sibs

 I’ve been staying with the Sibs at my younger sister’s lovely house near Winchester. Every time we have our annual Sibs reunion I think how pleased our parents would be to think we liked each other enough - still - to want to spend time together.

Playing Rummikub.
Photo by Jonty

But I don’t have much to say this time, so it’s going to be a picture postcard post.

The trees and the chalk streams in Hampshire are so lovely

And it’s good to be in striking distance of the New Forest and the seaside.

Here we are taking Jen for a posh lunch in Chichester to say thank you

Photo by Jonty

Left to right - me, Kath, Jonty, Jen, Pete.

I need to tell you that I am going to leave Twitter (X) so it means that those of you who find out about new blog posts via my posts there will have to find me another way. It’s easy! Just Google Sue Hepworth blog, and click on the main link and you’ll arrive.