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. 

Dave’s letter to the Chief Rabbi

Dear Rabbi Mirvis

 

I carefully read your statement on the UK government’s withdrawal of some 30 arms licences for export to Israel.

 

Like you, I wish wholeheartedly for the safe return of all the hostages. I wonder, though, whether Mr Netanyahu’s government has that aim high on its list of priorities. His approach seems completely other than that, and a large section of the Israeli population appear to agree that a different approach is needed. The kind of unrestrained carnage visible to us all in Gaza and the West Bank was never likely to bring home the hostages, or to ensure their safety.

 

Unlike you, I do not accept that the current war resulted from the atrocity of last October. It began in the long years of occupation, illegal settlements, and the systematic mistreatment of the Palestinians. 

 

Unlike you, I do not believe that the cruelty of this conflict is one-sided. The intolerable number of deaths in Gaza, the wholesale destruction of housing and infrastructure, and the repeated displacement of the population are all evidence of savagery. How else could they be described ?

 

Surely ‘an eye for an eye’ is more of a limiting statute than a permission for unrestrained vengeance. Israel clearly sees it as the latter, and, sadly, has the military resources to enable the unspeakable scenes appearing daily on our screens.

 

The UK has been morally complicit in this by supporting Israel, and the withdrawal of arms licences comes way too late and is too limited. It is the support of the West that allows Israel to act with impunity and without humanity.

 

I, too, look forward to a peaceful future, a wholly peaceful future in which all people are treated equally and fairly, and all may bring up their families in safety and prosperity. Perhaps in this future we can all put more effort into making common friends rather than the deracination of ‘common enemies’, who share our humanity and bleed and grieve as we do.

 

A civilised world – yes, I hope for that, too – cannot accept that violence is ever an answer. It is merely a determined failure to ask the right questions. 

 

Dave Hepworth

A grand day out?

It might not have happened if Dave did not have the compulsion to get to a bus stop a quarter of an hour before the bus is due. And it might not have happened if there had been a decent seat in the bus shelter so I could sit down.

It might not have happened if I was not forgetful.

Let me explain.

We decided we would go on one last trip this summer on the open top double decker sightseeing bus, which drives through the beautiful Peak District and has stunning views. I’ve written about it on here before.

We drove to the next village and parked the car on the green and waited at the bus stop. I didn’t want to stand for quarter of an hour on my gammy knee so I tried to sit down on those two ridiculous bars in the bus stop. 

But it was so uncomfortable that Dave kindly offered to lend me his coat to make a cushion. This really helped. A quarter of an hour later, the bus arrived and I jumped up excitedly and we got on, paid, and climbed upstairs. The bus started. After about a mile, Dave started to get chilly and asked me if I had his coat. No! I’d left it at the bus stop.

It was a good quality secondhand coat, but you wouldn’t describe it as posh. The bus trip was two hours long. Would it still be there when we returned?  Could we happily sit and enjoy a trip for two hours while Dave was worrying? I personally didn’t think anyone would steal the coat. No one would stop a car to get it, and buses and pedestrians are rare.

I knew that Dave wouldn’t want to buy himself a new one to replace it because he hates spending money on himself. He will do anything to avoid it. We once forgot to take his coat on a holiday and he wore a black bin liner when it rained. If this coat was lost he would insist on going without. The prospect of his being cold for two hours on the bus was miserable enough, but the thought if his insisting going through the winter without the coat he wears all the time was horrendous. And it was my fault. 

I said “We’re going to have to get off and hitchhike back.” (The normal buses here are every two hours, and the sightseeing ones every hour, so expecting to catch a bus back to where we’d left the coat was a no hoper.) 

Dave said nothing: he just sat there exuding anxiety and misery.

“I could ring Angela,” I said. I knew Angela (our neighbour) would be willing to drive and rescue the coat and the situation, but Dave said no, we needed to clear up our own mess. We were 2 miles down the road now and I renewed my arguments about getting off and hitchhiking.

“Come on,” I said “ring the bell and get off.” The man behind us had heard our discussion and intervened.

He said “We’ve got the bell here on our seat - shall I ring it?”

Dave was feeling in his pockets. He turned to me. “The car keys are in my coat pocket” he said with a look of horror. “Someone will feel in the pockets and find the keys and hold them up and blip them and see which car they belong to.”

We were 3 miles away from the bus stop now. 

“Come on! Get off!” I said.

He finally gave in.

The bus driver looked surprised when we went downstairs and got off the bus. Most people stay on for the whole trip. They don’t alight after ten minutes.

We found a spot on the verge and I stuck out my thumb. Several cars passed.

The last time we hitchhiked together was 55 years ago. Would someone stop and give us a lift? 

More cars drove past. Surely someone would stop for a couple of fogeys who were respectably dressed…

“I’m going to ring Angela,” I said. Dave didn’t argue.

Trying to explain our situation over the phone in a hurry was not easy. At last Angela understood, and said of course she would help. She would find the coat and then come and find us. Just as I rang off, a passing car slowed down.

Hooray! Dave ran down and explained. The lovely driver didn’t understand, but said we could have a lift. But then I realised that Angela might be driving up to find us and we wouldn’t be there, so Dave took the lift and I stayed where I was and worried. What was the worst that could happen? The coat and the car would be gone. No… the worst thing would be Dave seeing the coat and rushing across the road to get it and being knocked down. I drank a mug of coffee from my flask but I didn’t enjoy it.

Twenty minutes later Dave turned up in the car - with the coat and the keys, natch. I jumped in and we talked about whether we should catch the next sightseeing bus. I was so jangled I would have been happy to just go home and have a stiff drink. 

But now Dave had the coat and the car his anxiety had evaporated and he wanted to rescue the day. Also he wanted to get his moneysworth out of his all-day hop-off hop-on ticket. So we drove back and parked near the bus stop again and waited for the bus, which arrived five minutes later.

We had a nice trip, but I couldn’t relax until we had passed the place where we got off the last time. 

I hope increasing senility and forgetfulness doesn’t lead to more such adventures. Though I have to say it was quite fun sticking my thumb out to see who would stop.

Decisions

I have decided to have an exhibition at home at the end of September. I’m inviting friends and family and if long time blog readers are in the area they are very welcome too. Contact me if you’d like to come.

I am currently trying to decide what to include. Obviously I’ll show all the paintings I showed on the blog in June - here. But I’ve been looking at all the paintings I’ve shared on Instagram and some of the ones I didn’t rate and have not had framed are well liked. Should I be including those as well?

Here are two examples…

August garden with blue fence

September

And then there is this one that I am very fond of but which was not well-liked on Instagram:

And this is the one I have almost finished that is well painted but which I don't much like:

I’m glad it’s done because I can now embark on something more exciting.

Meanwhile, Israel continues to kill and maim Palestinians - children, women and men - and the world lets them get on with it. 

I despair. 

Letter from home

My knee is healing in leaps and bounds (haha) but I still can’t walk safely on uneven ground, so Liz offered to take me somewhere in the car to sit on a bench and enjoy the view.

The fact that it was a morning with 40 mph winds might have put some people off but not us. I told her the only other person I could imagine sitting up there with me in that wind was my big sister Kath. Note the wind-whipped hair and the blanket wrapped around my legs for warmth.

Photo by Liz

Liz

Above Bamford

It was even tricky eating our sandwiches and drinking our coffee. I put my mug down for a second and the wind made it slide dangerously across the bench. The coffee itself looked like a stormy sea.

It was funny. And fun! But I felt like my gran when a young woman jogged up the steep hill wearing only a vest and shorts. “Don’t let her see the blanket!” I shouted to Liz.

I’ve been cycling on the Trail every morning it hasn’t rained this week, and getting further along it every time. It makes me so happy to be mobile again. My brother asked if I’d used the electric bike, but I never ride on the Trail on my electric bike. It would be infra dig. I told him I didn’t want people to think I need assistance on such a tiny gradient. Pete was amazed and amused. “Do you really care what other people think? You have a bad knee!”

“Yes, but I can’t wear a sign on my back saying that, can I?”

Yes, I’m hopelessly proud. I give you permission to mock. 

I’ve also been working on a painting which will be OK when it’s finished but I am currently rather bored with it, partly because of the subject and partly because I’ve had an idea for a much more exciting one that I want to start. Look at the sunlight lighting up these nasturtiums! Don’t they look beautiful? Look at the shadows, and the reflections…

Also I’ve been reading a fascinating collection of women’s writing from the second world war (which predictive text wants to give capitals to but I’m thinking - rebelliously - as a pacifist, that I will not yield.) The book is called Hearts Undefeated and is edited by Jenny Hartley.

When Chrissie first heard about my knee she came to visit to cheer me up, and very kindly brought a bag of books and a jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately, Chrissie is one of those people who can’t bear to bend the spine on a book and barely opens it and is happy to peer in to read it, whereas I treat books as servants and bend them to my wishes. It is a measure of how good the book is that while treating it as Chrissie would, I have nearly finished it.

I am now reading a secondhand one I bought for myself, and oh how liberating it feels.

That’s been my week.

Patience is a virtue

 I hurt my knee nearly three weeks ago. I think I did it in a yoga session. I hadn’t done yoga for several years. I only knew I’d hurt it when I woke up the next day to find it swollen, painful and unsteady. I hoped if I put ice on it and had it elevated occasionally it would return to normal, but it didn’t. 

So a week later I saw a doctor and she diagnosed what I’d suspected: a pulled ligament. And then she said it could take up to twelve weeks to heal. I imagined no cycling, no walking, no gardening for twelve weeks. It was such an awful thought in the second half of an iffy summer that I chose to believe it would take only three. I had the same injury 30 years ago and it was fine after a  fortnight - I’m sure it was.

For the first week after seeing the doctor I was strict. I cancelled the exhibition I was going to have at home, and I sat around in the house or the garden with my leg up. I was fed up. Really fed up. I felt as though I was wasting my life just sitting around.

From Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day

I couldn’t paint with my leg up. I could read and knit and watch telly, and do some sketching, and friends came to see me - which was lovely - but I was fed up. No exercise! How was I going to get my endorphins? And this was the summer that I’d waited so long for!

My knee is much more stable now, and I can do half an hour’s gentle gardening at a time. I can cycle on the flat for half an hour with no ill effects. I am pacing myself and trying to be patient and being sensible and it’s hard: I am not a patient person. 

But I am thankful for so much - Dave, my family, my friends, where I live. 

I’m sitting in bed writing this but the Trail beckons…it is a few minutes away and it has such a small gradient that I call it flat. I’m going to get up and go just for half an hour. Wish me patience and common sense, dear friends. I am not known for either.

An early self portrait.

Hello, friends!

  “She stood there on the doorstep for a moment, breathing in the cool morning air. It had rained heavily in the night and there was a breeze ruffling the trees. The August vegetation that had looked tired and dusty the day before was fresh and lush again, but something undefinable had clicked, shifted, and they were on their way to autumn.”             From EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW YOU by Sue Hepworth

I’m back!

And sadly, so is the autumn. But hey, the sweet peas are still flowering 

and so is the exuberant patch of wild flowers we sowed in the garden that I cleared for Dave’s sunflowers.

I hadn’t planned the date I would come back to the blog, but I was looking through my photos yesterday and came across a screenshot of a quote that spoke to me, and I realised that when I’m engaged with blogging I come across all kinds of snippets to include, ideas that are helpful to me. So perhaps this is a selfish return.

Whatever, here is the quote…

And this excerpt from Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather also spoke to me:

Summer break

Dear friends,

I am taking a few weeks break from the blog, but I will be back…probably in the second half of August.

In the meantime I wanted to tell you that I was mentioning badminton in an email today and couldn’t remember the word for shuttlecock. Imagine. I had to Google it. That’s what my brain is like these days.

Secondly, and randomly, I don’t know if you’re Call the Midwife fans, but I am devoted to it. I have a quibble, though. I want to know why Matthew insisted on carrying on with business when he was no good at it. When Trixie met him he was a barrister. Why on earth did he not go back to working at that? Actually I don’t like him much. He was impossibly high handed in that last episode of the last series (series 13). Comments welcome.

Wishing you lovely weather,

Love Sue

All new

I have never been to Pembrokeshire before and I’m loving it. 

Yesterday’s weather was drizzly and dull so we went to St Davids, which is a city, on account of St David’s cathedral, 

but St David’s is a settlement smaller than Bakewell. There is only one supermarket, for example, and they’ve been campaigning to stop the surgery being closed down. Perhaps the new government will keep it open: they are promising more GPs, after  all.

We looked round the cathedral and I was taken with this quote from St David:

Also with the needlework on this tapestry:

…look at the beautiful crows!

And this panel in another part of the cathedral:

Which brought me back to thoughts of Gaza.

And in another part of the cathedral I learned about the Armenian genocide in 1915, which I had known nothing about. Why are there STILL genocides?

I saw this tweet last night:

We must not let the world turn its eyes away from what’s happening in Gaza.

Sunshine

 This is the official selfie for this year’s holiday with Liz.

Photo by Liz

We’ve had two beach days with hot sunshine now. Yesterday I managed to get up to my waist, and today it was total immersion in the cold, cold Atlantic. I feel very pleased with myself. I have nothing left to prove now. Can you spot me?

Photo by Liz

I managed to squirm into my tight cossie under a towel on the beach without embarrassment, and then noticed my pants hadn’t come off with my jeans, so I had to do it all over again, while not letting my falsie fall out and get coated in sand. All part of the holiday fun when the sun is warm and the sea and sky are a deep deep blue. We’ve been so lucky with the weather. Rain is expected tomorrow so we’re going to St Davids.

The wild flowers and grasses here are sublime but I find it difficult to take a good photo. 

Liz is better at it.

Photo by Liz

Picture postcards from Pembrokeshire

We are staying in a lovely little cottage very near Porthgain. I’ve never been to Pembrokeshire but Liz has been coming for 50 years so she is showing me all her favourite places. It’s beautiful. 

The journey was a long one and made longer by three significant diversions caused by roadworks or accidents. Once the satnav took us on a vicious circle down a single track road.

Liz said “We may be lost but we’re making good time.”*

But we got here. Liz is an excellent and patient driver. 

On our first day we had beautiful blue skies - which have been so rare this year - and a strong cold wind.

Here are some pictures:no writing today.

Walk to the harbour
Photo by Liz

Look at that lush vegetation!
Photo by Liz

Porthgain beach

On the coastal path

Coastal path
Photo by Liz

Coastal path
Photo by Liz

Liz’s first paddle 

Caerfai Bay

Colours on the beach

Colours at the harbour

* borrowed from her brother in law.