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.

Nora Ephron rocks

 I’ve watched four Nora Ephron films in the last two weeks. Four! Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, and Julie and Julia. My favourite is Sleepless. 

They’ve reminded me how much I like Ephron’s writing…but I would love anyone who comes up with a line of dialogue like this: 

“Verbal ability is a highly overrated thing in a guy and it’s our pathetic need for it that gets us into so much trouble”

Or this:

“Thank God my life is in place”  (when it wasn’t)

Or this:

“I’ll have what she’s having”  (the faked orgasm in Katz’s Deli)

Anyway, it prompted me to get out my four Ephron books that I have on the shelf, and discovered I have six books, because I have two copies of I feel bad about my neck, and two copies of Heartburn. How did that happen? I think it’s because of gifts from friends.

My favourite piece in the first of those books is Considering the alternative, in which she writes about aging. This is an excerpt:

So then I looked at The O Word in her collection called I remember nothing, where again, she talks about aging. Another excerpt:

On the next page she says “And every time one of my friends says to me, ‘Everything happens for a reason’ I would like to smack her.”

I loath that phrase too.

I feel similarly about the saying ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s learning to dance in the rain.’

The upshot of all this is that I now have four books I am carrying around - two Ephron collections, The Gifts of Winter, (see last post) and a Kate Atkinson novel. I have become like Dave, who also carries around piles of books, or rather, who leaves them on the floor for months…

There are another three piles out of shot 

…despite the fact we have numerous floor to ceiling bookshelves housing many books that will never be read so could be got rid of to make room for the piles. This is because when we lost all our things in the fire, friends offered us books they didn’t want, and Dave was unable/unwilling to say no, even if the books were definitely not something he might have sought out in a bookshop. He has not read them, and will not read them, and yet he will not get rid of them, which probably stems from his residual upset over our losses.

I have just added to our library another Bloodaxe poetry anthology - Staying Human - and discovered a poem by Craig Arnold called Meditation on a Grapefruit, that ends with this couplet, which I really, really like:

each year harder to live within

each year harder to live without

The poem is all about savouring those small, special - sometimes sensual - moments, which you have time to do when you’re older. (Full disclosure…I loved the poem but didn’t get the connection with peeling a grapefruit after first reading, so my dear, more intelligent friend Het explained it.)

When Nora Ephron was in her seventies, her perfect day consisted of a frozen custard at Shake Shack and a walk in the park. My perfect day would have to include a bacon sandwich, a sunny walk or bike ride, and a chat with a good friend.

I like Ephron’s honest take on what aging is really like. There’s some of that in Grace and Frankie, which is one reason I like it so much. 

Enough of this, it’s time to tackle Connections on the New York Times puzzle page. Another small pleasure.

What I am reading

 I read more in the winter, and having finished ‘Any Human Heart’ and voted it the best book I read last year, I started on Elif Shafak’s ‘10 Minutes 38 seconds in this strange world,’ and was enjoying it.

Then I got to page 66 where the uncle gets into bed with the six year old girl and I stopped. Images of my granddaughter MsX flashed into my mind, not the girl in the story, and I didn’t want to read further. You are entitled to call me a wimp but I read for enjoyment, and I didn’t want to continue for fear of what might come next. What I had read was upsetting enough.

So I started reading a book my daughter lent me. She said it was so helpful, she was going to read it every October. It’s called ‘The Gifts of Winter,’ by Dr Stephanie Fitzgerald, a neuroscientist who used to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Now she deals with it. But that problem is dealt with in chapter one. The book is so much more.

Here is what it says on the back…

I have hated winter since we moved to the country 30 years ago, because of the lack of colour - literal and social. Also because bad weather can interfere with transport and thus my social life. I’m half way through the book and enjoying it. I am also sitting here with the daylight lamp on the bedside table.

For entertainment purposes I am reading a Kate Atkinson novel called ‘One Good Turn.’ So far so good. What are you reading?

Almost forgot…I read this last night for a bit of encouragement:

The end of a bad old year

Liz and I had our New Year picnic on Stanton Moor today. After days of drab grey weather, the sun shone, and we managed to keep warm despite the bitter cold: we both wore long johns.

Official picnic selfie

Photo by Liz

We had crackers, mince pies, Christmas cake and satsumas after Liz’s delicious savoury flapjack, but the wind blew away my paper hat. 

It was a lovely end to a tricky year. For the first six months I struggled with despair over the genocide, and also had to deal with several minor health problems which brought me low, but which I now seem to have sorted out. 

The suffering in Gaza continues with over 400 people being killed by the IDF since the so-called ceasefire, and by awful rain and gales washing out tents. Now the Israelis are raining down another punishment - the ban on 37 aid organisations working in Gaza and the West Bank.

These are they:

You will see that The UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians is in the list as well as MSF and the Quaker organisation American Friends Service Committee.

Here are statistics about the genocide from the last two years, taken from Al Jazeera.

I reckoned in an earlier post that 75% of my blog posts this year have been about Gaza or have mentioned Gaza, and yet this blog was never intended to be political. I had decided that if I continued with the blog I would try not to mention politics, and yet here I am, talking about Gaza again. 

You can take it as read, that in future, if I manage to stay away from politics, I will still be caring about Palestinians, still be supporting them in any way I can, and I will still be in support of political parties who work for social justice, peace, equality, tolerance, disarmament, the support of refugees, and solutions to climate change. (For the record, I do not consider Starmer’s Labour Party to be such a party.)

Enough!

I am sitting here,

 by a warm stove, in a safe house, with company, and enough to eat. I’m lucky. I hope you are too.

I wish us all a year ahead of hope, peace of mind, and a better world where leaders will act sanely and justly for the good of ordinary people. And where we also play our part.

Here’s a poem by Mary Walker:

Uninspired

 For some reason, I am finding it impossible to paint. There is nothing that inspires me. I have been looking at photos and all kinds of images for the last three weeks and going on walks in the drab winter countryside and there is NOTHING I want to paint. I have been looking around the house for found (real life) still lifes and found zilch.

An artist friend told me not to worry about it and to do something else. One day soon an idea will grab me out of nowhere, by surprise. So I have been playing my sax, and going for walks, and catching up with the my to do list. 

I usually love this in between time that stretches from Christmas Day to New Year, but this year not so much. Sunshine would help but there is none.

I’ve been reading poetry, always a comfort, and I came across this one by Grace Paley, which taps into how I used to feel when I was writing and being rejected. 

I am not sure if this is in any way related to not being inspired, but I’m thinking about it.

Post mortem

 Well, if you’re 76 and you have only four hours sleep on Christmas Eve (for no reason whatsoever) you are not best set up to cook numerous dishes for the assembled (carnivorous and vegetarian) family who are coming to Christmas lunch. 

I was stressed. I was especially stressed because I only cook a roast once a year and I knew that Jamie Oliver was helpful last Christmas but I had a conventional oven then, and now I have a fan oven and J.O. does not say what his temperatures refer to, and I obviously chose the wrong option.

Despite all of this, we sat down at the predicted time, said our thanks, pulled our crackers, and tucked in. And everyone was appreciative and thankful, but then, they were all brought up well. (😊).

My daughter was a marvellous helpmeet and organiser, and Dave, as always, did all the washing up. He doesn’t eat with us. He lurks elsewhere and comes out when needed, and has long talks with our grandsons (now young men) who seek him out in the kitchen while he’s clearing away.

It was wonderful to have them all together - my daughter and family, and the family member who declines to be named, and his family. I am not allowed show you their photos, so here is our tree.

And here is Dave, explaining quantum entanglement to me at 5.45 a.m. after I had given up all hopes of sleep.

I slumped on the sofa after lunch while presents were opened, but managed to play a couple of games of subjective Guess Who later, and a couple of rounds of a game called Accentuate, which is hilarious.

I slept for ten hours that night and on Boxing Day I painted. I have been dismayed by the lack of colour in so many of this year’s Christmas cards, so decided to paint my own to have printed for next year. I love the angels on my tree and used them as models. Dave taught me how to do gilding and here it is:

I hope you’re having a lovely seasonal holiday. It’s quiet here. Very nice, but quiet. Maybe now I have caught up on my sleep I could do Christmas Day again?