Family

Ten things for which I give thanks this week…

1 – As touted last week, we were “baby-sitting” Bev and Don’s young Border Collie – Winnie. With my hip grumbling more and more, I chose little and often walkswise and here is Winnie on a long training lead going round the churchyard (our house in the background)

2 – The good thing about walking a dog is that you go places and see things you might otherwise miss…
The bright berries wrapped around thegate pillar of the Old Vicarage caught my eye…

3 – Also this unseasonal Blackberry blossom – you’ve got ot hand it to nature – it does try…

4 – My Grandson, Dillon and his girlfriend, Izzy, arrived back from several months travelling in France, Spain and Morroco, safe and sound , and came over to take Winnie home after just 24 hours. Winnie’s enthusiasm for playing indoor fetch with an unfortunate soft-toy squirrel was inexhuastible and so it was a relief to let her go…

5 – Not on of my textures (though it could be…) but another thing I like to photograph – repeated patterns – in this case a batch of Oreo set Cheesecakes at the factory awaiting boxing up. I’m aware that in the World Heritage site – Salts Mill, the “museum” room, whatever facts and pictures of the mill it has, has not got a single piece of the fabric that was made there and these cheesecakes are destined to be equally ephemeral…

6 – I inherited this pot containing both Easter and Christmas Cactus from my late mother, although neither one blooms at the time of their eponymous festivals. Now the “Christmas” side has it’s turn. I would really like to repot them not so much because they have been in the same soil for decades – Baby Bio in their water keepd them healthy, in fact so healthy that I have had to raise the pot higher and higher because the leaves and flowers are trailing on the ground. I dare not repot them anyway, because the plant is fragile and leaves and more are easily broken off and besides, they are in a terracotta pot which I would have to break since I can’t envisage turning the plant upside down… Perhaps the maxim “If its not broken – don’t fix it!” comes into play and just keep raising the pot higher…

And flanking it are two money trees – one from my late sister – the grove on the right, and my choice of form – a single trunk at left – what’s your preference…

7 – The cat is still holding off it’s predations in the garden…

8 – I have finished my poem for the real-world Keighley Poetry Group which this month is on the subject of Kettle[s]

9 – Since Dillon and Izzy have asked me to teach them to paint (inspired by all the wonderful things they have seen on their travels) I ordered a (seconhand) book which I had but got lost along the way Thames and Hudson “A Concise History of Watercolour” and it has been like being re-united with an old friend… The pictures were (and still are) an influence on what I like to paint…

This one, by the American atrist Whistler, who did great work in England, has the abstract form in all its rectangles whilst still being completely realistic and this has led me to love doing paintings of doors and views through passageways…

10 – manged to fill my Ten Things of Thankful…

Neverland 13 to Mildly Nova 18