My MacBook Pro

Hurray!! Thanks to One to One at Apple Store, Covent Garden I’m up and running – what a relief –
ssswonderful, sssmarvellous as Fred Astaire sang!!

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Drawing & Painting Buildings

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy drawing buildings – until I was reminded today about some work I did a couple of years ago. The Royal Albert Hall and Grays Inn. Maybe it could be my winter project – a drawing a week.IMG_2253 IMG_2260 IMG_2566 IMG_2570 IMG_2571 IMG_2572

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Islington Gardeners go on an Outing

A visit to a beautiful Essex Garden,Ulting Wick. Open for the National Garden Scheme.Look in the NGS Yellow Book 2014 for opening days and times.IMG_4780

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Hastings and the Jerwood Gallery

Here I am with Elaine Partington at Hastings. We met when we both worked at Thomas Nelson Publishers in London. We had delicious fish & chips at Maggies on the beach and went to the Jerwood Gallery. Very impressed by the building and the art on display – Prunella Clough, Keith Vaughn, William Scott, Dod Procter. It’s not allowed to photograph the paintings, but you are allowed to take photos of the views outside.

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New Craftsman, St Ives , Cornwall

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This painting is at the New Craftsman in St Ives. It’s a lovely gallery filled with desirable paintings, prints, ceramics, jewellery and lots more. The St Ives festival starts tomorrow.

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A Few days in West Penwith

West Penwith is the area to the west of St Ives on the north coast of Cornwall and Penzance on the south coast. On a good day – and there were several last week – the sea looks and feels fantastic, the sky is blue and the beaches are white – tiny crushed shells.

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This is the Logan Rock from Porthcurno.

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This is St Levan Church – perched on the edge of the land.

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My new Canon printer/scanner/copier

I do like a helpful piece of technology and this printer is really good – trouble is I feel it’s annoyed with me as I only want it to print/copy/scan. It can obviously do SO MUCH MORE and it keeps trying to tell me this by flashing every image I have on it’s screen. It keeps showing me something called ‘My Image Garden’ – where does all this come from? – has it made a selection? – is it trying to get my attention? Every bit of new technology gets cleverer in a pushy sort of way – soon there’ll be irons shouting at you when you haven’t used them for a bit, or telling you you can’t iron properly – imagine the sort of rude remark the cooker is just waiting to make – ‘let that boil over again’,  ‘why do you always overcook things ‘, ‘why don’t I get to cook fancy stuff’. The list could go on and on………..

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National Garden Scheme (NGS)

Have just committed to an opening in 2014 for the NGS –

Wednesday 11 June 6 – 8.30pm

£5.00 entry will include a glass of wine

All proceeds to the very worthy charities supported by the NGS, so please put it in your diary now! ( What kind of person already has a next year’s diary?)Image

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Getting Started

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At Last! It’s nearly 6pm and I have finally managed to actually put something out there – just a beginning but I am hopeful ……….. how do we start a new work whether it’s writing, painting, making? Do you write your own brief? Just start? And then what? How long does it take – a lot longer than you hope / expect ? 

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Favourite Books

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At Spitalfield’s Market yesterday I found a copy of this book ‘Mr Papingay’s Caravan’ by Marion St John Webb.
I loved this book and others by the same author when I was little – well I still like it. Wonderful cast of characters – Mr Papingay is a sort of early Dr Who. The there is Penny, a prim little girl who sews patchwork, The Lodger has a droopy moustache and is very gloomy – wants to be someone important and always looks on the black side of life, Aunt Muffin who is very bossy, and the Fat Boy who is rather greedy. Robin is a boy who has adventures with them all in the school holidays.

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