My quiet Christmas

How was your Christmas?

Mine was split into two Christmases of very different natures. The first was Sunday 22nd when all of the local family except for Dave went to my daughter’s house for food and presents and celebrations, and 2 year old MsX twirled endlessly and adorably in the middle of the room and told the world, over and over: “I got party dress.” 

My second Christmas began on Christmas Eve with Dave promising to stay in the room for the entirety of It’s a Wonderful Life and to make no comment, such as he has made in the past. e.g. “Why does everyone like this God-awful post war American propaganda?”

He sat reading Ted Krasinsky’s manifesto while I watched the film. He was as good as his word.

On Christmas morning he gave me my stocking 

Reindeer by Dave

and I found inside the fictionalised memoir of Sophie Kinsella’s experience of having a brain tumour (I had given this to Dave two weeks before saying I’d like you to give me this for Christmas.)

I also found various well chosen stocking fillers and the big surprise ( partly because I know it was bought two days before Christmas in Bakewell) which I have since filled with snippets from the garden.

Now filled with snippets from our winter garden 

I love this present and have told him so everyday, to which he has replied, every time,  - “Well let’s go down to the shop and buy ten more! They have them in all shapes and sizes!”

Dave is very generous towards others, though not to himself, and he thinks you (i.e. others) can’t have too much of a good thing.

I think the opposite. One is perfect. Two is too many.

I stayed in bed eating Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate (found in the stocking) and reading my new book till 10.30 and then got up to cook and eat my Christmas dinner - Jamie Oliver’s easy roast chicken and all the Christmas trimmings - while Dave sat opposite and ate his yoghurt. Actually, that isn’t true. He had eaten his yoghurt earlier and just sat there to keep me company. And my daughter had given me a half bottle of champagne, which is the perfect gift because if it’s only a small bottle, you feel you can open it when you’re on your own. (Dave doesn’t drink.) I love champagne and have decided that when I am rich I shall drink nothing but champagne and margaritas. ( Fortunately I will never be rich so my Quaker principles will never be offended in this department of my life.)

In the afternoon and evening all three of our “kids” rang or FaceTimed - variously from Lake Tahoe in the Sierras, Liverpool, and Sheffield. I loved tha fact that they did.

Since then I have been painting or forcing myself out in the cold and often horrid weather to get exercise and boost my endorphins. 

The only other thing to say is that I have been a devotee of Virgin River for five seasons and have been waiting for the latest season and it is a huge disappointment. It has always been slightly cheesy but in this last series it has disintegrated into wall to wall mush and cheese with rare dramatic incidents to give it (insufficient) grit. It is poor fare. It is badly written, and the writers need telling that watching people snog is an incredibly boring cinematic experience and at least four couples were continually doing this in series 6. Witty banter is what is required of couples, or if you must, conflict: both are far more interesting to the viewer than snogging. End of critique.

So that was Christmas. 

Now I am ready for Spring.

Photo by Isaac

Hope

Dave asked me last week what Christmas meant to me. I was on the floor sweeping up pine needles at the time, and I dithered and waffled and didn’t give a satisfactory answer, except to say that one of its significant features is happy memories of family Christmases when I was little. 

But I love the Christmas story with the stable and the angels and the shepherds and the astrologers…and who doesn’t love a new baby? New babies are little miracles. To me new life means hope. I think that’s what the Christmas story means to me - hope. Hope and magic.

I came across an article written by Vaclav Havel the other day. (It was on Bluesky, the friendly person’s answer to Twitter/X.) Havel was writing about hope - something we’re in desperate need of in these dark dark times. This was the last paragraph of his piece:

“Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy when things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something to succeed. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is this hope, above all, that gives us strength to live and to continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily, without meaning, without love, and finally, without hope.”

The view from here

Happy Christmas, and lots of love, Sue.

Joy is always on time

I’d been feeling on an even keel earlier in the week - for this relief much thanks - but yesterday the top headline in the Guardian: 

Israel accused of act of genocide over restriction of Gaza water supply

knocked me off keel so that when I saw the tiny Big Issue seller freezing in the icy wind outside ALDI with no place to shelter, I was knocked over the edge. That’s how it rolls with me. I did something to help and later I wrote to my MP about Israel. Then I turned to my current painting.

Today I have recovered my equanimity so I’ll tell you about a picnic.

Some years ago, Liz and I began the habit of having a December Christmas lunch at Hassop Station, and when Covid came, we had Christmas picnics instead.

Photo by Liz

We both loved these so much that we now do it every year.

On Wednesday the allotted day arrived, but it was rainy, with gales, and Dave said to me, before he went out, “You can’t have a picnic in this weather! Go somewhere really nice for lunch - our treat.”  This was a noble offer from a person who doesn’t like food or socialising and disdains spending money on either.

I mean…these are his Christmas supplies…

When I tried to explain that an outdoor venue was an essential component, he suggested sitting in one of the tunnels on the Trail, again missing the point of sky and trees and loveliness. (And anyway the tunnels are always windier than anywhere else.)

So…Liz and I, each sitting in our cosy beds, resolved the venue by texting…

First we went to the bench of the gammy knee adventure, just for fun, but it was even windier than in August. And colder.

So then we tried the one tucked into the hillside a bit

But it was still too windy and cold.

So this is where we ended up:

Note the deely boppers

Photo by Liz

Liz sniffing the gunpowder in the cracker (she’s an addict)

We wore Christmas headgear, and had home made cheese flan, crudities, satsumas, mince pies, crackers, mulled wine and coffee, and a lot of laughs.

Plus a lovely view

And weather

We enjoyed it so much we decided we’d have a New Year one as well. Watch this space.

Quote for the day from the poet Maggie Smith:

Reasons to give up the blog

Reasons to give up the blog:

Life feels more serious than it ever has before.

The things I think about are too personal to share.

The issues I wrestle with in family circles are too confidential to write about.

I’m becoming a visual person rather than a verbal person.

The world is so dark with wars and unrest everywhere you look, and the future of the world looks bleak.

I can’t keep my reactions to the genocide in Gaza off the blog for very long and blog readers most probably don’t want to hear about it over and over.

My life is quieter and with little that is new to write about.

I am very involved with my local Quaker meeting and the issues that arise are not suitable for sharing on a personal blog.

When the blog was in its heyday - which is when I called myself a writer, not a painter - I would forever be thinking of things to write about…I’d think “ooh, that’s bloggable.” I do occasionally think that these days but then I forget whatever it was. I suppose I could keep a book of bloggable subjects, but my creative mind and energies revolve around painting now, not writing.

I can tell you about three of my five grandchildren, but there is one who wants to stay off the blog, and the little one, MsX, has parents who keep her face and her name offline: I respect that in every way.

These are all the things that are rattling around my head as I wonder whether to give up the blog.

In the meantime, while I ponder, the news here is that I have finished two paintings this autumn that I am pleased with:

Cece is doing well in karate and last week broke this piece of wood with her foot!

Tate, who is now 20, and who long time readers will remember from the blog ten plus years ago when I was still allowed to blog about him is in the university climbing team. He is OK now about being back on the blog.

And here he is with Dave last Christmas, making the temporary DIY dining table for Christmas dinner:

Thought for the day:

An oldie but a goodie

I just checked, and guess what? the piece I wrote for the Times about Christmas parties is still available on their website here if you can get behind the paywall.

For those who can't, here is the original version of the piece from 20 plus years ago - enjoy -

Party time

“The best thing about being self-employed is that I don’t have to think of an excuse for missing the office party,” said my fellow home-worker – my husband.

I, however, am in need of some fun and games. Living up a lane in the Peak District is heavenly for three seasons of the year, but when the looming mists swirl in and blank out the fabulous views, and I can’t go anywhere without wellies, and it feels as though the long dark tea-time of the soul has set in till March, I get desperate for bright lights and company.

Unfortunately the man at the computer downstairs is not a party animal: he neither goes to parties, nor understands what they are for. I remember when I decided to have one for my fortieth birthday, he asked “Why on earth would you want to celebrate getting older and moving another few steps downhill? All we’re heading for now is death.”

He couldn’t face attending the party, but was concerned about the hordes of people I would be having in the house, and wanted to make a contribution to the preparations. He did. He calculated the tonnage of the assembled revellers, worried that the sitting room floor might collapse because dancers would refuse to keep to the edges of the rooms, and he went down to the cellar, where he used chunky four by four wooden posts to prop up the floor from underneath.

Apart from that, the only other time he’s been anywhere near a party was one New Year’s Eve when he found two of our oldest friends on the doorstep, unannounced, and waving a bottle of champagne. Unhappily, I was away, but he phoned me and while he wailed about the “scandalous imposition” of their expecting him to stay up until midnight and be jolly, I jumped up and down with frustration that I couldn’t be there to join in.

He’s not what you’d call a singing-and-dancing-kind-of-guy. Think less Gene Kelly and more Fraser, the Scottish undertaker in Dad’s Army - “Doomed! We’re all doomed!”

But he does have a tender heart, and, eager to cheer me up, he has suggested we have our own office party – just me and him.

            We should have it in his study as it’s bigger than mine, he says. I am just wondering how he will press me up against the filing cabinet for a quick snog when you can’t get near it for all the wallet files spread out on the carpet for easy access, when he offers to clear the floor. He will also carry out into the hall the plastic boxes stashed with papers and reports, and he’ll even wheel his poncey, sorry, precious new bike out to the shed (to join my sturdy workhorse) where he thinks it might be all right, just for a couple of hours.

I’m not sure what he’s got to offer by way of food and drink, though. He is teetotal, and he’s never been able to grasp the concept of eating as an enjoyable activity: as far as he’s concerned, eating is for refuelling. That’s apart from yoghurt, of which he is a connoisseur. Our village shop gets in catering size cartons of Longley Farm natural, just for him. 

At Christmas when the shop is closed and he has to pre-buy in bulk, and yet I also need extra fridge space for family entertaining, he keeps his extra cartons of yoghurt cool by floating them in the water barrel in the garden.

It may be just me, but when I think of party food, yoghurt isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

 I don’t care though, because for the party he says he will wear a Santa hat and download a festive screensaver onto his computer.

He really knows how to show a girl a good time.

            I do appreciate the offer of an office party, I say, but I wonder whether it’s possible to have a party with only two people. Couldn’t we invite someone else? Unfortunately, the only other people we see during our working days are the postman, a sweetie who likes to tell us how many buzzards he’s seen on his round, and our neighbouring farmer, who calls when he is moving his heifers, to ask us to stand in our gateway to stop them from coming in and cavorting on the lawn.

But we do have a continuous stream of telephone callers. Perhaps during the party we could have the phone on loudspeaker, I suggest, and at least have some conference calls, maybe with a Christmas quiz, so it doesn’t feel so lonely? He says we can’t do that, because he’s just recorded a seasonal message on the answering machine saying “Sod off, it’s Christmas.”

He says he’s willing, but his Christmas spirit is weak. And even after detailed explanations, his grasp of partying is non-existent. So I may flip out: cabin fever does strange things to people. If you see a news report of a desperate middle aged woman in sparkly reindeer antlers streaking through a Derbyshire village shrieking “Does anyone want to party?” you’ll know who it is.

©       Times Newspapers/ Sue Hepworth 2002

By the way…I have moved from X to Bluesky, and my handle is @suehepworth.bsky.social

From now on, every time I post on the blog I will flag it up on Bluesky.

Letter from home, not Italy

I had an email from an old school friend this week who is the same age as me - 75. She had exciting news. She lives in the East Midlands like me, but from April to June next year she’s going to rent an apartment in Siena. She’ll be there on her own. Doesn’t that sound adventurous and romantic? 

When I read her email I felt really challenged…could I go and live in a foreign country on my own for three months? It felt exciting, and I like Italy, and Siena looks lovely, but living there on my own felt out of my comfort zone. Then I thought…when did I last do something outside my comfort zone? Should I be challenging myself more, not resting on my laurels?I spent the whole day with thoughts of this nature going round my head. 

The next day I had a chat with Liz about it and realised that if I really wanted to do the same thing as J, I definitely could, but actually… I wouldn’t want to. I love to see new places that are beautiful, but I always, always love to come home. 

I’m lucky to live in such a beautiful area 

with the good health to enjoy walking and cycling in it. I’m lucky to have such a lovely home. I’m lucky to still like living with Dave after 54 years. (That figure is mind blowing 🤯)

I’ve decorated the beautiful tree now:

I love my collection of daffy angels/fairies, especially the one on the top, which my sister Jen gave me.

During the decorating, I twice lost that golden heart (top pic, on the left).

Het gave me the heart when we went to see the Cezanne exhibition and I treasure it. I dropped it and it dived into the amazingly thick branches of the tree. I got out a torch and searched every layer, going up and down twice, and I still couldn’t find it. Eventually, after ten minutes, I happened to flick one of the bottom branches and it fell out. 

And yesterday I made a wreath for the front door:

I’ve been working on this painting for ten days and I’m still trying to get it right: 

I’m happy.

Letter from home

This morning I woke up to a text from the Aging Hippie in California telling me how desperate she feels about the political situation and how deeply worried she is about all our futures, and how bad she feels that she can do nothing about it. 

I know exactly how she feels - I’ve told you often enough -  but this is a rare week when I am not battling against the darkness, despite the rearmament and warmongering going on all over Europe, despite the desperation in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, and in Sudan. If political leaders spent as much time and money on peace making and negotiating as they did on weapons, we’d all be a whole lot safer. 

This week I feel OK, and so as well as responding more personally to the AH, I found myself scrolling through my screenshots of encouraging quotes and sent her a few.

Here are two for you.

The news here is that I have been dithering over whether or not to get a Christmas tree. I bought a small one with roots eight years ago and it’s been inside for Christmas every year since, growing taller in the garden in between, and having to be repotted twice because of its bulky roots. One Christmas I had to rush off to Colorado to help in a crisis, and Liz borrowed it.

This spring Dave insisted - against my wishes - on liberating it and planting it out in the back garden. So this year the question was whether to get a tree when it’s an OFF Christmas*, and when even the OFF Christmas family meal is happening somewhere else and not here. Then there was the question of whether or not to get a tree with roots, if we did buy one.

I was still dithering, when yesterday we went to the large local farm and country store to get some mouse poison. Poison is not our preferred deterrent, but the mouse in question is under the sitting room floor and is not only managing to take the bait from the humane mousetraps but also eating our insulation. 

In the yard of the shop they had some beautiful Christmas trees, some with roots and some without, and I fell for a tall one without. Dave hates all things Christmassy as you know but he knows how I feel about Christmas trees. 

Reader, we brought it home.

Dave erected it and stood back as I was taking this photo and said “It will go straight out that window afterwards! I shan’t be carrying it out like we usually do,” and I said “Don’t say it out loud, you’ll hurt it’s feelings.”

I shall decorate it tomorrow. Dave is out today, so I am free to do whatever I want all day without having to announce it first or say how long it will take or when I will be back. An empty quiet day at home is bliss, and the sky is clear and bright. I’m happy.

*in case you are new to the blog, you may not know what an OFF Christmas refers to. This will explain 

http://www.suehepworth.com/2013/12/this-year-its-off-christmas.html

Grandmothers

I was sitting in bed yesterday morning writing a long newsy email to some old friends of ours, when the family member who declines to be named rang up. It was 7.10. He said MsX was ill and both he and the lovely Jaine had important meetings at work they could not easily miss, and could I go over and look after MsX. 

I said yes, and got out of bed and etc and set off. It takes half an hour to drive to their house. MsX was most unwell. No temperature, but very waxy and completely lacking in energy and her usual vivaciousness. I took over from her dad and he went upstairs to his home office. 

An hour later my poor little granddaughter was violently sick all over me and herself and the sofa. I felt so sorry for her. We cleaned her up and I found clean clothes for her, and I changed into some of her dad’s joggers while my jeans were in the wash.

But the point of this story is that in her clothes drawer I found a cardigan that could only have been knitted by my mother. The style was so distinctive. It must have been made for MsX’s 20 year old cousin and passed along. I put it on her.

My mother died 16 years ago and I loved the connection between my mother and this great granddaughter she had never met. And I also loved being reminded of my wonderful mother.

Later, after MsX had vomited violently for a second time,  I was cuddling her and rocking her to soothe and comfort her and found myself instinctively singing My Bonny lies over the ocean, and then Clementine. These were songs my gran used to sing to me at bedtime when I was little. 

How I love these threads that stretch back through the generations, and that anchor me to my roots.

And here’s a poem by Norah Hanson called Grafters, which I have permission to share with you. It’s from her collection Sparks and is published by Valley Press.

In love with Van Gogh

I just had a 36 hour whirlwind trip to the smoke to grab some culture.

Because of the dire weather warnings and the sheet ice across the width of our lane, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, or even to get home again afterwards, but Dave is the man for extreme weather and he drove me to the train in Chesterfield.

I stayed with Het, my lovely friend and partner in crime. This is the official selfie for the trip.

I wanted to see the National Gallery exhibition of Van Gogh paintings called Poets and Lovers. I decided in September that I wanted to see it, and it has since had five star reviews from all the leading papers. And no wonder it has. It was so uplifting. It was stupendous. And I have come back with great memories and lots of inspiration for my paintings. It’s the most memorable exhibition I’ve seen since I saw the Hockney A Bigger Picture in 2012. (Which incidentally gets a mention in my book Plotting for Grown-ups.)

We also went to see the Monet in London exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, another sell out. I booked those tickets for us, and Het was in charge of the Van Gogh booking at the National Gallery. After a hairy glitch - when we thought we’d be missing it - Het managed to snag slots for us at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. Thank goodness for the glitch! We were the first in the queue when the gallery opened, alongside a couple who had flown in from Canada just to see the exhibition! When they told us that, I thought ‘that’s a bit extreme’ but in retrospect…I’m sure it was worth the trip.

Being there first thing in the morning - an hour earlier that the gallery usually opens - meant it was possible to see all the paintings up close with no crowds. When I’ve been to other major exhibitions there have been so many people milling around it has not been ideal. On Saturday it felt like a private viewing. And there were so many paintings I had never come across before. They’d been flown in from all over the world, a handful even from private collections. Rock on the curators who organised the exhibition. I really was blown away by the paintings. My favourites were of the gardens and this one of the olive trees, 

But I was also taken with The Peasant:

There was interesting quote displayed from Van Gogh’s letters which relates to this (as well as to other paintings.)

The last time I saw Van Gogh it was an immersive experience in Denver, which I did not enjoy at all. I love Van Gogh’s painting, I love his paintings - the colour, the vibrancy, the emotion! I’m still aglow with the experience a day later. I’ll remember it for a long time, and it is going to influence my work.

Letter from home

Yesterday I did it.

I sat down and wrote to my new MP (Labour in our constituency for the first time since 1832 - which has a spuriously accurate ring to it, so I hope I have remembered it correctly.) 

I wrote to protest at the U.K. government’s tolerance of the atrocities of Israel.

I wrote to our old Tory MP many times, by email. Yesterday I wrote in longhand and covered two sides of A4, and paid for a first class stamp. 

I didn’t plan what I was going to write, I just wrote from the heart, and it was very cathartic. It was terrifically cathartic. I recommend it.

Today we have woken up to snow. This is the view from my studio window.

The roads around here are icy and dangerous so I have cancelled my lunch with Chrissie. I hope we’ll have a FaceTime instead.

I went to MsX’s birthday party on Sunday. She was two. Our other grandchildren are 12, 14, 18 and 20 so it’s a big treat to have a little one in the family again.

It was a family party, and she was the only child. Everyone had taken her presents, but for the first two hours all she was interested in was playing with the helium balloons, and then later, spinning round and round until she was so dizzy she fell over, laughing. She’s a sensation seeker, that girl. 

Our two grandsons are now amazing adults, and Cece and Lux will be adults soon and I expect ( although of course I can’t know) I’ll still be here to see how they turn out. 

This is them in 2018:

This is them now:

By the time MsX is an adult I’ll be over 90, and that fact is really and truly the only thing that makes me want to be still around at that age. I’ve had a good life, and 90 years of it will be enough. 

Tired

Here I am, slumped back on the pillows in bed, fully dressed, exhausted.

It is 3.44 pm on Friday afternoon and I am done in. 

I slept well last night and all I have done today so far is:

Talk on the phone to Liz about one of my paintings, do 15 minutes of yoga for the bad back* I got from gardening yesterday, reply to various easy emails, make enough leek and potato soup to feed 10 people tomorrow at an event at Quaker Meeting, (I am sharing the catering), work on a painting while listening to dramatised Rumpole stories on Audible, have an overdue catch up with my sister Jen on the phone, eat lunch (some of the soup) and remember that leeks no longer agree with me, paint some more and feel so tired I go to bed and watch an episode of Gilmore Girls on my iPad, and then do half an hour’s gardening. 

I am soooo tired, too tired to read, and anyway the book on the bedside table is one I am not enjoying, despite the fact that the writing is wonderful.

I sit here and remember that another week has gone by and I have not written to my MP about the genocide. He is a new MP and Dave has not yet managed to get a response from him, though Dave has written to him half a dozen times. And yet it was on my to do list. I know it will not make a blind bit of difference because if Starmer has done nothing thus far he will certainly not be speaking out now.  But what else is there to do?

When I am in or on the bed and all else fails,  I pick up a poetry book. The one on the bedside table today is Being Human, which is a wonderful anthology in the same series as Staying Alive and Being Alive. I open it at random and this is what I find:

* I discovered a wonderful yoga teacher online who does 15 minutes of easy yoga exercises that never fail to cure my lower back pain I get from gardening. It’s like magic. 

Here is a link 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeXz8fIZDCE

Here we are

 Well, I’ve read more than enough articles now on why Trump won and Harris lost. The most convincing explanation to me is that Americans felt richer when Trump was last in power. That was because of all the government’s social and economic programmes laid on because of Covid. People felt better off, more secure, and inflation was low. After lockdown, Biden was unable to continue those programmes, though he tried, and now people feel insecure, poor and they’re coping with high inflation. 

And yet, and yet, how could they vote for someone with so many unpleasant characteristics, someone who threatens democracy as well as the future of the world?

I’ve realised that just like the issue of the current genocide in Gaza…there are two distressing aspects of Trump’s victory - the very fact of it, and the fact that millions and millions of Americans are willing to vote for such a person. 

With the tragedy in Gaza, there’s the fact of it, and then there’s the fact that the world’s leaders are watching it and letting it happen.

But I am not going to read any more about America for a while, and I can currently not bear to go beyond the headlines on Gaza.

“To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.” (Jack Gilbert from his poem Brief for the Defence.)

So…

Real life at Hepworth Towers has been good. I have not minded the lack of sunshine because it has been perfect cycling and gardening weather: dry, mild and there’s so far been no frost, which means that there are still some nasturtiums in flower. Yay!

This is one that’s self seeded on the front patio: I love self seeded flowers in awkward places. Perhaps it’s a metaphor: beauty which challenges the orthodoxy. How’s about that for a bit of philosophising on a Monday morning? ( I’m also loving that I used three colons in the last two paragraphs - I love colons and semi colons, and you don’t see a whole lot outside academia.)

The other happy thing is that my daylight lamp has extended my painting time enormously. This means I don’t have to choose between outdoor activities and painting. I can do both. I can start painting at 3 pm for example, when the light is beginning to fade. I no longer dread the dark days of winter. Here is my first painting of the autumn:

I realise it’s Remembrance Day today. We - at Bakewell Quaker Meeting - had our peace vigil last week. Every year the country remembers the soldiers who died in past wars, and every year the country sells billions of pounds worth of arms so more wars can happen. And here at home we waste billions on nuclear weapons, when so many children don’t have enough to eat. 

Our banner last week read:

Darkness

 And today, November 6th 2024, the world became even darker.

Genocide then and now

 When you arrive at Denver airport you walk over a long curved bridge to reach immigration. There is haunting music playing and all along the walls are large portraits of Native American chiefs. The first time I encountered this display I was very moved, though I’ve been there so many times now that the effect has diminished.

Denver International Airport
(Copyright: the above )

A friend of mine has just come back from a work trip to Colorado and he said in an email:

"One of the things I've been perhaps oversensitive to around Denver (and elsewhere in US), is e.g. the pictures of Chiefs on the arrivals wall, and the number of places that say some variant of 'This place used to belong to the indiginous population, but we massacred them and drove them out' (Rocky Mountain National Park leaflet says this, as well as the Univ Colorado lab in Boulder I visited.) I find that all a bit disturbingly close to what's going on in Palestine now, and doesn't bode well for the acceptable end to it."

And still our Prime Minister and so many other western leaders refuse to recognise and condemn the brutal war crimes and genocidal offensives of Israel, or take any actions to stop them. 

It’s no wonder that some poor anguished souls, broken by compassion, feel so powerless in the face of such wilful complicity that they end up setting themselves alight in front of embassy buildings.

Communication

  “For someone who’s just come back from an event on Non-Violent Communication, you’re being remarkably argumentative this morning” Dave said on Monday.

“Really? Am I?” I said.

I was at a foundation course on NVC last weekend which was stimulating, interesting and personally very helpful. I think of it as Empathetic Conversation, but the founders of Non Violent Communication call it the latter because they see it as having uses and ramifications way beyond personal one-to-one conversations. It could be used in all kinds of situations involving conflict and negotiations. 

The other course members were warm, sympathetic and so, so nice. During one of the exercises I was telling the group about why I don’t like aging. The three things I came up with were becoming more anxious, especially about travel, not having enough energy to do all the things I want to do in a day, and losing words - by which I mean being in the middle of a sentence in a conversation and not being able to think of the word I want to use. 

This is absolutely not restricted to losing names, although that did happen very annoyingly yesterday when I was talking to my brother about Margaret Drabble’s rift with her sister and I couldn’t remember the name of her famous sister. (A.S.Byatt)

In a conversation at the weekend with other course members who I didn’t know I used the word insouciant, knowing full well what it meant, but then someone asked me to define it and I was lost for words. It’s this kind of thing that is both disconcerting and worrying.

It reminds me of a scene in a TV drama where a detective is talking to a woman with dementia and she says “I like your - what is that?” pointing to his jacket. She can’t remember the name for it. This is happening to me, but not with something concrete I can actually see - so far.

People still say to me “Aren’t you writing any more?” 

To which I reply “No, I’m a painter now.”

I’m not writing any more because I have said everything I want to say. At the moment, the things that preoccupy me are the continuing genocide in Gaza, and the American election, which are not unrelated. But otherwise I don’t have much to say except that I am pleased to be home for the winter, especially once I’ve put the garden to bed, because now I have my daylight lamp I can paint until teatime every day. 

But if you don’t hear from me very often it’s because I’m following this maxim of Charles Bukowski in his poem So You Want To Be A Writer. Here is the first stanza:

But I can share pictures with you.

Here’s a photo of the Trail from my bike ride yesterday:

And here is a photo of my visible creative mend of a hole in my favourite jeans: