Face

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…

My treat, Irish coffee

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.

Found, tiny skull

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.

Wanting the sea…

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.

Teddy bear and Teapot Cafe.

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.

Lobster

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

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.

Will the Leopard reopen?

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