The Gin Diaries

Still life. The last lily from my mother’s day flowers in a silent pool gin bottle. 

For those of you who follow me on Instagram you will know that I have been experimenting with gin concoctions.

I gather it is quite a trend and one that I’m sure would have passed me by had it not been for the genius birthday gift from my younger son.

Having latched on to a comment I made about wanting to declutter..... which I have to say is something yet to happen.....and let’s be honest, not that likely.....in support of that desire.... he wanted to give me something that would not add to the general mayhem that is my abode. 

Bless him.

Little did he know what he was unleashing.

Silent pool gin with hibiscus flowers and rose petals and rose lemonade... calling this one ‘purple haze’ 

First came  the innocent  little tins of botanicals in their hessian sack which I feel I should wear on some splendid belt and possibly be wearing lace fingerless gloves when I open it!!! It all feels a little bit witchy somehow. My own little sack of magical possibility.

Hendricks gin with added juniper berries, lemon balm ice cube, lemon slice and Mediterranean tonic. Calling this one ‘robust’

Needless to say I have neither of the aforementioned but I have acquired other accoutrements. The not adding to the clutter idea has fallen at the first hurdle which is me.

After some initial research and experimentation with good old Gordon’s I realised that there was so much more.

Rhubarb gin infused with cardamom topped up with angostura tonic. I’m calling this ‘top contender’ for being my favourite

Flavoured gins, gins with different ‘characters’!

 I did try one that was rather gruff. 

And who knew there were so many tonics!!!!

and fancy pants ice cubes. 

I am a great believer in the taste of a drink being influenced by the vessel it is drunk from,  so glasses..... got me a couple of those.

And so space was made in the larder for a bit of gin kit including a proper measure because I didn’t want to get legless and the weekend ritual of gin was born.

Silent pool gin infused with hibiscus and topped up with fever tree elderflower tonic. For added pretty it has hibiscus ice cubes floating in it. Calling this one ‘flowerfest’

Maths is not my strong suit but I’m fairly sure that with the number of variables ie gin, tonic, botanical and ice cube the possible number of combination exceeds ummpity um.

Bombay sapphire gin no added botanical just viola ice cube, lime slice and lemon tonic. This one is ‘oh so pretty’ 

But I have made a start. 

And the only way to know what I’ve put together and what I would like to try next is to keep a record. Hence the Gin Diaries.

Goodbye week off work, sad to see you go. I salute you with rhubarb gin infused with mellow light and Chris Smithers.... no botanicals. Calling this one ‘perfect’ 

Shall we build bridges

So, how's it going in your corner of the world?

Your corner and my corner are not so far apart really, are they.

It seems that the world grows smaller every day with our interwebby connectivity and constantly streaming news. 

And it has been a colourful week hasn't it? In the news. 

What with The Inauguration........colour that whichever way you want.......and the pink marches.

Don't blanch with anxiety, I'm not going to talk politics. 

I'm not smart enough for that. 

Or well informed enough.

 Besides, I'll remind you of what I said in blog one, or maybe two: I believe that the world needs more light and not more darkness and to that end this little blog of mine, and my life actually, tries to focus on the sunnier aspects of being. 

Not in a Pollyanna-ish way but in a determined and constructive way I do try to seek the good stuff.

 

Can you picture me now, 

sitting at my dining room table,

 basking in the warm winter sun, 

making my bits of frippery, with my fingers, metaphorically, in my ears, 

going la la la la la la, as I try to tune out the news of .......well you know what goes on in the news. 

It ain't good.

But  it is not possible or healthy to live in a vacuum.

Things happen both at home and on the world stage. 

And we respond, emotionally if nothing else.

 Creating is almost always my refuge.

 I find solace in the meditative, repetitive processes. 

Surrounding myself with colour and beautiful things makes me feel more aligned and calm.

That's just my way.

And I know just how troubled I am when housework provides the same balm.

I suppose it is a reaction to the the wider disorder; creating domestic order.

Right now things are clean. 

And tidy.

Even the dogs are a bit freaked out because their bedcovers are getting washed on the weekly!!!

But, as I have been plodding on, merrily making shawl pins and brooches a sound bite has been rolling around in my head.

 

Fake news.

Ok, so,maybe you should blanch now!

A very dear friend sent me a text message from the other side of the Atlantic showing a photo of one of the marches in Calfornia. 

An inspiring, comforting, hopeful sight.

And I wondered if perhaps the majority of the news could be seen to be fake, or at least the slant of it. That it does not present the whole truth. 

Not in anyway denying the terrible things that really are happening. 

Not at all.

Let's be clear on that.

But denying that we are powerless to change things. 

Denying that hatred can ever really triumph over love.

Disallowing the mind control of much of the media.

 Acknowledging that the vast majority of humanity wants pretty much the same things and that unity is possible.

What if we were bombarded by news of all the kind, brave and wonderful things that people do individually and collectively. 

What if we looked for and supported the good in each other.

 Looked for our similarities and points of connection rather than the points of difference.

We could build bridges not walls. 

We really, really could.

And lest you think I am all mouth and no action let me just say that's the whole reason I stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote this post, to be accountable. To get up off my recently enlarged bum. Damn the Christmas overload. And puff up my introverted little self in readiness for engagement and action.

Oh my!! 

I am aware that this is quite a confused post. Words and images chafing a bit.

But that's my life.

What goes on in my head and what comes away from my fingers are a bit at odds with each other.

I try and reconcile it.

All. The. Time.

 

New year

Spasmodic.
Unreliable. 

A teensy bit tardy.
Know someone like that?

If you've ever read this blog before you most surely do.

I am reminded of just how long it is since the last post and how much has been left unsaid.
Sooooooooo long!
It makes it hard to pick up the threads.
Where did it go?

And what happened? 

I was hoping you might be able to tell me because I'm blowed if I know!

Somehow September collided with Christmas.

 I collided with assorted sequential lurgys.
And here we are........2017 underway........ not one resolution made.
But plans......one or two of those.

Including more workshops.

I consulted with the guru Freddie.

  His best advice is always 'go for it'!

But I am also basing my decision on the success of the last two workshops where everyone including myself had a jolly good time.

It was fun and it was  simple.

Much like myself , I like to think.

 

Not everything was a success.

My attempt at iced buns was laughable! 

And in the end everyone was too busy creating to want more than tea or coffee anyway. Phew! 

 

Everyone was pleased with the results of their evening's endeavours.

I, myself, was thrilled.

When I looked at the photographs the following morning I got quite emotional.......a little bit teary in fact!

I believe, truly, that making art provides a portal to the soul, that we reveal something of our soul to ourselves and to each other, even if that is not our conscious intention. And that's exactly what I saw. And exactly why I was so thrilled. And exactly why I intend to do it again.

 

 The lead up to Christmas went by in a blur of making and shopping and general preparation in addition to a little home loving.

After 14 years we have finally found a decorative way of making our stairs dog proof.

Hard floors are so much easier to sweep and wash when there are two hair shedding, muddy footed hounds in the house.

 

 Christmas eventually came and went. For me it is always a time of hibernation, introspection and general dossing about. 

I love it. 

Especially lighting candles in the evenings, especially surrounding  a bubble filled bath. 

And this year's newly discovered  delight...... a glass of sherry whilst submerged in those bubbles. Who knew!? 

My grandmama, most probably, who was partial to a good glug of sherry in her signature dish  of 'diggy-vous' 

A.K.A. 'Trifle', to the uninitiated.

Although even to us, the initiated, the whys of it are a mystery.

That doesn't stop us celebrating with 'diggy-vous' at any opportunity. Christmas Day being ideal.

     

 Anyhoo whilst lolling about in bubbles with sherry the idea came to me to open a second  Etsy shop and to name it DiggyVous  full as it is, of trinkets, trifles and treasures.

 

But not this trinket. This and others like it are for hanging in the shop window. Just for prettiness. 

I decoupaged some gorgeous tissue paper with a  butterfly design onto

Christmas ornaments and then handpainted flowers too. 

It has kept me happy as I recover from, what I seriously hope will be, the last lurgy for a while.

Just as much as I hope that this will be the first in a line of slightly more frequent blogposts.

Fingers crossed on both scores.

Happy 2017 to you all.

Words can cage us or set us free

There are stirrings in The Valley of Imaginings.

Have you got a quiet moment?
.....with a pot of tea on the go?
You've got time to butter up some crumpets before we begin ......

I'm not quite sure where to start.
















I had thought to tell the tale of Ma Baggs, the trifle maker.
Her presence is, after-all, like a silken thread that runs throughout the valley, binding all of its characters and shaping many of the happenings.
I am impatient to tell you about the time she rode through the valley on a motor bike...
wearing her best tea dress....
paisley headscarf,
tied tightly beneath her chin.

But the current gossip concerns Violette and the Slouchy Hare so
we'll start there.
















As the flying season gently draws to a close there's a lot of smoothing out to be done. Eyes are brighter and there is generally something less weighty in the appearance of those who have flown but it is often the case,
in the aftermath,
that things are not always returned to their original starting position.
Never more true than for Slouchy and Violette.

Apart from some springtime leaping Slouchy prefers to keep his feet on the ground.
He is truly an earthbound creature. 

This season he has spent his lonesome days doing very little, saving his energy for long nights of stargazing and patiently waiting for Violette to finish her flying.
As the days faded into night he looked to the sky for the first twinkler to appear.
Long ago he was taught to wish upon a star by his dear papa. Over the years he has repeated the rhyme many times.















" star light, star bright
first star I see tonight,
wish I may, wish I might
have the wish I wish tonight"

And Slouchy's deepest longing is to be able to speak to Violette
to make her see,
to make her understand.

Violette is by nature a cheerful person, a being as full of light as it is possible to be.
Not that you would know that
and neither did she.
How could she, with her head forever stuck in that book!
Between the spotty front cover and the dotty back cover she had recorded every hurt, every perceived wrong, long lists of grievances fears and frustrations, sorrows and pains. Every page was stained with tears.















Every morning that she has read from its pages Slouchy has watched Violette's light flicker and dim. He has watched her face as the corners of her mouth turned down.
Watched the back of her hand rise to her forehead and heard the breathy sigh of woe.
Over so many years Slouchy had become, if he could be frank about it, frustrated by her preposterous posturing.
In fact he had moved through frustration to fury- and that's hard for someone as softly stuffed as he.













Slouchy longed to tell her to close the damn book!!
Well maybe not damn.
He was a soft spoken, soft hearted, soft toy after all was said and done.
But close it , definitely.
He wanted to point out that if she would close her spotty book of dotty jottings
and look up at the stars once in a while,
if she would pause to look at the flowers more often,
stop looking over her shoulder towards the past and instead take in the full view of the horizon,
she just might find that her little frozen heart would thaw.

The first morning after the flying was done Violette smoothed down her rumpled dress, teased the windswept wisps of hair back into place and cast her bright eyes down to her book and began to read out loud.






Slouchy's little patched heart slumped in his chest as he heard the familiar words. He felt every stitch in his neatly stitched mouth tighten and pull.....
he surveyed the scene around him in the dew damp meadow....
....although everything was beautiful...... row upon row of grasses strewn with jewelled spider's web..... his little heart just ached for Violette....






Suddenly Violette looked up.
Her eyes were wide and bright.
Strands of her hair lifted in the breeze and her nose twitched slightly as she caught the scent of falling leaves.
If Slouchy could have, he would have held his breath...
With a very sharp decisive movement that made the soft hare jump, Violette snapped the spotty book tightly shut.
She turned to look at Slouchy and held his gaze intently for a moment that seemed equally long and still and silent.
Something imperceptible passed between them, surely....they both felt it ....as light as a bird's feather.... caressing a cheek....
Finally the spell was broken as Violette placed her book into her capacious pocket and tilted her head towards the birds swooping in the sky above.
Then she slowly looked towards the house slip sliding down the hill and a smile lit her face.
Finally she dropped her eyes to the ground at her feet and slowly bent to retrieve a stone that lay there.
As she raised it up in front of her face Slouchy could clearly see the heart shape and the hole in it that let the light shine through.
Violette took in a deep breath, breathing in all the scents of autumn in the valley and exhaled a declaration

"Time to write a fresh story"

And so a new chapter began.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

❤️Written with just a tiny nod to my loving memory of Evelyn Baggs my motorbike riding grandmama who gave me far more than a love of trifle ❤️












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The Valley of Imaginings: flying season

In The Valley of Imaginings wingless flight is a seasonal activity.

It comes in moments of wakeful wonder, as naturally as breathing.

The diving and the swooping are fast.

So deliciously fast.

The feeling is much like that of swimming without water.

Without getting wet.

A fact that pleases Ma Baggs greatly.

But, Ma, trifle maker extraordinaire, is a diversion.

Another tale for another day.

 

Simply by surrendering to the wild winds of Autumn with a heart inflated by hope visitors to the valley can rise up to fly above the tree tops,

above the red roof tops of the crooked little houses

and if they choose,

at night, they can fly among the stars.

 

 

As the colours turn on the trees there is an equal slow turning to thoughts of comfort.

Everything softens in Autumn.

The houses perched high on the windswept hill visibly, tangibly relax to welcome and embrace those who forage in the valley below.

 

It isn't perfect.

Nothing ever is.

But as the things of the earth retreat and the days are pressed back by the encroaching dark there is still beauty and hope and love.

Always love.

 

 

The Valley of Imaginings: once upon a time

Are you sitting comfortably…..preferably with a light beverage…..tea in a bone china tea cup perhaps?

You're not!?

Oh well, I'm going to begin anyway.

Welcome to the Valley of Imaginings.
A place that may seem frivolous…..on the surface…. to the untrained eye.

Bordered to the north by the densely populated land of well-remunerated-respected-endeavour and bound in the south by the sad shores of lost hope, it is a place of dream and myth and story.

However,
 dreamy it may be;
 all 'roses around the door'
it is not.
Not picture book perfect.
Not at all.
A little quirky, a little strange and possibly charming.







This land is full of critters
large
small
real
imagined
but folk do not live in the valley,
the valley lives in them.


One of the first that we might meet would be Violette.
Almost daily she leaves her house to fend for itself, heavy laden as it is with memory and dust and she walks down to the valley to read from her book of sorrows.
Or as slouchy hare, so often the audience for these words, chooses to call it, "the spotty book of dotty jottings"


In the meadow, a-buzz and  a-waver with shimmering wings and dancing flowers

Violette reads aloud to the surrounding air, interrupted often and  only by  the cawing of crows.







Many questions rise up in Slouchy's fluffy, stuffed brain but with a mouth that's just a row of stitches he emits no sound and Violette has not thought to listen to his silence.
Sometimes when his thoughts float passed like a dandelion seed Violette  dismisses the faint sensation preferring the solidity of the words that she reads in her book.

Not The End.

Possibly not even a beginning.



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Mixed media workshop

I have been making the final, final preparations for the mixed media workshop that I will be teaching in September.
This idea was born out of the sheer number of times people have walked into the studio and wistfully express their desire to be creative and their robust conviction that they can't be.

I don't believe that they can't and it actually makes me feel really sad that they do believe it, so I set myself the challenge of gently leading them back to the joy of creating because most of us had it once upon a time.
Back when we were children.

It starts with a formula to overcome the 'blank white page' syndrome of being afraid to make that first mark.
Then mixing lots of implements and materials to provide different textures and marks and the only drawing skills required are the ones that we all had in primary school before anyone told us that " a bird, a house, a flower.....doesn't look like that."
Or maybe nobody told us those things but when shown our creations they didn't respond with the same enthusiasm and delight that we had in the making of it.
And somehow or own light dimmed a little.

It all begins with ripping pages from a magazine....any page that sings to you....either the image....or the colours....or maybe some text.
Don't think too much just rip.

Today I photographed each stage of the process, including the bit where I answered the phone and left paint to dry too long and things went a bit tits up, as they do. What I love about this whole process is that generally it's quite easy to incorporate the tits up or restore it.
 Or just damn well celebrate it.
Because after all this is just play.

And colour choices are largely determined by what is already there in the under-layers so no great decisions to make there either.

I added a mandala moon that frankly did not please my eye so I overlaid it with a white circle of acrylic......the 'mistake' is still visible but ....it is what it is ....because there are no mistakes.
None.
Just got to convince a few other people of that.

Illustration and story

I wouldn't call myself a storyteller.
Although I did once tell a tale, off the cuff, in the car, to my sons when young, that went down a storm.

About a pig.

A pig who got a reputation for interior decorating and design!?

Inspired, no doubt, by the pig farm we passed on the A303. Not that they showed any design flair.
And the whole story told in a broad West Country accent.......not my own.....I judge by the audience reaction and have to say it was a hit.

But that's largely it.

So, having confided that, I suspect this next confidence shared will meet with a nervous titter.
It certainly generates an anxious feeling in me.







These new paintings keep suggesting storylines.
The characters develop names and characteristics of their own as each painting progresses.
Little snippets of their history and their relationships become apparent.
In short I feel I need to write about them.
Violette and the slouchy hare have sealed the deal.
Although the picture is unfinished it keeps on talking to me, more loudly than those before.



I know it isn't going to be 'once upon a time she met her prince'.
And I strongly suspect it is going to be more an excavation of my own psyche but perhaps it could be more widely fruitful than that.

I am uncomfortably straddling two thoughts about my work:
one that I have never been more vainly deluded
and t'other, that I am drawing (no pun) closer to the crux of it and discovering some real fruit.

So it is in faith of the latter thought and in honour of the more frequently appearing muse that I share the whisperings of my heart.
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Hello dear friends in blogland.

During this last long absence I finally found my groove.

Or finally had the courage to recognise exactly where my groove was at!

I am still exploring the terrain but it feels like home…...

and celebrating with some cards and prints soon to be available in my easy shop

hibernation

After Christmas, on my calendar, came hibernation.
A time to let the field lie fallow, to hunker down, eat dumplings, and stay in the moment of cozy.
Not a thought for how long this would last only the understanding that hibernation does have a natural ending.
Mine ended in June!
Wasn't quite expecting that.
And was not expecting it to end in the way that it did.

This was not a dark depression of winter, just a gentle lie down in front of the fire.
A snuggle under the duvet.
A gentle warm bath that lasted a long while.
And when it did end, after a prolonged and gentle rousing it was in full on colour and a sloshing of paint.
I is happy in my summer.
Hope you is all happy in yours.

Holding on and letting go

holding on. recycling the christmas beer bottles into candle holders

This Christmas I realised that consumable gifts from my sons trouble me.
Cause a right old conundrum.
I have a bottle of blue sparkly nail varnish that younger son gave me when he was, probably, 8.
So, 17 years ago.
It has been opened and a little bit used but my instinct with these treasures is to preserve.
The idea of, you know, using them,  using them up causes a flutter of panic in my heart.
Am I alone in that.

letting go…..the beauty in this dirty roasting dish….but not before taking a photograph

I fancy that it stems from the desire to hold on tight to the most precious gift I was ever given......the boys themselves.....the brightest lights in my skies.
Though children leave your body at that moment of birth they never truly depart; you carry them in every cell of your being until such time as those cells break apart and you return to stardust.
They move away geographically and emotionally and the divide becomes wider as the years progress.
It is the natural order of things and a sign of a job well done.
But it hurts.
 A teensy bit.

holding on…to vintage quality street tins to decant plastic packed quality street into

And so those use-uppable gifts and every other gift become symbols of the thing that I wish to preserve and savour until my last breath.
My hoarding, faithless nature will not allow me to use those things.
To use them up is to destroy the symbol.
To destroy the symbol is all kinds of voodoo scary.
On some kind of subconscious level you understand.
I am not big on voodoo or witchy stuff or even superstition.

holding on….by virtue of a photograph

While younger son was home we spoke about words.
Choosing one, overarching word for the year.
Or maybe more than one.
It might not be a word.
It might be a phrase.

I have instead an overarching action; burning these flower candles one at a time by the side of my bed.
A very new and radical action that shows trust in love and gratitude for all of it everywhere, past and present.

letting go…..