The latest artwork I've been working on, has reached the end of its construction phase. I'm already pleased with how it is turning out. I thought I knew what the colour scheme would be, which in my head worked. But once I started painting a growing unease developed, until I had to reluctantly admit I didn't like how it looked. So, I created some colour swatches and settled on a new scheme. I can now progress with more confidence on to the painting stage. This can, in itself, be quite laborious, as the painting of these pieces is fiddly and producing a good solid colour can require a few coats, and a full reservoir of patience. Which I'll admit I don't always possess.
I am not dwelling on why I am spending so much of my time on these artworks, as I'm finding the time spent on them enriching and reward enough. I have no idea if this current piece is for display in the house or whether it will be stored in the garage. (Note to self - sort out the mess that is the garage before the winter sets in.) The value and the validation of creative work for the artist, is in the act of creating and the completing of it. What you do with it afterwards, well that has nothing to do with the artistic process, or the fundamental purpose of creating art, in the first place.
Recently overheard in cafe in Holt-
'I mean to take Geoff round just to show him. Cos what they've done with their guttering is lovely.'
I continue to look for new ways of getting fitter, improving my physical mobility and easing the discomforts of an increasingly aging body. I recently found a You Tube channel Discipline Drive. It's made by Ben. A window cleaner who lives in Wales. In the last year or so he has lost huge amounts of weight and become increasingly buff. On his site he usually attempts to do a minute each of nine exercises every day. Let's be clear, he has not made the physical change he has achieved without also spending regular hours in the gym. He learnt these exercises off another You Tuber, and he sometimes refers to them as Tai Chi inspired exercises, they might be more Qi Gong at a push. Though the nomenclature feels tenuous. I've also seen exercises like them used as part of a Fascia exercise regime, which is a current fad on Tik Tok. But the million dollar question is do they work? Well. In my experience they do greatly improve your general level of fitness, get your energy going in the morning, and have in the three weeks I've been doing them everyday, considerably relieved neck and shoulder stiffness.
The problem with any such fitness regimes is they can quickly turn into a form of body fascism, falling fowl of becoming 'the tyranny of the six pack'. Where the pursuit of an ideal body form, ends up taking over you life. Requiring a huge amount of time devoted to developing and then maintaining it. Undoubtedly this improves self esteem. Ben himself is evidence of that. However, if you take these exercises simply as a base line, as Ben recommends they are, then how far you want to go down the road to full buffdom is entirely up to you. There are many ways to be healthy, and only one of them requires abs like a radiator.
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| Mr Ben |
Bad Byline Pun of the week - Stamford Hi-Fi - The home of 'Sound' advice
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| Great Asby Hall |
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| Hubby & I in the gardens of Dalemain House |
Hubby and I took off on our usual late September holiday, this time to Great Ashby in the Eden Valley, which is on the border between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. It proved to be a very long journey up, mostly on the A1 motorway for five to six hours. Including much needed comfort breaks and leg stretches, it took most of a day to get there. It was a further day before we felt we'd begun to recover from the constant travelling. I don't think we'll attempt that length of journey again. The place we stayed in was a barn conversion in grade 2 listed Great Asby Hall. Two large bedrooms with en suite on ground level, either side of a staircase up to a timber beamed open plan kitchen - dining - lounge area. It was all a very spacious place to relax and unwind in.
Whilst travelling up to Great Asby we were following a van which said :-
The Tiffin Sandwich Company - for mmmmMunch Munch More
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Penrith Booths
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Asby is a small village with a local pub The Three Greyhounds, which does excellent pub grub, with a reasonable choice for veggies such as us. We went twice during our week there. Appleby in Westmorland, ten minutes drive away, with its castle and ancient moot hall, is your archetypal conservative traditional English town. Apart from a really good curry house, Seventy One, which we sampled to mark our wedding anniversary, there wasn't much else of culinary note. And we found that to be the case in Penrith too, which has a sprawling, very gappy retail offering, a town centre layout that's hard to get your head around, and a nightmarish road system to negotiate. But like most major towns in this area, it's main saving grace is that it has a Booths. There are also Booths in Windermere and Kendal. With no piped music, it's clear, broad aisles with a great stock range, it's general clean lines, calm and relaxed ambiance, it has really to be experienced to be believed. It's like you've gone to a supermarket but found heaven.
We were sat in a cafe in Bowness by Lake Windermere. a little boy came up to the table behind us and asked:- ' Is anyone going to come and be a nuisance with me?'
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| Homeground in Windermere |
We went to Windermere, because last time we in the Lake District, a new cafe called
Homeground had just opened that was really excellent. And ten years later it was still thriving, offering the same quality of superlative food, and the best flat white I've ever had. This time, it constantly had a queue, we had to wait forty minutes outside before we got a table. That may sound daunting, who would queue all that time just to get into a small cafe, well we and dozens of others did, because believe me it really is worth it.
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| The View from Brougham Castle keep |
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| Hubby at Brougham Castle |
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| Sizergh House gardens |
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Hubby with an extravagant piece of ceramic and shirt
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The Dragon Topiary at Dalemain House
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A restaurant in Windermere proudly announced it's - Croquette of the Week.
So, besides struggling to locate the best food and cafe offerings in the area, we eventually got into the flow of culture vulturing. Visiting the ruins of Brougham Castle and taking in the superb views from the top of its keep. The house at Sizergh, filled with the dark magnificence of 16th century carving and panels, and some truly beautiful ceramics in its collection. Dalemain House, with its interminable guided tour, international marmalade competition, gorgeous gardens, and a cool topiary dragon. We took in the grand landscape of the area, part green grazing and the bleaker moorlands, which are really stunning to drive over or through.
The weather was classic North West, drizzle and sunshine quickly changing within a day or overnight. On our last full day, it was gloriously sunny with a cool wind. So we did a two hour + circular walk out to Rutter Force, following a stream across grazing meadows and through forests filled with pheasants from a farm madly flapping up all around you in alarm. We did enjoy this holiday, but it felt like we'd really had to work to make it so. We never found a place we instantly fell in love with, and would instantly want to return to. It's not that sort of area it seems.
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| The Hoff Beck |
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| Rutter Force on the Hoff Beck |
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