Monthly Archives: October 2016

Bursting With Love

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Sometimes, don’t you just feel like you’re bursting with love? Lots of things can cause it – like holding a new born baby, or being told the most wonderful news when you had dared not hope for the best; or it could happen when you’re out with your husband or lover on an unpromising day, weather-wise, and the sun comes out for you, filling your private little world with the golden shades of autumn. In the latter case you squeeze each other’s hand and say, “Isn’t it beautiful?” and “The sun came out especially for us!” .

I remember a time many years ago when Chris and I took our girls to a Dartmoor beauty spot called Fingle Bridge. The girls had gone off on their own to explore and Chris beckoned me to sit beside him on a very friendly looking log for two. From our comfy vantage point we had a beautiful view of the river and the sun playing on the trees on the other side, but, best of all, we felt it was for us alone.

“I’m bursting with love for you,” said Chris.

No-one had ever said that to me before and I nearly burst with love back.

Last weekend, after having a lovely visit with our son and his wife in Brighton, Chris suggested that we return to a pretty little spot called Friday Street; it’s a place filled with pleasant childhood memories for Chris – his father loved it there. We parked in a forest car park and walked the rest of the way although it wasn’t really necessary to use the car park as we were the only people there apart from the dwellers of the handful of quaint cottages – puffs of smoke from chimneys informed us of life within.

The day had begun misty but, as we emerged from the dark of the tree-lined lane, the sun came out and lit up the forest behind the lake ahead, and the golden green forest reflected on the water like a painting. Still holding hands, we entered the forest paved with gold and we both felt it – we were bursting with love.

What About Rainforests?

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AUSTRALIAN RAINFOREST ART AND AIRBNB

Are there some wood nymphs on the forest floor?

Are there some wood nymphs on the forest floor?

As some of you out there know, Chris and I have been really hard at work over this summer with our “Honeymoon Suite” Airbnb lettings, which have eaten up an awful lot of our time and energy.  Now, with winter just around the corner, our season has finally finished and I can at last get back to being a proper full-time artist rather than a strange hybrid artistic landlady! Of course, come early Spring next year, the new season starts and we’ll be back at the helm with the Airbnb routine, which is actually quite fun, if a bit tiring!  But in the meantime, it’s back to my real work, thank goodness. Incidentally, if any of my readers are interested in our lovely Honeymoon suite for a few memorable days overlooking the sea in beautiful accommodation, just Google “AirBnb Dawlish”, and our place should pop up at or very near the top of the list. You’d love it!

In the meantime, I have full-on work of a solely artistic nature to do. It’s high time that I actually got around to producing a brand new Australian Rainforest series of oil paintings, and I’m greatly looking forward to doing lots of research and assembling some fresh material to get going on this exciting project. And should I tire of painting with greens (perish the thought) I may turn to blue and paint some more of my Aussie seascapes for a change of palette (a change is as good as a rest). I’ve started with a small specimen Rainforest painting, and you may see a few interesting shapes appearing amongst the trees – is that a wood nymph or two?. I reckon so…. Please let me know if you think I’m barking up the wrong tree!

“R and M” – A New Oil Painting for Newly-weds

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ramndeep-and-mark

“R and M” , Oil on Canvas – 9.5″ x 7″

 

 

 

 

 

Poor Internet, an accident and poor health have kept me off the radar for a spell… but I’m back with a strong signal, the fall is now just a memory provoked by the odd twinge in ankle and knee, the cough is less frequent, the hearing is returning and the tooth has a temporary filling. Luckily, I could still paint! Today I finished a small commission fora lovely couple. I hope they like it.

The Cavewoman Diet Nearly Four Months On

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If you read my blog post, “The Cavewoman Diet” (published on the twenty-eighth of June this year), you may well have been wondering how I fared; indeed, you might imagine that by now I have achieved my goal and am currently looking like Raquel Welch and running around in a fur bikini. Well… I was terribly good and and the weight dropped off, one whole pound, and I thought I was on my way. I fought all manner of temptations for at least three days – or was it two?  By then my body had realised that I was trying to trick it into shedding weight and it wouldn’t give an inch! At last, after a great deal of self-denial and blue berries, which were rather expensive (the blackberries weren’t out yet), I must admit that I gave up and went onto another, less severe, diet.

Nearly four months on I feel obliged to report that I had a change of heart regards my role-model, which changed my line of thinking. And speaking of lines…. after seeing my screen idol Raquel Welch at seventy-something being interviewed on television I decided that, although beautiful and less lined than thirty years ago, she was a little too thin and “plastic” for my liking. Besides, what’s wrong with a more natural look?

Yes, I am thrilled to be able to tell you that my current new diet fad has been incredibly successful. The “FAST Diet” is the natural way to becoming the new natural you. Don’t worry, there is no fasting involved, nor, indeed, is it particularly speedy. “FAST” is an acronym for Fatty Arbuckle’s Sister Tubby, not to be confused with “The BBC Diet” (Billy Bunter’s Culinary Diet). The diet requires you to avoid bread, butter, potatoes and all sugary foods including cakes and biscuits, unless, of course, there is nothing else in the house, or you’re dining out, or just plain starving.

My new role model, Tubby Arbuckle, is pleasantly chubby, will outlast Raquel in times of famine, and doesn’t need plastic surgery because her pretty round face is filled out like a moon.

Confidentially, (if that’s possible with a blog), I hope not to become quite as rotund as Tubby or her brother Fatty Arbuckle! And if you’re unfamiliar with the name Arbuckle, Fatty Arbuckle was a silent movie star.

 

Falling….

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All my efforts at trying to fall to sleep last night were futile for a long time – I couldn’t do so because I kept thinking of falling, and how late it was. That always makes it worse.

I tried to think of nice things (as advised by Maria in “The Sound of Music”) and, instead of “Raindrops on roses”, I envisioned Sacha Distel singing “Raindrops keep falling on my head…). After that little surprise (I never think of Sacha Distel in the daylight hours!) the lovely film “Falling in Love” (a more modern version of “Brief Encounter” – but with a happier ending – starring Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro) came into my mind. But that didn’t send me to sleep for I was soon thinking of Marlene Dietrich singing “Fallink in love again…. can’t ‘elp it….”. It’s funny what comes into your mind at two in the morning when you can’t sleep – isn’t it?

In this instance perhaps it wasn’t so very strange though; you see, on my way to bed an hour and a half earlier I had noticed a downstairs light was still on and, in my haste in the dim light, I mistook the bottom step for the floor and I went flying, or falling, to be precise… I went to bed, not with a nice hot water bottle, but one of those frozen bricks that are used for keeping food cold.

Now, after a painful day of hobbling around – I can’t say which is worse, my left knee or right ankle – my feet are up on a chair as I write this blog post. Chris has gone to bed ahead of me, it’s late and now I’ll close. It’s so late that I expect not to be disturbed, as last night, by all the racket in my head and I hope to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

Maneaters Beware

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I had a little laugh to myself today when something on the radio reminded me of a funny conversation which took place in a swimming pool some time ago.

I had just inched my way down the pool steps (well, eight-inched) until I was standing in cold water up to my waist, and I wasn’t too keen on a sudden total immersion, when I noticed several small flies floating on the surface. Strangely, perhaps to you, seeing the dead flies made me quite gleeful.

“Geoff,” I called out to my brother-in-law who was on a sunlounger, “I wonder if you would be kind enough to find me the poolnet.” (Yes, I always ask in a grovelling way when I don’t want to get out of a pool and find the poolnet for myself.)

“I’d much rather catch the flies than swim, I said to Chris, who was in the pool already and very well aware that my alternative to swimming on this occasion was a ploy to delay the full immersion.

“And to think I thought you were looking forward to having a swim with me,” my husband joshed.

Geoff obligingly brought me the net and began to chuckle:

“Well Sally,” he began, “I always knew you were a Venus, but I didn’t know that you were a Venus Fly-catcher!”

I knew he was being suspiciously complimentary, still it was better than being called a maneater!

A Tempest

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Summer is over, it’s official; the October gales are here. It’s hard to believe that just a few days ago we were out in our shorts, sweltering and slathered in sunscreen, as we painted the house!

Feeling chilly last night, I replaced the summer duvet with a winter one and slept “as snug as a bug in a rug” (and felt like a cocoon). Meanwhile something was brewing outside.

This morning I drew back the curtains and was greeted by a boiling sea with huge waves crashing against the sea wall below. Some of the waves pounded the wall with such a force that they escaped their normal bounds and flew high into the air as if reaching for an ephemeral ecstasy before dropping and being drawn back into the cauldron. Other waves didn’t reach the dizzy heights and, thwarted by the wall, returned back angrily to their brethren behind them and beat them in mid-air. Thankfully, the newly repaired seawall held fast.

Funnily enough, tomorrow night (5th October) we’re going to see “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare at the Pavilions in nearby Teignmouth. The play is on for one night only so secure your tickets soon or you may miss the opportunity. If the gales still rage there will be a tempest outside and a tempest inside at the same time.

A Brief Encounter

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Image result for images for brief encounter

It didn’t happen at a railway station, on a train or an aeroplane (although they are perfectly romantic meeting places); it happened at a kiosk which was selling cups of tea and coffee, and it was nonetheless exciting and romantic because the kiosk was in the marketplace of the bustling Devon town of Newton Abbot – in fact, that made the chance meeting even more unlikely and therefore more surprising and wonderful…

They had arrived at the counter at exactly the same time. Their eyes met and they smiled. She knew in that moment that there was something special between them. His face, though unknown to her, seemed familiar, warm and welcoming; he seemed to be neither young nor old – he was just himself. Looking into his eyes, she felt the thrill of his attraction for her. It was mutual. Things like this don’t happen very often – hardly ever – not as strong anyway. She had felt this way only twice before, not including her husband.

“Make that two cups of tea please,” she said to the man behind the counter, then turning to her soulmate, “I take it you will have a cup of tea.”

“How kind of you!” he was thankful that she had allowed the opening. “Let’s have our teas together.”

They found a table for two in the shade and spent an hour over their cups of tea. She was not altogether surprised to find that he knew the village of her early childhood and the area where she had grown up – they had so much in common.

At last they had to part and she gave him her telephone number.

“Before I go I must kiss you,” he said, taking her face in his hands and placing his lips on hers and kissing her meaningfully, if not passionately.

~~~~~

“Are you going to see him again?” I asked intrigued.

“Oh, I don’t know. In one way I hope so but in another I’m afraid to. I’m worried it won’t be the same if I see him again,” she said.

“She” is my ninety-three year old mum and “he” is Brian, an eighty-two year old widower!