Not giving up

Last year I painted a series of water colours for chrimbly gifts. Both our sons and their girls have a pair of cats each. So I thought it would be fun to match their cats with a favourite flower or plant and I was rather pleased with the results.

I had issues finding four frames that suited not just the art work, but the owners and their décor however eventually I managed it.

Whilst the gifts were being unwrapped, in the corner of my eye I caught Himself's face and suddenly realised he would have been more than happy to have one of his grumpy cat too and dearly wished I had thought of that before. So I planned that as soon as I could I would paint one just for him.

Then, in February took early retirement and found that I could hardly hold a paintbrush and when I did, the results were not what I was aiming for. So I put away my paints and literally closed the door to my art desk. Fast forward to October and I tried again.....

All my doubts about my work vanished with his delight, I am very aware that I can not paint with the preciseness I used to be able to do, I can not grip a brush with pin point hair by hair painting any more - so I was, to be perfectly honest, disappointed with my efforts. But it appears he certainly wasn't 💗 .

Might not be able to do the teeny tiny paintings that I love doing but will pick up my paint brush a little bit more and get more at ease at the looser style.

Thought provoking

 It was rather dark first thing this morning when I stumbled out of the kitchen door down to the garden for Willow. She scampers off without a care while I need a torch and mutter evil things about my  overgrown garden.

Now, after breakfast and a mug of tea I am feeling a lot more human and can quietly tap away whilst the washing machine and the radio serenade each other in the kitchen. 

Wills is dozing by my feet and I think I will be adding 'wash the dog' to my today's To-do list. She, despite us all yelling Noooooooooooooooooo, paddled in the most revolting pea green soup of a canal for a quick drink.... urgh. 

 It is still incredibly dry and scorched down there and only now, now that summer has ended has South Yorkshire declared a drought situation - surely earlier in the year would have been advisory?

We also visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at West Bretton on the Saturday as a birthday treat for Himself.

Auke de Vries - the Watchtower

We headed there after lunch as the morning was a bit cool and damp with a frisky wind, which to be honest was very similar to the afternoon weather however as tickets had been purchased and we agreed to wrap up warmly and take flasks of tea. We set off in fine spirits and apart from a rather 'Willow is a menace' moment when she was banished to the van. (Don't worry she had her bed, was wrapped up in her duvet and had a bowl of water) we had a most enjoyable time.

The 10 metre tall Virgin Mother

We worked our way down from the main building and it was interesting to see how varying the reactions were to some of the art works. Damien Hirst's The Virgin Mother is one that Himself and I know and have seen around however the younger four were rather taken aback with one quite revolted by the 'stripped back' half of the sculpture. 

No it isn't pretty however, art is supposed to make you think... question ... love...hate.... what ever - but it is supposed to trigger thought and discussion - so this one certainly did.

We started following the main suggested route however it was rather populated by other visitors, so we soon struck off the central path and followed the less visited ones. Then it became rather more interesting.

We came across a series of 'boxes' that, before I read the description - I felt look like those dreadful solitary confinement torture cages that are used by less savoury governments - then we found the info-board. I was correct.... and the design was inspired by a certain 'first world country'...... used up until very recently and to be honest - probably still being used to 'extract the 'truth' as seen by the victor'.

A detention cage in cold water

The Garden of Good and Evil by Alfredo Jaar - was a very disquieting installation in a typically autumnal English woodland alongside a large boating lake filled with swans. 

It made our group rather less chatty until we'd come out the other side of the woodland and sat on a wooden bench watching the water. 

Behind us were two very differing sculptures. 

Edwin Wurm - Balzac - all about consumerism

Bruce Beasley  - Advocate IV

One I rather liked (despite it not being a style I am particularly fond of) and the other which made me think of graffiti and plaster of Paris. however, art or in this case, sculpture is designed to trigger responses and questions. The Bruce Beasley work was covered in what looked like compass lines and marks which seemed to enliven the rather masculine geometric form.

It was soon after here that Willow just became too difficult to handle, both boys had kindly offered to hold her lead and soon returned her to me, they now realise how hard she is to control on lead. I make her sound like an absolute horror, which she is not - she just pulls and zig zags and back tracks and spins round and pulls and pulls and pulls and no matter how much training we have done, it seems that she is just wilful and her previous life of not being trained to behave on a lead is now making it very hard to actually enjoy taking her for a walk.

Leiko Ikemura - Usagi Kannon ii (Rabbit Madonna)

So, as from today, we are back to square one on the lead, and I will just have to not forgive any transgression until she realises that a nicely behaved-on-the-lead dog gets lovely walks... I will admit to missing out on a lot at the YSP thanks to her bad behaviour and - no more. I either leave her in the car/van/at home or we get better at working together. (I prefer the latter idea but at the moment I am nursing a very tired left hand and sore right thumb hanging on to her lead from yesterday)

The Water Carrier

Elisabeth Frink In Memorandum II

Claye Bowler - Over my Dead Body

JocJonJosch - Eddy

Simon Barlcay - Pittu Pithu Pitoo

Barry Flanagan - Large Nijinski on an anvil point

And my favourite - of the ones I did get to see? Jaume Plense - Wilsis - a fantastically mind bending distorted sculpture that from one angle is a benign almost Mona Lisa smiling face however and to walk around it - it is completely flat. 

I have only shared a small section of the photos I took (also 'pinched a few from the boys 😄) and we only saw a small section of what is on offer at the 500 acre park. 

Told you it was windy!

Please do follow the links - the photos taken by the sculpture park or the artist are in far greater detail or closer than I could ever get. Besides trying to take a half decent image whilst it was blowing a hoolie and hanging on to a dog who wants to head for the horizon - not easy!!

Levitating

Today's early morning low slung clouds quietly slipped away, revealing a glorious blue autumnal sky.

 I'd put off working yesterday due to claggy heavy mist and rain, which when half way up a moorland hillside trying to garden is not pleasant. Thursday's lovely weather more than made up for it.

It is definitely autumnal now - no getting around it and yes I know there are those of you who are atumnaphiles who can not get enough of the colours, the cool air, the dark evenings, the comfort food however they are exactly what gets me down. Where is the warmth and the sunlight, the heat of the day and the late nights?  Where are the swallows and swifts and the searing sunsets over the sea horizon? However, today certainly went someway to redeem it's rather dreary start.

Willow was her usual enthusiastic self, showing me how to just get on and enjoy life regardless what gets thrown at you - or in her case - for you ... a ball, a frizzbee or hoop.

Over the last couple of days I have been making slow roast pumpkin soup - working around having half a kitchen and it has turned out rather nicely. 

I'd planned to have it for the weekend however Himself was feeling a bit poorly and not wanting to eat much, so I enticed him with a bowl full of the pumpkin soup which he agreed to try. 

Suffice to say, he soon perked up and wolfed it down then hung around seeing if there would be seconds - sorry no, the rest is for the weekend! (We've got another birthday celebration and the soup is meant for that) Don't worry about him starving, he was offered other things to stave off his self imposed famine, he's fine.

It is now in the fridge, ready to be gently reheated and eaten with crusty brown bread - yum

Have you ever seen a caterpillar levitate? - Well now you have..... It is one of the Tiger moth family, not sure which variety, but on discovery it curled up in a fuzzy ball, balancing on the longer guard hairs making it look as if it was floating! 

It soon 'returned to its feet' and wandered off , determinedly heading towards my garden for a somewhere to hide.

So I suppose, the answer to the dilemma of how to survive autumn - be more dog, levitate like a tiger moth caterpillar, eat slow roasted pumpkin soup and just get on with it.... Wish me luck.

And the builders? They have finally gone!! Next step is a bit of electrical work then the walls can be skimmed and painted, the cupboards installed and the floor replaced - ooh that sounds like more than one step...... I shall keep you posted.

GIRL- rilla (guerrilla) gardening 🌱

 You know I said .....Once again, waiting in for the builders - this should potentially be their penultimate day with tomorrow just the final coat of paint - fingers crossed!

Well - ever the optimist I have yet again found that I was proven wrong - sigh.  While I was out working and Himself was in charge of baby sitting the builders he sent me a message saying that today's builder took one look at the new ceiling and offered to pull it down and do it again. Himself and I had already decided that we were not happy with how it was looking - as it dried so it began to bulge and we had the lumpiest ceiling you could imagine. Not quite back to square one but not far off.

Interestingly enough - what had taken four days for the two and sometimes three chaps to get this point in the make over,  was completely dismantled and redone in one by the new fellow. Guess who's business card we have taken. 

So. Today the new builder is coming in to paint the ceiling and take away all the rubbish the others had left - they all work for the same company - not as employees but as contractors. There is a lot I have not mentioned about our kitchen roof escapades, I could fill a small novelette with the shenanigans and disasters this lot have had however I have nicer things to share.

The reason I was away and Himself had the 'pleasure' of brewing up and chivvying on the builders - I was doing some 'guerrilla gardening'.  A secret garden make over as a birthday gift arranged by one of my garden clients. She and I had quietly planned this for a couple of weeks as she knew her friend would be away for a few days over her birthday.  

So Friday we swooped in while they were gone and completely redid a rather wonderful large stone watering trough. 

My lovely garden client made an excellent apprentice for the day :)

The house is on old farm land and the trough had been used for cattle. It then was unearthed over 30 years ago and hauled up to the then new house as a raised planter. With time the trough had just become a weedy collection of alpine strawberries and Alchemilla mollis. 

I'd suggested a mini alpine scree garden which seemed to go down well.  My client had managed to take a couple of sneaky photos and pace out the size of the trough so we could plan plants and design the shape. All good fun.

What a cracking view this garden has, it was such a lovely place to work for the day and by the end of it we had transformed the old weed ridden stone trough to a sweet mini scree garden - I love doing these sort of things!

The neighbour - a retired police man - came over to see who was fettling around in the garden and stood and chatted for ages, admiring our work and suggested we do a secret make over for the entire garden! Which - although is kept very neat, does need sorting, however it is rather large and I could see it being a year long project........ So, think I might just stop at this lovely stone trough😄

So - while I wait for the final (fingers crossed) builder, I think it is time to put the kettle on - fingers crossed for an end of the disruptions - the cat is rather fed up by it all 😄

One grumpy cat firmly attached to the duvet whilst avoiding the building chaos downstairs

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