There wasn’t just the bonfire, there was the chill-out tent and a massive stack of speakers in the barn. And there was the marquee, where those of us of slightly more mature years ate and drank more than our share, and commented that every track the speakers blared out sounded exactly the same….and did not act our age, though contrived to act a little older than our shoe sizes. It was a good do, Moorlynch style. And a 20 yard walk home.
Ali’s 18th
Never tried drawing the sky from life before. Tricky: at dusk the colours keep changing, and clouds are neither fuzzy nor solid…
It looked a bit like this, just 20 minutes ago.
South south west, at dusk, 29th April
I do not know this cat’s name, but he lives at Blackmore Farm, a fantastic 15th century manor house. His people do dinners for guests sufficiently far-sighted to organize themselves into a group of about 25, and book some months in advance. The guests are entertained in the great hall. They bring their own wine, they are served delicious food and there are unlimited puddings. There are pointy things, suits of armour, and the heads of dead things on the walls, and several cannon balls and mortar shells around the enormous hearth. Sir Cat comes in to check that all is done correctly, and strikes a pose with a nonchalantly lifted front paw.
The Cat of Blackmore
Here is the drawing I did last year, of Sir Cat’s great hall. It doesn’t do the hall justice: on the opposite wall there were far older pointy things than a couple of rifles with bayonets, but there is only so much a person can draw in one sitting without appearing antisocial….
The Hall at Blackmoor Farm
I chucked some branches of cotoneaster horizontalis* in with the chickens. The branches were covered in berries and I thought it might be nice to sit and draw the chickens pecking the berries, everything outside being so frozen it wasn’t muddy for once.
No sooner had I started than Tiberius came up and gave me a through eyeballing. At close range, and while seated practically on the ground, this is a disconcerting look to receive from a large cockerel. I drew him instead.
An Eyeballing by Tiberius, a fine Light Sussex Cockerel
*cotoneaster horizontalis… it’s one of those plant names I love because it just trips off the tongue is such a nice way: coton-e-aster hori-zon-talis. Try it 🙂
I attempted to draw this morning’s swim from memory. Tricky… I am not used to ‘realistic’ landscape stuff and I haven’t got very close to what I wanted, but it was such a lovely morning it was worth a try. At least it might explain one reason why I do not just pop down to the swimming pool.
The water temperature was 7 degrees, the air about -3, the two of us still managed our loop of the lake in about 18 minutes in just our cozzies, though you would have laughed to see us trying to hold our coffees afterwards without spilling them for violent shivering! It’s a phase, it passes…Â (the shivering, not the swimming).
January Sunrise, Vobster Quay
I went swimming yesterday – it was Vobster Quay’s ‘Glow Swim’ – this is what it looked like. A sort of composite image, from memory of course. A deep dark lake with over 100 other people, all wearing little glow sticks, the buoys marking the course all lit eerily from within, and all outshone by the moon when it came out. I was amazed at the colour of the moon for a whole circuit around the lake, until I remembered that I was wearing orange-tinted goggles. Duh! But still, I have put it in as bright orange because that is what I saw. To the left are the branches of the half-fallen-in tree which tries to get me every time I pass it. Who wouldn’t want to be here beneath a Hunter’s moon in October?
The Glow swim at Vobster Quay, 9th October
My apples are redder than your apples! Indeed they are, but my apples are heavily guarded. They are also few in number, and tiny, however, Arthur is a small fellow (at least, when he is next to Percy) so he feels they are the perfect size.
My Apples are redder than your Apples
And if anyone doubts the redness of my apples, allow me to show you one I ate earlier:
‘Red Love’ Apple
