Ten days since my last post.  It’s been a quiet time, you see, with a blank canvas on the easel (well, not blank exactly but we’ll come to that) and a largely blank mind along with a mostly empty to-do list.

Things hotted up these past three days with a visit to IKEA in Cardiff, a provisioning trip to Swansea, and the annual trip to Neath Abbey to take the little silver Ford in for MOT testing.  All accomplished successfully, even the IKEA adventure.

I was proud of Graham there.  We’d gone with the intention of buying pseudo-wood laminate for the second bedroom floor.  I knew there was something wrong when I was sent off to find a chair while I waited.  Some little while later, when I’d got bored, I made my way back to the aisle between the towering storage racks to find him with a sample of every type of laminate they do, fanned out on the floor in front of him.

“Wassa matta, chook?” I asked.

“Well, look at them.  They’re all rubbish and I can’t choose between them.”

“If you feel like that there’s no choice at all.  Put ‘em all back and we’ll have a re-think.”

“You may be right.  Give me a bit longer, though.  See if you can find a place to sit down again for five minutes.”

Isn’t it astonishing that a furniture store has so few places where customers can rest their weary bones these days?

So, anyway, he put them all back and announced that laminate wasn’t for us.

“Too cheap and clicky under foot,” he said.  “I’m sorry to have wasted our time like this.”

“It’s not a waste.  You’ve reached a decision and that’s a good thing.”

On the way home I asked him if he’d decided what we would put down in the two main bedrooms to replace the last of the old carpet we inherited with the house.

“I don’t think we should put cork down,” I said.  “Too much like hard work, and not really bedroom friendly.”

“No.  You’re right.  Looks like it’ll have to be carpet, then, and after all the bad things we’ve said about dirty, smelly carpets.”

“Not to worry.  At least it’ll be our dirt and our smell.”

So, back home, a welcome cup of coffee and a late lunch of hash and eggs cooked by Graham.

“I don’t think I’m as keen on IKEA as I used to be,” Graham said.

“Ah.  Had to happen.  Pass the ketchup, please.”

Finally, returning to my painting, I took a long time bringing up the work in progress to the point where it had totally and absolutely failed to please, gave a big sigh, and scraped all the paint off.  Then I gave it a light coat of titanium white overall, using its translucent quality to my advantage so the main landscape and sky colours show through.  And it’s been sitting on the easel drying off ready for a second go.  That’s one colossal advantage of oil painting on canvass — you can make as many false starts as it takes, and it’s always easy to recover.

Starting over with a new house and a new hill

So, ten thirty this morning, after a splendid cup of Graham’s special coffee, I stood in the kitchen doorway and started in on thinking about painting.  Of a sudden, I cast caution to the wind, utter a heart-felt “Oh, phu*k it!”, stalked into the study, picked up a brush, loaded it with a good fat indigo, and smacked out the outline of the first oil painting I’ve done in years.  When I started my right hand got a fit of the trembles, which could have discouraged me, but another “Oh, phu*k it!” and the support of my good left hand held the brush relatively steady to finish the outline.  By which time the tremble had gone and I had the strength to go ahead and block in the darks so that I can bring them to life with a nice juicy impasto later in the process.  By gosh and golly I’d forgotten what fun oil paint can be!

House on hill -- stage 1

A short break, and I was back at the easel, blocking in the foreground and now, as the evening draws in, I’ve finished the sky and started on easing the features of the foreground.  I’m having fun!

House on hill -- stage 2

Tomorrow the fun will continue…

This morning to Graham’s mother’s for a short visit bearing fresh cake from Morrison’s.  The poor old dear has been unwell for over a week, having contracted some kind of bug that a local hospital doctor suspected came from foreign parts, insisting that she must have been abroad recently.  She hasn’t, but she did spend an afternoon in the company of an old friend who’d just got back from Australia, calling in at several tropical places en-route.  These old folks seldom take the precaution of travel shots so our suspicion tends to that direction.

Anyway, the old lady is more or less over it but very, very tired.  And yet she’s determined to go off on holiday herself at the weekend.  Graham is worried but there’s nothing to be done about it.

And then, home, feeling rather weary myself.  I think I shall give foreign travel a miss this year.

Just got back from the cardiologist.  “You’re doing fine,” he said.  “Our job now is to keep you fit and well for the next 10 or 15 years.”  “Sounds good but make it 25 and we have a deal,” was my response.  And he didn’t even tell me to stop smoking my 15-a-day.  Sensible chap.  Sensible chaps are so rare these days.

The only trouble now is that I shall have to take painting and/or writing seriously so as to keep the old marbles rolling around happily for longer than I’d thought would be the case.

This may be one of my first painting subjects, when I’ve thought about it for a while longer:

The house on the hill

And now I shall put my feet up for the rest of the day.  Fish’n'chips for dinner… yummity scrummity!

I woke in time to greet the sun.  From now on, hopefully, I shall be able to sleep in a little later each day.

To Swansea this morning early.  Strangely quiet, and with a number of closed-down shops.  I needed to get to the bank, and we needed to stock up on coffee beans, both of which were accomplished.  Then to Sainsbury’s and home via the petrol station, filling the tank in advance of the likely price hike after tomorrow’s ‘emergency’ budget.  It’s likely there’ll be a steep tax hike on wine and ciggies, too.  I’ll give up the ciggies but the wine will continue to flow.  It cost just over £40 to fill the tank on the Fiesta.  Just doesn’t seem possible, somehow.

And now, filled with chicken soup, olive bread and a mint choc-ice, it’s off for an afternoon siesta behind closed blinds.  It’s fiercely sunny out there.

Tuesday June 22, 2010

I hate to have to say it but the emergency budget seems to be balanced. I’m happy to see that pension increases are to be properly increased after all this time.  It’ll not make me love the Tories any more, but it’ll not add to my dislike and distrust of them.  Of course, it’s only an interim budget.  The real one will come in November, giving them plenty of time to cook up an evil brew.

Hey ho.

Graham’s spent his day constructing some very neat boxing for the new plumbing in the downstairs cloakroom.

Another lovely sunny day.  Meat balls and spaghetti for dinner.  Second glass of wine settling in nicely.

Hospital appointment with a cardiac consultant tomorrow.  It’s good to have a bit of dread in one’s life.

“Dunno.  And we don’t have your journal to check any more, do we?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, think on.”

“Is that a hint?”

“Take it any way you want.”

So I looked at ‘week to view’ diaries in the shop.  All reduced because we’re halfway through the year.  They used to do ‘half-year’ diaries, starting in June, and it may be that they do them still.  Not in my easily reachable shops, though, and not on eBay.  Nor Amazon.  Couldn’t bring myself to fork out £5 when I knew I’d be leaving January to most of June empty.  Waste of paper.

So… here I am again.  We’ll go on calling it a journal, but it’ll be more of a diary of happenings.  And on days when nothing happens, the page will remain ‘intentionally blank’.

The lawn is well established, looking healthy and green in spite of the clover that came with the grass.  We had thought of using a systemic weedkiller to get rid of it but found out just in time that it’s almost fatal to treat a newly laid lawn and that we must wait until autumn top dressing time before we apply any kind of herbicide.  No matter.  The lawn is still a joyful sight, and Graham’s care and attention are clearly evident.

He’s made a real garden out there, with a small rockery in one corner.  Very laid-back and stylish.  It’s made an impact on our neighbours, several of whom are irrigating and rejuvenating their front patches, which look tired and jaded by comparison.  But they love Graham dearly, and never fail to comment favourably on his efforts.  This needs a photograph and I’ll see if I can’t make one tomorrow or sometime very soon.

Me, I’ve been spending my time watching documentary videos on painters and artists, seeking to find a good starting point for my future painting efforts.  I’ve bought a new studio easel and a good supply of oil painting materials and they sit in a corner of my study urging me to action.  I’ll get going shortly, but I’m still not sure of my initial approach.  It’ls not likely to be pretty landscapes, that much seems certain.  Landscapes possibly, but not pretty ones.

I have a vision of the table in our living room during the early to mid 1940s, on a typical dark evening with the blackout curtains drawn and a shawl hung over the centre light.  The wireless plays in the corner by the fireplace.  A miserable fire glimmers in the cast-iron range, kept to a minimum as fuel rationing dictates.  It may be that I have a need to paint memory pieces of such scenes.  It rather depends on the quality of my memory for visual things rather than shadowy emotional impressions.  It’s not impossible to do emotional impressions from memory but I can’t quite see the way just now and I really don’t think I want to paint shadows.

I bought two DVDs of movies I’ve found inspirational in the past.  First was ‘Lust for Life’, with Kirk Douglas as Vincent.  It inspired me mightily when it was first released in the cinema and I visited the Granada North Cheam each evening for the first week.  Now it feels shallow and over-acted.  The paintings still leap out from the screen, though.  The second was ‘The Horse’s Mouth’, which I loved originally and which I find to my delight is still a jolly romp through an artist’s life.  I loved it.  Somewhat strange to find fiction more satisfactory than fact.

We discovered a super garden centre over at Pontardulais, complete with a grand lake (with lilies and high fountain) and a more than adequate restaurant.  There’s even an outdoor dining area, designated for smokers.  That’s civilised, providing you ignore the silly people who walk through glaring and pretending to cough.  I fail to understand why anti-smoking folks seem to think they are excused good manners.  Howsomever, we’ve paid two visits so far, acquiring stuff for the garden.

The front garden is just about finished now, there are sundry pots and containers about the place, and the back garden is well on the way to being weed free and ready for an autumn make-0ver.  Graham is just about ready to decide what kind of shed we shall buy as a workshop and the little silver Ford is looking forward to a winter under cover.

Other than that it’s been beautifully sunny and mild, excepting a couple of half days when the weather took time off for good behaviour, going all sulky and grey and even pretending to a little rain at one point.  You can’t blame the weather for needing a break.  I for one can understand the need perfectly.

Matters:

Old stuff: I shall leave this site up and spinning with all the archives for as long as WordPress keep going.  Similarly, my other site, with all the online stories and poems will keep on keeping on.

New stuff: It turns out that WordPress rather likes a user to keep ‘active’ if the account is to be kept open.  This together with the feeling that I ought to turn out a monthly newsletter update for my friends causes me to think in terms of writing a “we’re still here, and we’ve been…” entry somewhere during the first few days of each month;  just a list, you understand, not a fully formed journal entry.

Email: I’ll keep the existing notification going on a monthly basis.  I can’t undertake to enter into regular email correspondence, though.  I just don’t want to sit here for hours of every day.  I need to get a new life going, away from my desk.

Kittens: It’s extremely unlikely that I shall ever undertake the care and responsibility of a new cat.  Should I do so, however, I’ll let you all know!

Future: Who knows?  I’m planning on spending this summer sitting quietly in the garden with a book or six while Graham finishes the house and garden project about my ears.  I currently have no urge to do anything creative.

Finally: It’s already been said:  “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Back when my journal was still squeaky clean a dear online friend told me I’d have all the support I needed until the time came when I’d had enough.

That time has come.

I’ll probably be back, sometime.  For now I’m knocking this on the head.

I’ll tweet when I have something to say but for the meantime, this is a sad, heartfelt goodbye.

Thanks for reading.

I’ll not claim to have bounded from my bed all joyful and rejoicing in my resumed freedom.  I don’t really do much in the way of bounding these days.  But I did walk down to the kitchen feeling pretty good for an old guy in need of a wake-up coffee.

The good feelings lasted throughout the morning and right through my afternoon nap from which I woke without a trace of congestion.  As the evening proceeds I can feel a slight tightening in my nasal passages but it’s so minimal I’d not normally notice.

With luck and a following wind I am pulling free of the gunge that’s tied me down this past week or so.  Which is good.

The only trouble is that now I have time to think again and to ponder the activity I need to adopt as a creative outlet.  Bother.

I oughtn’t to complain.  This is my first ever serious attack and some poor souls suffer for years and years.  But I give fair warning that if it ever comes back I’m going to nag the doctor rotten until I get serious treatment for the condition.

So that’s been my life for the past few days.  Revelling in the sun.  Gazing at the sky.  Listening to the birds singing.  Sniffing menthol and eucalyptus every night.

Graham’s now finished the levelling and grading of the ex-lawn and is hoping for rain to give it a good soaking and settling before we order the turf.  I think he reckoned it’d be easy but it has turned out to be a major task.

In my quieter moments I’ve been listening to English music of the summer kind — Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius…  Makes me feel good.