Any summer's day in England that isn't rainy is a good summer's day

This Sunday dawned sunny but, by mid-morning, the wind whipped up and the sky clouded over and acted like one giant flood light.There was some call for rain showers by lunch, but Robert and I decided to go for a walk on the Thames anyway.We drove the five field distance to the river instead of having a super long walk and parked adjacent to our local pub The Rose Revived and looked down the Thames to New Bridge. New Bridge has grade II listing making it of extreme historical importance. It was built in the 14C but is called New Bridge because it was the last of three bridges built to span the Thames here in Oxfordshire.There were a lot of people braving the called-for drizzle and enjoying the river.There is a beautiful foot path called the Thames path which spans 184 miles along the riverbank so we jumped on our local five miles or so and set off.We brought our light rain coats but soon had to take them off. It was just too warm.Several narrow boats passed by. We love narrow boats and Intrepid powerboats and sometimes think it would be an ideal life style to live on one. Wouldn't it be dreamy to take your house with you and putter around rivers and canals?About four fields down the path we heard whistling. It was a sharp short whistle or two and I thought it may have been a moor hen, but Robbie thought it was a mechanical whistle sound.You know what it turned out to be?.....A man on the other side of the bank exercising his two dogs!We waved hello, (as you do to everyone here), and watched him for a while.He had a black lab and a black spaniel and he threw duck-like objects into the water or the reeds, made his dogs sit for a while, and then, with the whistle, sent them out separately to retrieve.We watched him for a long time then waved goodbye and followed another narrow boat back to the Rose and our car.By the way, we mentally decided one day we will have dogs again and they will be one flat coated retriever and one German pointer. The retriever will be called Atlas and our pointer will be called Max. Now all we have to do is figure out where and how we're going to have these two dogs. And incidentally, figure out how to bring our three cats from two countries together and make them all get along.Details! :)

"Excuse me, where's the Oxford University?", AKA how to have fun with the tourists.

Oxford is a university town. You can see this is true because some days the student's bicycles outnumber the tourists.Often when I'm in town, someone will ask me a question like, "Excuse me, could you point me in the direction of the Radcliffe Camera?" And I'll say, Of course. :) " and do.Even when people ask me for the directions to Magdalen Bridge and pronounce it Mag-da-len instead of Maud-lin, well, what can you do, I just say at the bottom of High Street, you can't miss it.Not everyone knows their Oxford Blue from their Stilton, and the streets are very narrow and the buildings of tall Cotswold stone and spires do look similar.So I do try to do my best to direct someone to where they would like to go.But every once in a while someone will ask me for directions to "Oxford University" and I just have to laugh.You see, Oxford town is one great big university spread out over literally dozens of buildings.Mostly the universities are behind great big doors.The give-away is students milling about the big doors.Walk thru the courtyard and you'll find a university. Here's one!But it's so hard to point someone in the right direction because, you see these three buildings? They are all universities! (In modern or in historic ways) The building on the left is the Radcliffe Camera, an ancient library still functioning as the repository for science texts, the church in the middle is the University Church of St Mary the Virgin (St Mary's) and functioned as a university, and the building on the right is the Brasenose University.This is the Brasenose University behind its huge front door. And this goes for the whole of Oxford, not just the centre pretty part.So if you're in the middle of Oxford and some tourist has the bad manners to ask you to point him to the Oxford University, you can pretty much point in any direction and say, "Go that way to the end of the street and turn right, you can't miss it." Chances are he will come to a university anyway, and, if he doesn't, maybe he'll find a nice pub to ask someone else. :)

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Foreshadow

I predict there's a serious bath in this child's immediate future:And, I predict there may be a laundry day in this child's mother's future...lolHope the sun lasts long enough to dry out those shoes.Linking with the Wordpress photo challenge. :)

A new favourite shop in Oxford and random thoughts for Friday

I actually went to Scriptum, the most beautiful fantasy shop that any lover of paper products and all things writing could ever imagine to shop in, but look what I found around the corner!A brand new shop! :)Objects of Use, how fantastic is that name? Doesn't it absolutely label everything in the shop as practical, useful and maybe even needful?Well done marketing people, well done. Even better than wrapping cars with ads, really (here's what am talking about - https://fleetwraphq.com/).Inside is classic old world simplicity with an industrial modern edge. One of my most favourite things about England is that people know how to seamlessly blend, say, a 17th century Cotswold stone wall with a steel and glass ultra modern door and it looks so fantastic.Ok, So I'm walking around, totally in love with everything in sight and I see these beautiful balls of garden twine. HAVE TO HAVE ONE! So I flipped over the luggage tag...GULP £27!!! That's $42.25!!! FOR A SEXY BALL OF GARDEN TWINE? Why?It got worse...or maybe I should say stayed consistent. £25 for a small whisk broom.Don't even ask how much those sexy tea towels cost. No wonder I tend to source old things in thrift stores and flea markets. Sometimes I wonder who would pay this kind of money. Is it for people who don't care? Don't know any better? Think, "what the hell, we're on vacation, let's go for it"? I've no idea.Maybe it's me. I know I've got more imagination than money. But for me, that's a fantastic thing.So goodbye beautiful sexy new store, see you in my dreams. :)Linking with Nancy at A Rural Journal for her Friday Five. :)

Vintage market day in Oxford

Thursday is Vintage Market day in Oxford.It takes place between 9am and 4pm on the Gloucester Green, which isn't actually a green in the normal green in the middle of town sort of way, it's more like a Gloucester Pavement...lol.But it's become a bit of an institution in the middle of Oxford, and every time I'm in town on a Thursday, I love to stop by.The selection of "stuff" is just amazing, all laid out on tables for people to browse thru.I remember one year finding an old and giant castle key and bringing it back for Chloe.Today, the big old copper things took my fancy. Wouldn't it be fantastic to have one of those French country kitchens with old copper things hanging around? I'd love it.Every seller seems to specialise in something, whether it be jewellery, door handles, old wood working tools or blue and white china. Almost everything is represented somehow.This I found intriguing; a whole table of vintage coins. I loved running my hands thru them. There was an awful lot of interest in them.But then I saw the one thing I really wanted. This old coffee mill. I have photos as a very little girl playing with my grandmother's coffee mill in the Czech Republic. I'd love to own a representation of my very early, and happy memories, but the £45 price tag meant that it got to stay there.Now, if I'm very, very lucky, I might find one at a car boot sale for £5. Fingers crossed. :)I did come away with two maps I can paint on, a handful of lovely vintage postcards to send to friends, an old Poe book, and these photos to share with all of you. :)

Why is a woman like a hollyhock?

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I write this blog.A friend once said that it’s all nonsense. That my life...no-one’s life is like the pages of this blog, all sunshine and lovely images and happy outcomes. I think the words he used were, “get real.”Real? Real is where I have to be and real hurts. Real is life and all the messes and sadness and miscommunications and spelling mistakes and loud, angry run-on sentences.But translate that to this space, to these few thoughts per post and suddenly there’s spellcheck and censoring and run-on sentences become poetry and this whole massive unstructured expanse of problems in front of me becomes a myopic view into a small but lovely part of that massive unstructured expanse; a place to focus, a sanctuary.These past few days I've printed some lovely prints and got the hang of printing. But I've also had two nuclear meltdowns, cried myself to sleep, spent several sleepless nights listening for the slightest noise and generally waited for something to happen, had arguments with my love and been completely emotionally unstable, headachy and probably hell to live with.Lately, each day dawns as this massive expanse of problems.The Oxfordshire saga:- Some of you know that my beautifully restored mini, which has been stolen almost a year ago, will most likely never be returned. Robert’s work of love to me. A £500 shell we restored to a £5000 thing of beauty. And nothing can be done.- Robbie says let’s build a new mini, a new cherished car, but to me it’s like trying to replace one’s beloved pet, I know that doesn't translate quite as well as I’d like it to, and I know, I KNOW, it’s just a thing/possession/meaningless in the big – I’m healthy, Robbie, my children, mother, loved ones are healthy – scheme of things, but, no matter how hard I try to adjust, to wrap my brain around the concept of a beautiful new mini, I just can’t seem to go there right now and I can’t seem to let it go either. I am trying.- There are very few external forces here. The phone isn't ringing, workmen aren't coming and going, there are no meetings; it’s a very quiet country life. The quiet becomes wildly uncontrollable in my mind.Vancouver saga:- The house is still in restoration mode, way behind the time line restoration mode, and, as much as I’m the client and make all the decisions, Chloe is there, on site, living with the mess and displacement and temporary loss of our serene space, and having to handle it.- Most early mornings British time, C calls needing a talk and support. It’s evening in Vancouver, C’s had to deal with a multitude of uncomfortable things, and things are not easy for my girl, and, as much as I want to talk to her and offer as much support as I can, I’m concerned that she’s not wanting to wake us up so waits till 6:30am-ish to call, which means it’s already 10:30pm-ish in Van, which means that before she feels better and manages to get to sleep it’s practically midnight, which means her tomorrow is going to be twice as hard for lack of a proper night’s sleep.- Then, when C finally gets to sleep, I’m grateful that we could help her calm down but it’s my morning and she stays on my mind all day till 5pm-ish British time/morning Vancouver time, when she wakes up and I hear from her again.- Switching from Vancouver to Oxfordshire and back again in my thoughts and worries is exhausting.- I've been out of touch with Kerstie and Jonathan and I miss them so much it hurts.My shrink tells me to focus on what makes me happy. At the time she said it, I wasn't doing much art and nothing I could think of made me happy. She advise I do something creative every day...it’s almost impossible for me to make myself do something creative if I want to be in a dark place. It’s very hard to climb back into the sunshine if I let myself fall down the hole of depression and it takes days and days. So I force myself to pick up the camera and at least take some photos every day and sometimes specifically for a blog post. As time goes on and I start to feel better, I can pick up the pencils and brushes and do more.A couple days ago I sketched a hollyhock flower on a page of the old dictionary while I was talking to Chloe, who was feeling poorly with some 24 hour bug and was worried about her health and going to work and workmen and students and her last year of uni...etc. I talked to her off and on for over two hours and I completely overworked the hollyhock.Overworked it to mud.And then I hated myself for doing that, because I should be able to draw a hollyhock in my sleep, and I felt useless as an artist.I showed Robbie and he said, “maybe deepen the colours?” And I made a motion like I was ready to rip it into two pieces, and he said, “No, don’t do that. How are you going to realise what you label the good without having a reference to what you label the bad?” He had a good point. He always does. And so I put the drawing on the dresser to look at it afresh in the morning.The thing is I wanted to draw it on the page of the dictionary that had the word hollyhock on it, but I didn't remember I sketched Theo on the other side of that page, making that page unusable, and so I drew it on the page which had the word woman. The one precious page of the dictionary that had the word woman. (No I don’t know why I think this is the last ever old dictionary I’ll ever find to sketch in.)I chose that page specifically. To me, the hollyhock has always been a strong representation of a woman more than any other flower. I know all the romantic notions of fragile flowers such as roses or lilies for women, but what good are they? What good is vulnerability or fragility even in the most beautiful package? No, give me a hollyhock any day. Hollyhocks are not susceptible to too many diseases, they bend in the strongest gale without breaking, and, drop something on them, suppress them with a ton of weight, they will seed and carry on in a new location as shiny and as beautiful and as tall as before.So I'm looking at my overworked sketch on the page which says woman and thinking how absolutely accurately I portrayed myself right now. It hasn't gotten any better over night, or even over three days, even with the wind blowing it off the dresser and onto the floor several times, but I have grown to love my little flower. No matter how many times this week the wind has blown me over, I’m still standing just like the hollyhock, trying to bloom with all that pressure on me, and, with time, the tears will stop, the weight will slide off and life will be sunny again.

Would you like a print? (AKA a tiny little giveaway)

I'm learning how to print and Theo is just not impressed with me. :)But me? I'm impressed with myself even if only a little.Just after Art in Action I decided I'd love to try printing lino cuts, so I gathered some papers, bought a brayer and some sepia printing ink and decided to look up some techniques on YouTube and visit artist's websites.It soon became apparent that it was also necessary to have a heavy burnisher for transferring the ink to the paper.Robert said, "will this piece of brass do?" I said it would be so perfect if only there was no danger of snagging the paper on the rough edge.Robert said, "There you go, there's the lathe!"(Gulp)Are you kidding me?Actually, he's the greatest! He started the process for me, got me to have a go once he had it going so I could say I had a hand in the design of my wonderful new burnisher and finished it for me expertly bevelling all edges. It would win first prize for the smoothest thing in the smooth thing competition.So today, this is what my studio table looks like. (Actually it looks much worse, this has been cleaned ever so slightly so you can see there's a real table under there.)These printing blocks are Robert's mother's wonderful 1950s plates.I thought they were lino cuts, but underneath the paint, they are solid, probably lead.And here is my window sill and radiator. Oh, can't see them? That's because I've been practising and I won't stop till I have at least 20 good images that I like.It's actually trickier that I thought. There's a fine line between too much ink and not enough. There's a fine line between too vigorous a burnishing and too light.And then, some of the plates are very fine lines and some very solid and some have fine and solid lines mixed up. There doesn't seem to be a one rule fits all here.And then I will hurry up and try for different papers before I even know what I'm doing...lolSo if you're not like Theo and are a little bit impressed and would like to have a 1950s print or two in sepia ink, then tell me and I will send it out to you. :)Unless you're Chloe and then you have to wait till I get back. :)

A tour of the loveliest private cottage and garden, and photo challenges.

Come with me for a tour of my friend Susanna's Tudor cottage and garden.When I think of an English home, this is what I think of. I could even say this home and garden is an English Masterpiece. :)There is oh so much Activity in Susanna's garden.Isn't the thatched roof just so traditional? The only thing which would scare me from a thatched roof cottage is the risk of fire. But apparently the chimneys are different. Apparently they have some built in feature which prevents sparks from going up and landing on the roof.And that's a really good thing because Susanna has an extremely cozy sitting room with a lovely inglenook and wood burning stove for those winter evenings.The cottage is light and charming and the heavy oak beams that hold up ceilings and walls are kept exposed for a traditional Tudor feeling.Susanna has grown white and deep purple sweet peas this year and has jars and vases full of them all over the house. Don't you love the smell of sweet peas? I do. And isn't it lovely that you HAVE to pick them all summer?In the back garden, just past the conservatory, is a lovely place to sit and have summer lunches and suppers. She even has a few of the best led grow lights in the cellar for her indoor plants. Its a countryside hobby.Susanna has planted beautiful perennials on either side of the lawn and the garden moves up in three tiers.There are charming brick steps and a pergola past the perennial borders which leads to the vegetable garden.The colour combinations are spectacular.At the end of the garden, beyond the raised vegetable beds is a surprise.It's Susanna's lovely art studio.At first glimpse you see shelves of books......but walk inside and turn the corner. Look at this spectacular studio! Susanna painted these lovely paintings in watercolour.Here are some views: Looking up to the studio top left and right: up a pergola walk along the beech hedge, the front porch of the studio. And looking down from the porch of the studio bottom left and right are the raised vegetable beds.Along one side of the garden, in front of the beech hedge, is a potting shed.There is a pebble walk in front of the potting shed which heats up in the summer making it a perfect micro-climate for heat loving plants.The inside of the potting shed.Susanna's placed a small collection of green bottles on the potting shed window ledge so they can shimmer in the sun.There are bees and butterflies everywhere making the most of the short English summer.I hope you find as much inspiration as I did in Susanna's garden, and I'd like to send a great big hug and thank you to Susanna for letting us in. :)

Would you like to learn how to emboss paper? I did, it's not that hard.

I love paper and paper products.I love to design, craft, save, collage, draw on and collect all sorts of papers.Imagine my delight at being able to learn how to emboss paper.This was a very quick and very fun experiment at Art in Action. Lin Kerr, of Limetrees Studio was on hand with her "light" press to teach embossing.And I made this lovely card with the letter C for Chloe.Here are the steps:You need a template, the mirror image of the thing you would like to have embossed on your paper. Lin made some fantastic letters to chose form. This template is made from layers of heavy cardstock. Here is the link to how Lin made these templates. Just requires a bit of patience, imagination and a sharp scalpel.A card of 100% cotton is used to emboss the letter on.The press is a "light" press, but don't be fooled because it still weighs 100kg!There are three sheets of felt between the base and the roller.The press is rolled back, the felt lifted, and the template is laid on a grid to make sure it is straight.Then the card is sprayed down with water in a fine mist. Not too wet, just dampened and laid damp side down on top of the template. It is very important to get the card and the template aligned just right because, once the press is rolled, there's no going back.Then the three sheets of felt are layered on top of the template and card sandwich.The press is rolled across the bundle.Really, that's all it takes to make this kind of magic.Now I know that probably no one is going to run out and buy a press for hundreds of dollars to make these beautiful cards, but I've come across a YouTube tutorial for doing this with a rolling pin!!! Hey!!! Affordable. :) I'm not sure how well this works though, but as soon as I make a template I'll give it a try and report. :)(but I really want a press like this!)

Enamelling a necklace! Would you like to learn how? I did, it's not that hard.

I made this beautiful, complicated pendant in a practical class at Art in Action. I went into the class not knowing a thing about enamelling techniques and came out wearing this lovely piece of original wearable art and best of all, I made it myself and now I know how to enamel.I'm not suggesting that we all run out and buy these supplies for enamelled jewellery making and go for it from my small demonstration, oh no! And I do think a small course may be very helpful to some people, while others could pick up on this right away by watching YouTube videos and such, but if you ever wanted to know a little bit more about it, then here is how I did it and it's not that hard. :)Let me take you thru the steps:There are a very few tools one needs for this process.Actually, the only tools I used were the fine strainer, the tweezers and a pop bottle cap. Apart from those few tools, one needs supplies.The supplies are: A small kiln, or access to a small kiln, a metal pinwheel shaped holder for holding the piece while it goes into the kiln, a long fork to slide the pinwheel into the kiln and an old ceramic tile to put the very hot product down on.Some copper shapes, (you can enamel silver shapes too but starting with copper is supposed to be much easier), and some crushed glass enamelling powders. (These powders go a long, long way)Here is my lovely teacher, Bonnie Mackintosh, from the Guild of Enamellers giving a demonstration.The first step for me was to take my copper disk, place it on the upside down bottle cap, and chose a base colour. Then I ripped up a bit of newsprint and wet it down and placed a couple of pieces on the disc. I chose a deep cobalt blue as the first layer, sieved a small amount on the disc and lifted the wet paper off from under the blue. Then the disc was placed on the pinwheel holder and fired in the kiln for a minute or two. Apparently it is better to underfire rather than overfire and each substance has its own time frame. (This might be a case of a bit of experimentation)When the disc was cool enough I chose a funny sort of plastic spatula as my next textured layer. I lay the spatula on my disc and used the comb edge of the spatula as a feature. Then I sieved a bright yellow-green pattern thru it and again it was put into the kiln for a minute or two. (The good thing about these powders is that they are dry and if you don't like the pattern you've sieved, or if something goes wrong, then you can simply shake the powder off the disc onto a piece of paper and start the pattern again.)Here is my jewel after two firings. You can still see the copper thru the blue, thru the yellow-green.For my next layer I chose a very pale blue and screened that thru a fine stencil of leaves. I put the disk on the bottle cap and placed the stencil on top, put some powder on the side of the stencil and screened it on by moving the powder over the stencil using a piece of card. Again the disc got fired in the kiln.Here is the disc after the third layer before the final one. For the final layer I chose a gold mica based powder which just gave my jewel a shimmer. This was dabbed on thru a stencil of flowers using a cotton ball. You can see the stencil on the left side. Honestly, you can use anything as a stencil. Some people found great results with a hair net!Here is the disc after the fourth firing.And here is my new jewel on a jump ring and leather strap. I've been wearing it for days. I love looking into the rich depths.So if you've been wondering, give this a try. At best you might find the start of a wonderful new business, at worst you might make yourself a lovely piece of original wearable art. :)