
Merged,
Me and he
Forty years together
Him and me
Us.
Blue and brown eyes
Beard and bare face
White hair and brown
Smile and frown
Friendship, partners
Together.
Thinking of you
And me
Life sentences
Words
Time.
New paintings and regular art updates.

Merged,
Me and he
Forty years together
Him and me
Us.
Blue and brown eyes
Beard and bare face
White hair and brown
Smile and frown
Friendship, partners
Together.
Thinking of you
And me
Life sentences
Words
Time.

Self portrait, abstract face, imagined radio telescope, contrast, thinking, list, try to write tags as a blog, imagination staccato, broken, poem lacking poetry, no rhyme, anxious, calm? Satellite, image, lost memory, solarize, a brief history of what? Experience and experiment, conscious, concentrate. Observe words, expected explanation. Nonsense. Uttered. Rambling, waffle…

Coffee with sweetener, cream and whisky.
I don’t take sugar, which makes it harder to float the cream on top of this drink. The whisky is only a single measure of a blended scotch. The coffee is a decaffeinated instant coffee. If I had some in I would eat a sweet mince pie with it. It makes me feel like Christmas is on the way. I remember when I was first allowed one of these on a family trip to an Indian restaurant.
I sometimes have it without alcohol, it’s not always what I want to drink, but this is a treat. I think as the weather has got colder I’ve started to have more comfort food. I must watch my weight.

I placed this skull inside a roll of sellotape to give an idea of scale. It’s sitting on an A6 sketchbook. I think we found it on a walk about ten years ago. I think it’s a rodents skull but the jaw is missing. I have it in my office room and use it when I want to do a still life (death)… A memento mori?
What is death, what happens when we die. To be left as just the bones. Oh sorry, getting a bit maudlin.

I need the seaside, it’s been a couple of months since we went and I really miss it. I want to see the big blue sky. The blue or grey waves. Stormy, misty or sunny. I don’t care.
I like being beside the sea like it says in the old song, I’m not really bothered about being on it. I don’t like the motion of the ocean.. Up and down, around and down. Waves, breaking over the boat.
Yes, I need to go on a trip along the coast, taking in the scenery. Looking at the boats, feeling the breeze.

Memory of a visit in 2017 to a cafe in Prestatyn, Wales. It popped up on my Facebook page today. I remember the place, really interesting, there were lots of houseplants in the window.
Sadly I don’t know if it’s still open after 18 months of covid. I hope places like this have survived, but there have been so many problems that we have all suffered. I will try and call in next time we are over there.

Shells
Mussels
Remind me
Of the beach
The sea
Washed by waves
Crushed underfoot
One day you will be sand.

Random inflated lobster seen three years ago at Shipley in North Yorkshire. It was a giant of the species. I think there was a food festival on? But as Shipley is well inland I don’t think it was from a fishing fleet!
I love the two wheel cart it sits on, presumably to move it around? Would it have been in a parade of giant shellfish? I don’t know… Crabs moving sideways, Oysters opening and closing, massive pearls shining in the sun.
Bright red, ike a post box. It must represent a cooked lobster… Poor thing…

Ripples remembered on the beach at Rhyl. Memories of walking on that beach as a child. The gently sloping beach would allow you to walk in shallow water as the tide came in or went out. I remember walking over those ridges that were quite hard, my little feet could feel them, they don’t flatten as your weight goes onto them if you are a child. Rhyl beach is long and wide when the tide is out. When I was small I wandered off to paddle in the sea. But when I turned round I couldn’t see my family anywhere. It was before I found out I needed glasses and it was only a kind person who took me to the lifeguard station where they used the tannoy that helped me to get reunited. On the same holiday I think I wandered into someone else’s caravan because it looked like ours? I must have been about six as I got glasses aged seven.

In about 2006 and 2007 I painted several murals in the Arnold Bennett suite of the Leopard Hotel. It has appeared on Britain’s most Haunted on TV and until a couple of years ago was still open. Now no one seems to know what is happening with it. I’m sure it still needs a lot of work doing on it. No doubt my murals will get painted over if it is refurbished. It’s sad, because for a few years the place thrived. But there was also bad luck there. I wish things coukd be better for it. X