…the fun begins!

We’ve enjoyed sunny days out in the garden, getting things ready for a few weeks of fun with friends.  The weather has been remarkable, really, and we’ve been pottering about and enjoying being at home.  Yesterday afternoon, whilst my hero was at his choir rehearsal (there’s a couple of big concerts coming up), I sat on the bench up near the summerhouse with my book and Radio 4.  Unusually, there were no gliders overhead, no-one was strimming or mowing the lawn and everything was peaceful.

Gradually, the clear blue sky clouded over and as it did, a strong wind came from nowhere, depositing something on the bench alongside me.  I nearly jumped out of my skin!

This little twig was to blame.  It had blown off a nearby tree and was absolutely covered in the most fascinating lichen.

What a little treasure!  (Though that’s not what I said when it narrowly missed my head)

Tomorrow, I’m heading out with a few hundred of my friends to London, where the NFWI AGM will be held in the Albert Hall on Wednesday.  Coincidentally, Nita and Paulene have the private view of their exhibition at the Mall Galleries tomorrow evening, so I’m looking forward to meeting up with them and a couple of other chums to see their masterpieces on show.

When I return home on Wednesday evening, our dear friends Allan and Jane will be here from the USA, to spend a few days with us before boarding our favourite ship “Voyager” in Southampton at the weekend and sailing off into the sunset.  We’ve got the flags out already, as you can see!

At last.  This afternoon I finished the pot in time for our WI competition tomorrow evening.  Let’s see, it must have taken me nearly a month and cost me…we'll, perhaps I’d better not work that one out!

I did three in the end, the yellow flowered one above being the least successful, I think.  In fact, I didn’t bother to varnish that one and might well paint over it!

I think this one is the most successful, but when I got my plant ready to pot up, it turned out to be rather too large for the small pot I’d painted.  See, the challenges keep coming!

This slightly larger pot with pinky flowers on it was my nearly-favourite, and so it was this one which will go to the ball.  My plant – a scented leaf geranium – sits in it nicely.

It’s not a masterpiece – far from it – but neither will it embarrass me in the way I feared when it was all going wrong!

Let’s hope the judge is feeling kind!

Have you noticed the sunshine today?  We’ve gone from shivery cold to blazing heat within a couple of days.  Amazing.

We’ve been out in the garden this afternoon, enjoying the fruits of our labours earlier this month and admiring the gorgeous blooms of the irises and poppies which are responding well to the little blast of English summer weather we’re having.

Lovely.

there was the Wagner.  We hadn’t seen Tristan and Isolde before and indeed, are pretty much Wagner novices since our previous exposure was limited to Das Rheingold a couple of summers ago.  Though we’d really enjoyed that performance and indeed, looked forward very much to the spectacle and all round experience a night at the opera promised, I was still a little apprehensive.  After all, the performance began at 5 pm and there was not only an interval but a meal break too!

We arrived at the Millennium Centre in good time, to hear the preconcert talk and to learn a little bit about what we were going to hear.  Simon Rees (the same chap who speaks so eloquently on the WNO website) spoke very well and explained the plot sufficiently that I was confident of knowing I’d be able to follow.

So it was that, fortified by a little sustenance (a few madeleines and a bottle of fizz, enjoyed in the fresh air of a Cardiff Saturday afternoon) we took our seats and settled down for the duration.  Except that it wasn’t at all…

The sets were sparse and a little bleak, for sure and the cast of six main characters meant there wasn’t a great chance to be overwhelmed by lavish costumes and larger than life characters.  This was Wagner, for sure – there was not much action and the story moves at a glacial pace at times.  But the drama was there in spades, the characters well defined and for me, the spare and rather dimly lit setting was perfect.  In no time at all, we were breaking for the first interval and off outside again for the next stage of the picnic!

We returned after half an hour to Act Two and a different but similarly constructed set.  Having the characters established in our minds now, we were able to sit back a little and not feel as though we had to work so hard at it.  I was so enthralled that the end of the act came as rather a surprise!

Off we went again, this time for a rather longer, supper break.  Arthur and Barbara had booked us a table for a delicious cold plate of salmon, ham, salads and suchlike and we were getting well into the routine.  Well, a little food, a little music, some more food…get the picture?

By the time we’d got to Act 3, we felt that we had a fair bit invested in old Tristan there, as he lay injured and awaiting the arrival of his love from afar.  Not the most agile of chaps, I held my breath as he staggered up this slab of a set, realising a little too soon that it had been designed as a kind of platform on which he was going to lay down and die – which sure enough, he did.  Fortunately, Isolde had got there just in time and as the tale reached its sorry end, I also realised that the last five hours had been the build up to this, the most magical of finales, the Liebestod.

We were all left somewhat breathless.  Though Wagner demands a little more commitment than Puccini or Verdi and certainly doesn’t bring a tear to the eye or a smile to the face so readily either, that’s not to say that the emotions are left unstirred.  Far from it – this was truly thrilling and incredibly powerful stuff and I can understand why Wagnerian sopranos are so highly regarded and command such respect.  Ann Petersen was magnificent.

I won’t say we left the theatre humming, but felt thrilled and rather drained at the same time.  I think that’s what Wagner does…

This weekend is a social whirl and as I write, I’m hoping the weather’s going to be kind enough for me to wear my blue Mumbai kurta and white churidar to our neighbours drinks party this lunchtime. 

It wouldn’t have looked out of place on Friday night in Birmingham, actually, when we took our regular seats in Symphony Hall for “Burman in Bollywood”.  What a fun evening!  We’ve always loved Bollywood films and find them to be the perfect escapism for when we want to watch a feelgood film, though we’d be the first to admit, we don’t really know much about the genre.

The concert was a tribute to RD Burman and the music of the evening began with a song in what we thought of as typical Bollywood style:  Dum Maro Dum, sung by Sanchita Pal accompanied by the full CBSO.  Even though they had got out what seemed like every percussion instrument they possessed, Shahbaz Hussain’s tabla playing was an essential part of the evening and I loved the range of rhythms and sounds he created with what looks like the simplest of instruments (but clearly wasn’t!)

That got everyone’s toes tapping and with such an enthusiastic audience it was hard not to be carried along with the mood!  Mind you, we had difficulties singing along…

Sanchita shared the stage with Bhangra star Shin DCS who sang O hansini so beautifully and who made us smile with his super cool moves!  He and Rashid Ali were having a great time and when Rashid and Sanchita sang Kya Hua Tera Wada we were well into the groove!

We’ve now got a long list of Bollywood movies we want to watch, including 1942 A Love Story, from where another favourite song came

The whole evening was a great success and we’ll look out for the next such interesting feature on the CBSO’s programme without a doubt.

In perfect contrast to Friday evening, we spent much of Saturday in Cardiff with friends Arthur and Barbara, who’d invited us to Tristan and Isolde.  I think that deserves a whole post to itself, so more about that later. 

A weekend of Bollywood and Wagner?   Wow!

I think the answer to that question is “mine”, sadly.

More about the flowerpots in a moment.  First, I am sure you’ll expect an update on the Breadbox test yesterday?

Ta-dah!  I left the perfume and the handcream there in the top right hand corner as a point of reference.  See, it can be done ;-)

I found a rather appropriate slip of paper from a fortune cookie amongst the debris, too.

But what of the flowerpots?

Well, it’s my WI’s turn to host the group meeting for our neighbouring WIs next week, and being the competitive bunch we are, we love to set everyone a challenge.  Our speaker will be local author Katie Fforde and we decided to give the whole evening a local flavour, including the competitions too.  The Stroudwater Canal is currently undergoing some restoration and bearing in mind, a couple of Katie’s books have been set on or around a canal, someone not too far from here had the idea that one competition could be to paint and plant a pot in a canalboat style.

A couple of weeks ago, we got together around Wendy’s table to try out some of the “castles and roses” style motifs.  Well, I know we were gossiping, but somehow, we couldn’t get them to work.  We’d been on the internet and printed out some step by step instructions which appeared really easy…but nothing we did looked remotely like a rose.

The following day I was off judging a competition with my friend Marion, who happened to mention that her WI had just had a “Roses and Castles” painting class – and her WI had bought the book.  Bless her, she kindly loaned us what we hoped would be the key to success!

But my next attempts weren’t much better.  I was having difficulty controlling the brushstrokes and decided I needed a different brush, so whilst in London, I dropped into Cass Arts for one with a shorter head.  Of course, they had superduper offers on and it made more sense to buy a lovely new matching set of six than to get just one single brush…

I found it easier with the little brush and at last, felt I was getting somewhere.  I still wasn’t confident enough to paint on the pots yet, though!

I painted a piece of card with the dark green paint I’d chosen to paint my pots with.  I’d sprayed them with polyurethane varnish first, to waterproof them and given them two coats of acrylic paint as well.  However, until I was confident of my ability to paint a reliable rose, I wasn’t going to take my red and yellow paint anywhere near them.

It was then that I discovered the next challenge.  My basic brand of acrylic paint was not opaque enough to cover the dark green base.  I mixed in some Titanium White with my red and unsurprisingly, got pink…

Determined not to give up at this late stage, I dropped into my local art shop this afternoon to find an answer – which was a few different acrylic paints made more opaque with gouache.  At last!  I have the answer!  (I hope…)

We’ll see.  there’s some way to go, but the pesky pots are drying on my workbench and I’m feeling that the end is in sight.  They still need a bit of tweaking here and there, not to mention a few squiggles and dots…but I think that after all of that, I will at least have a painted pot!

I was glad I dropped into the art shop, anyway, because whilst I was chatting to the owner, a friend from the old school run, someone else recognised my voice. What fun is it to bump into friends in surprising places!

Thankfully, I can report that my cold is on the way out now and though I’m still coughing, I haven’t needed the second bottle of Benylin yet.  I have a sneaky suspicion though, that my hero is going to need me to replenish the eucalyptus oil in the USB  burner and return it to his desk…

My desk is in a terrible state this morning and sitting here, feeling sorry for myself and woolly headed because of my cold, I thought it was time to do something about it.

I figured that it’s one of those minimum effort/maximum results kind of exercise – or at least, that’s what I hope.

I was further motivated by this article, found whilst I was procrastinating (mooching around the internet) and especially liked the idea to hide any stray post-it notes under the keyboard.

Except…

I thought of that one already!

It’s interesting that any “how to declutter” article includes pictures with empty – or nearly empty – shelves in it.  Now, if we had empty shelves and places to put things, perhaps our desks wouldn’t be quite so cluttered?  Which brings me to think that I ought to clear some space in the cupboards in my studio and empty a shelf or two…

Suddenly I feel even worse than I did when I began this series of thoughts.  Today is definitely one for the Breadbox Test and any further, deeper measures to declutter will have to wait for another day. 

We woke to rain this morning.

Looking up heavenwards this morning, that Electric Light Orchestra tune was going through my mind.

Why did you have to hide away for so long?  (So Long!)

Well, me and the little pansy faces were smiling today, even if I have got the heaviest and most horrid of colds.  It was one of those mornings when it was good to go outside and feel the sunshine on my face and to breathe in the fresh air.

We haven’t quite got rid of all the scaffolding yet – or rather, it was all gone until a heavy rainstorm last week highlighted one last (please!) weak spot which will involve removing a couple of roof panels.

It was so good to look out over the green fields again and feel that those warm days can’t be far away, can they?

It was a fine morning to visit my own piece of art in the garden, created by my talented friend Paulene, who has an exhibition to hang today at the Menier Gallery with the wonderful title “Between a rock and a hard place”.

To admire the wonderful whorls of the ferns as they unscroll themselves and quietly take over a small corner of the garden.

And to observe the deep shadows in the stone walls, the beautiful sunshine bringing out all those little details that we overlook on an ordinary day.

Oh yes, Mr Blue Sky is living here today!

It’s been a funny old week.  At times, the sun has come out and we’ve really believed that Spring is here.  At other times, we’ve sheltered from the downpours, gazed into the black clouds overhead and wondered when it will finally stop raining.  Just when we’ve sat back and felt relieved that we’ve had our roof repaired, there has been another steady dripdripdrip and our patience has been tested further.

A Bank Holiday meant a short working week, so we can’t quite believe it’s Friday!

A rainy holiday Monday was a good opportunity for me to play with my Craft Robo/Silhouette and to discover the “print and cut” feature.  Ooooh, what a clever trick that is!  I downloaded the library card above, printed it out and ran it through the Robo, watching amazed as the machine cut it out perfectly.  So clever!  (Mind you, I did think that having paid 99c for the file, they might have added a cut line to punch the hole, too)

On Tuesday I was working in Cirencester all day, and visited a new place for lunch. I’ve heard so many good things about Abbey Home Farm and my friends were correct, it is well worth a visit.

I went to Carmarthen on Wednesday, to judge the first round of the Rose Bowl competition for the Royal Welsh Show.  The entries were really good – and as always, it was fun to be with like minded friends.

One of the fun competitions was for a knitted Olympic athlete and there were some great entries for that.

I especially liked the swimmer – do you remember when we had to wear those rubber swimming caps with chin straps?!  I didn’t get to judge this competition so could simply stand back and enjoy the characters!

Last night, my dear friend Glenda did a wonderful demonstration of Italian Cooking for my WI, who couldn’t wait to get in there and taste it all!

Finally, today I had a meeting.  Yes, it required me to do the chocolate run to get us through it all!

Whilst I’ve been busy, my Hero has been making plans and booking hotels in four exciting cities.  We’ll visit bottom left next month, bottom right in the Autumn and the top two early next year.  Can you guess where we’re headed?

I’ve been writing, watching, thinking and working during these last few days.  There’s not been much time to sit here and record my thoughts, upload pictures and mooch around doing this and that, here and there.  Everything has had a purpose, has been driven by an agenda of some sort and steadily, a backlog of things I’d like to do rather than things I ought to do has been building up.

There really has been too much of this…

And, most certainly, not enough of this!

But I’m lucky.  I really have nothing to complain about.  Those paper-intensive meetings don’t really feature large in my life, I’m usually there because I’ve chosen to be involved in something or other and, best of all, I’m sitting there amongst friends who share my interests and passions.

But I’ve noticed something which worries me of late.  My friends are feeling under pressure.  There’s too much work to do and not enough time to do it.  Margins have been cut, staff numbers reduced to a level where it’s starting to pinch.  Fewer smiles, more sighs and those “challenges” are beginning to appear more like the “problems” they used to be.

What’s interesting is that it’s the same in all my workplaces (because I don’t limit myself to just one!)

Of course, there are serious concerns right now.  We are all anxious about what the future might bring and there are all kinds of unanswered questions which leave us feeling vulnerable, unsure about where we’re heading and wondering who will be the next one to throw in the towel.  But there is one factor which seems to be making things more difficult for us all.

The weather!

I took this photo on the 26th March, in the garden at home.  Now, here we are at the beginning of May and I don’t think my toes have seen the fresh air since that day!  If only we could have a little sunshine on this, a Bank Holiday weekend, we might feel more optimistic?

Hmm.

At least it’s getting warmer!