KAYAK! Sunday 19th June 2011

PADDLING MY OWN CANOE (er.. kayak!)
Step in! overcome the fear!
Find muscles you didn't know you had
On the cool summer waters of the Thames.
You are so silent, I'll always remember your smell.
Whish! you float by but lookout for that rosebush!
You're caught in a jungle, you're up the Amazon!
See that enormous fish? Heron, baby coots,
Egyptian ducks. You think you're me, sneers a swan. Well you're not!
That's borage and that's a spinach.
Wave to boats called Dolly Daydream or
Cirrhosis of the River!
Up to historic Runnymede, your breadth and beauty is great.
Four and a half miles or smiling is tiring!
You're sinking in a lock then you're back up again
Crashin' down the river
Paddling your own canoe (er.. kayak).

 Beautiful Datchet - the launch!

 Messin' about on the river

Coming up to beautiful Runnymede

 Halted at Old Windsor Lock

Team Kayak!

A Song to Sing! 18 June 2011

Laurence Alma-Tadema

If No One Ever Marries Me

 
And I don't see why they should,
For nurse says I am not pretty
    And I'm seldom very good--

If no one ever marries me
    I shan't mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
    And a little rabbit-hutch;

I shall have a cottage near a wood,
    And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb, quite clean and tame,
    That I can take to town;

And when I'm getting really old,
    At twenty-eight or nine--
I shall buy a little orphan girl
    And bring her up as mine.

Buh-rilliant - Natalie Merchant 'Leave Your Sleep' album

Weekend Dad's 4-5 June 2011

 Lovely thank you from work

 Peonies by me - it ain't no oil painting (well, it IS actually!)

 Those BIG Norfolk skies

The Family Swann!

Lovely river view

 Dad, in his finest and looking good

ECCENTRIC! Charleston, Sussex-May 29 2011

The Bloomsbury place and literary festival. Saw Lynne Truss!
A most uncynical day and place, full of  the eccentricities of England and therefore BRILLIANT!
The beautiful, rolling South Downs a perfect backdrop to the 'Howard's End' cottage in that grey. Ooodles of doodles and books and paintings and well, everything Tom and I could ask for on a day out. Garden bursting with colour and sweet natured people just mosing about. Women of a certain age clinging to their books and eccentric dress sense, looking like Telegraph cartoons (I mean this, warmly) and lovely tea and a buzzz about the place. A bust of Lytton Strachey; Vanessa Bell's wonderful paintings (a la Cezanne and Bonnard); Sickert's chair in THE studio that is still alive with light; Carrington's bob-cut; Virginia's room of one's own; the little nowhere station at Southease and a WHITE heron flying like a stork overhead. Another great adventure!
Now, to that decorating - boheme style!..hx

Charleston Farmhouse



Bust of David? (if ever there was such a lovely brother..)

 Me and Nefi-teetee(?), happy to be here at last..

 Virginia's Room with a View

 Ghosts across the pond..

 EM Forster's fish..

Weekend 21-22 May 2011

Colour of the weekend - RED! Jimmy Saville Gardens!

Saville Gardens again - new borders!

Latest bird Art! - Woodpecker-spotted!

Nasturtiums on the balcony

Cookham Dean church, sigh..

A roseisaroseisaroseisarose..

My first Jam (Strawberry) - joy to the world!

Weekend at Dad's 14-15 May

Round the bend in the Fens

 Lovely Houghton Mill

 Art! bunches of Meadowsweet and wild flowers

 Prof Buster McDog

Pheasant! More birds to follow..

Camping, Henley - 29 April-1 May 2011

The forest where red kites live and play
Fine, windy weather for kites!
Fresh air in our lungs
Eeeeeek! say the kites, surfing a gust of wind
Through big, blue sky and vapour trails.
Horse chestnut trees bursting with candles.
People messing about in boats.
Flags and bunting everywhere and the best bookshop.
Baby pigs in muck - or is that us?!
Marvellous you doing marvellous things -
Fetching, fending, frying stuff.
Torchlight reading and candelight warming
Aching body all over in the morning.
Let's walk down a dust trail, its a lovely afternoon
Make plans we'll only do if we want to...

Walk by the weir

Henley at the start of May

Camping at the best time of the day

Tom doing stuff

Art class, from memory

Horse chestnut tree blossom candles