Two soups

What makes you laugh?

Have you ever seen the “two soups” sketch on the “Victoria Wood as seen on TV” sketch show?

It stars Julia Walters as an elderly waitress.

Two diners are seated at the front of the set, chatting and choosing from a menu. The waitress comes out of swing doors at the back of the set, apparently the kitchen. She is white haired and elderly, she slowly stumbles towards the diners. She takes their order and licks a pencil and proceeds to write it down. I can’t remember all the dialogue but it is funny. The decision is they will have “two soups”.

A bit more conversation happens while the waitress totters off to the kitchen, she is very wobbly with age.

After a wait she comes out of the kitchen carrying two bowls of soup, one in each hand. They are held loosely and because they are sloping the soup is gradually pouring out of them. She approaches the table and the bowls are clearly empty. She plonks the dishes down on the table. “two soups! ” she proudly announces.

It’s hards to explain but it’s so funny!

Losing my marbles

I collect all sorts of things, and today I remembered I have a bowl made of buttons glued together, inside it is my marble collection. I need to clear the bowl out, it’s very dusty and some of the leaves from the plant above it have fallen in over the winter. I can’t wash it because it’s held together with PVA glue. I’m going to remove the marbles, (hopefully without losing them), wash them and dry them then put them back in the bowl.

So why am I writing about this? I guess it’s just that I collect all sorts of things, perhaps I should get rid of things? Maybe it’s a trait about being an artist, gathering shiny objects. I guess I’m a bit of a Magpie.

Reflected in water

Morning, and I see the sky reflected in my washing up bowl. Two bowls gleam in the sunlight, and Christmas cacti stream downwards towards the bowl. Their flowers are still in bud, some have already flowered. You see how things are not as light as we imagine them. More mid tones than bright ones, only real highlights are on the bowls. Indoor plants help me stay happy….

Shadow

I saw this as a little dalek (it’s an alien from Dr Who) which is a BBC sci-fi series that started in the 1960’s. Its actually a washing up bottle with the cap up! It’s going to ‘exterminate’ grease and food waste. The windowsill is covered with indoor house plants, I like the curves of the bowls and their fawn colour against the blue of the tiles.

Bowls

It’s that time of year, who said “the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”?

A glut of pears, a bowl of acorns and a plate of conkers and pinecones. If we were hunter gatherers this would be a bountiful time. Nuts and fruit. Perfect.

Nowadays the squirrels eat the acorns. Carefully burying them in caches in the woods to eat in winter, and creating baby trees in the meantime. Children harden conkers in vinegar and play Conkers with them. Holes are drilled through them and a knotted string is threaded through. Each child takes it in turn to swing their conker and try and smash another child’s one. If they succeed they can call their conker a ‘one-er’ smash two and it’s a two-er etc. Until the winning conker has smashed all its opponents. The last bowl – of pears? Well they are nice, poached with custard or cream, baked in a pie or even a cake, and apparently you can eat them on a pizza with gorgonzola cheese!

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Objects

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I wanted some objects to add to my new bathroom which had been painted in a lovely sky blue. The green and gold bowl is glass made at the nearby Portmerion factory in Stoke. the cats head was from a friend, I dont know its origin. I placed it above the bowl to look like it was lapping. The blue bottles are an old medicine bottle and an old gin bottle. The yellow glass bowl came from a place called Amerton farm, the small pinky bottle with a stopper was from a jumble sale. Finally the brown and turquoise bowl was a raffle prize. The fern is one I grew before we had the bathroom done, it had to come back in. I do like the combinations of colour.

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