The preparations for our trip to Puglia are thorough, to say the least.  And all for just 7 days away!
Last week saw the completion of sun dress number 2 (I thought the fabric had a chic, Italian feel)

…...and also a trial run for our 'Couples Come Dine With Me ' night.
But more about that later, when I have  purchased the main ingredient.

As you all know by now, I have undertaken several interesting commissions this year, but my only regular income is from my kitchen porter job, at the 'Greyhound on the Test' in Stockbridge. I work there every Tuesday and Thursday. I also do the very occassional shift at 'Woodfire', also in Stockbridge. where son Sam is the junior sous.
Two weeks ago I found out that I had not been included in the staff bonus scheme. Last week I had a chat with one of the owners, who explained to me very kindly and carefully why I was not included in the staff bonus, despite having worked there since it started, at just above the minimum wage.
 After this pleasant and uplifting chat, I walked down the road to buy the essential ingredient for our 'Come Dine With Me In Italy' starter.
Always a pleasure to visit the shop in 'Thyme and Tides'  http://thymeandtidesdeli.co.uk/  which is the sister restaurant  to Woodfire. http://woodfirestockbridge.co.uk/

I was after a tin of the best tuna ever, in order to make tonne e fagioli (tuna and bean salad).

Iain the co-owner was at the till, and we exchanged the usual pleasantries as I handed over my money for an expensive but beautiful tin of tuna (£4) and was given 10% off, for staff discount.  A bit of a contrast to the Greyhound, thought I!

If you want a treat one day, treat yourself to one of these!

The recipe for the salad came from my well-thumbed book of the week,

and the bean salad was made for Saturday night.

Mr Cooper ate the tuna and bean salad with relish, his only comment being that I should have made more.  But I don't think it was the ultimate tonne e fagioli and next week I am making it using a recipe supplied by Delia.  And yes, she does recommend that it is served with a 'crisp green salad'.  I will let you know which one has the edge next week.
And for all you people out there who think Delia is a little frumpy, click here to watch her whip up a kebab! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAeO9ul-kbU

Anyway, away from tinned tuna, and onto the training we are doing for our major walks next year.
This week we set out for East Meon, again to do a walk which would end up in a pub.  In order to save money, we decided we would only have a drink there afterwards, not lunch.

East Meon is an amazingly pretty village, and our first point of interest was the chuch.  Mr Cooper took me inside to show me the font, and it is amazing too.

It is called the 'Tournai font' and is made from black Tournai marble, It was a gift to the church from the then bishop of Winchester, and was installed in 1150.
 All four sides show the story of Adam and Eve, and it is beautiful.
 (Here endeth the culture section for this week)

We then climbed the hill behind the church, and set of on a walk which started with beautiful views of the valley, then views of dark clouds, then lots of rain, wet nettles and mud.  The sun managed to come out again near the end, so we steamed as we walked.
 And at the end of the walk, the very welcome sight of the Izaak Walton Inn.

The pub is actually a lot prettier from the outside, but welcomes walkers and is very good value for money.  Mr Cooper decided lunch was a good idea.  He had cod and chips, and I had cheese and chilli chips.  Then a couple sat next to us, with Fred the whippet.  He had his own fluffy rug to sit on, and his owners bought a bag of crisps.  They opened the bag, and gave Fred the first crisp.  After a good sniff at it, then a polite lick, Fred declined the crisp which was then eaten by his male owner!!!!!  This became too much for us, and we had to leave.

Here is a lino print of 'Whippet Expressions' which I made for Rachael's 30th birthday, as her and Ben have a beautiful whippet called Banjo.

If you think this linoprint is fab, I made 5, so there are 4 more for sale!

When we left the pub, we agreed that we would not do what we did after last week's walk, which was to eat 3 bars of choclate between us.  And we didn't, we ate 4 instead! (Hershey nut bar, Snickers duo, a Crunchie and a Diame bar.)  We are planning another walk next week, so looking at the trend, we will be having a 2 course lunch in a pub, followed by 5 chocolate bars!

Just off now to buy some printing paper that will enable me to print photos onto material, so next week I should be showing you the beginnings of my own 'memory cushions'.
 But before I go, I will leave you with a joke from Sam.
'Told a joke at a wedding last night.  Even the cake was in tears' (tiers)
When I complimented him on such a good joke, he replied 'I make puns just for the halibut'.

Here is Sam with his brother John, when they were both sweet.

And now,

I think if Sam told you a joke whilst sharpening his knife, you had better laugh!

I hope you have lots of laughs in the week ahead, plus a sensible amount of chocolate bars!
See you in a week's time.  Till then, eat responsibly and laugh irresponsibly.

Monday morning, never the best time of the week.  Too much 'goodbye weekend', and 'hello hard work'.  But wait, on this Monday the sun was shining……so why not delay the start of the working week, and cycle into Emsworth for lunch, to eat fish and chips and drink Sauvignon blanc?

I put this idea to Mr Cooper, and he said "Right, I'll get the bikes out!"

And this is where we ended up, sitting at that empty table above in the sunshine, eating the best cod and chips I have ever had, plus homemade tartar sauce and fab mushy peas.
If you are ever feeling like a treat, do head for fish and chips at The Bluebell, Emsworth, Hants.
http://www.bluebellinnemsworth.co.uk/

So that delayed the start of the working week till Tuesday morning, where I returned to the sinks at The Greyhound, to hear about all the dramas that had unfolded. Although Sunday evening had proved to be a very exciting shift in the kitchen (flying burgers, flying punches, and a steady stream of expletives) I found that I had also become a drama in gossip-land, as apparently I had walked out, after having realised that I was about the only person to have not received a bonus!
Well, I am still there, and sadly still without a bonus.
 Perhaps my leaving present will make up for that!

But last week I did receive many good things, one of which was an email from Nigel White.
He had preached successfully for the first time, which was when my silk image of the crucifixion was used by him.
Here is the finished image, in my garden, looking a lot smaller than it actually is…………..

……….and here it is alongside Nigel in the Mission Tent, doing what it was created for.

Do please follow this link to find out more about Nigel's work as an Evangelist.    http://www.missiontent.co.uk/

My other creations this week seem very frivolous by comparison.
The completion of my stripy jumper, and also a summer holiday dress, ready for Puglia.

 My life seems always to be a mixture of many diverse elements!

This week started with a definite 'holiday' feel, and it certainly ended that way.
On Friday, my favourite little brother, complete with my favourite youngest nephew came to stay, ready for a day out on the Isle of Wight!

We set out at 8.30am to walk to the station, to catch the train to Portsmouth. Then we sailed over to the Isle of Wight on the catamaran, in the sunshine.

Then off the catamaran and onto the amazing little train, which was once a London Underground train to sunny Shanklin, which was at the end of the line.
Shanklin does have an 'end of the line' feel about it………

………………..but the beach was wonderful,

 We had a great time from when we ate our first lollie (Chocolate Feast for Mark and me, Twister for Jem, and just tea for Mr Cooper) until we left to have Calamari for lunch.  It was like being abroad, eating squid, drinking Moretti and sitting under a sunshade!
Then up the cliff lift, back to the station and on to Sandown.

 We started off there by having a welcome break in the shade in a lovely coffee shop.
Mr Cooper was complimented by the coffee barista on the brightness of his attire.
I was, as usual, overlooked, as I sat next to him, dressed in my lime green dungaree shorts, turquoise crocs, shocking pink T shirt and straw hat festooned with knitted flowers in white and turquoise.
On second thoughts, perhaps the barista thought I was dressing for a bet.
Then onto the seafront, the pier and the beach.  Much busier here, with lots more 'Kiss Me Quick' elements.  But we were on holiday by the seaside, and everything was fun.

After paddling, digging, and getting soaked by big waves, we got on the little train for the last time that day.  Back to Ryde, then back to Portsmouth (inside the catamaran this time) then back to Southbourne, pausing only for a drink or 2 in 'The Travs' where Christian told us the best joke ever.*

We got back to The Gables 12 hours after we had set off, well in need of our delivery of curry.

A week's holiday in one day, brilliant.

I think it is a rather fetching straw hat, don't you?

Well, as there is a week of rain ahead, perhaps it will be a week of more work and less pleasure.
Having said that, it is a very wet Monday morning, and we are going out to lunch!

Hope your week is a good balance of work and pleasure, I will catch up with you after that.

*I ate an entire clock yesterday.  It was very time consuming, especially after I went back for seconds!

Thank goodness for umbrellas!  We certainly needed ours on Friday when Mr Cooper and myself took the train to Portsmouth, to visit the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, armed with our year's pass for £25 (thanks for that, Travelzoo!)
As it was sunny when I woke up, I dressed accordingly.  As the day went on, and the rain grew heavier, I seemed to be the only person in Portsmouth wearing only a summer dress and beautiful blue crocs.  But, thanks to Mr Cooper's foresight, it remained a dry summer dress. (See, I do say nice things about Mr Cooper………..….sometimes!)

If you are able to visit this museum before December, please do.  For in December, the Mary Rose museum is closing for a while, while she undergoes the final stage of her restoration.
The Mary Rose museum is absolutely fantastic!  I visited years ago when she was in the first museum, being sprayed constantly with water.  Very atmospheric, but all a little unclear.  Now, she is displayed so effectively, with the artefacts all around.  We both kept marvelling at the fact that we were seeing a ship that had spent 437 years sunk in the Solent!

History does make you hungry, though.  Mr Cooper really enjoyed his meat pie, chips and mushy peas, and I discovered that the broccoli and runner bean salad looked far better than it tasted.

Then onto another vessel, an M33.  Again, the museum have made this warship into a very effective display.  The ship is just one of 3 warships from world War 1 still in existence.  And now, because I am an artist and not a historian, we are moving away from the guidebook and onto a photo of the M33….

……………….the shower room, complete with soap.

There is an artwork evolving in my mind that will involve figureheads, and we ended this visit by visiting the figureheads in the National Museum of the Royal Navy.  I had visited this museum many years ago, when I was about 8 and on holiday.

 I have never forgotten the figureheads, and little did I  know then that Portsmouth would become my home for 10 years in the future.

Here are a couple who pass the time by people watching, and making rude remarks.

This is one of my favourites, from HMS Albatross.

And this one reminds me a too much of the weeping angels in Dr Who.

She is Eurydice, nymph wife of Orpheus.  HMS Eurydice sank tragically in a snow storm off the Isle of Wight in 1878, with the loss of all but 2 of her crew of 319 trainees.  

If I was a trainee, I would really have had second thoughts about boarding a ship with this as the figurehead

Back to the world of my artistic achievements. Has Fluffy been surrounded in Heaven by what she loved on earth yet?

I am pretty happy with my ideas for flying milk bottles,

But I am still in a dilemma over the mice……real or sugar?

Either way, I am looking forward to getting back into the shed to complete 'Fluffy in Heaven' and also 'Cinderella', which I have managed to avoid thinking about for a long time now!

The book of the week has to be 'Goose Fat and Garlic' which I bought a few years ago now, after a lovely week's holiday staying in south west France.

As a reaction to this 'fast food' nation we have become, I try to spend quite a lot of my weekend cooking.  And last week, in response to 700g of ox cheek that Mr Cooper brought home from Tesco 

( one and a half pounds of meat reduced to £2) I got this book down from my shelves, and on Saturday I made 'La Coufidou ou La Daube Aveyronnaise'  (Beef in a rich wine sauce) served with 'Le Millas Gras' which is a type of polenta.  A really fab beef stew, made richer by adding belly of pork.

 And having re-discovered this book, I now need to make all the recipes in the meat chapter.  I have warned our local butcher that we will be asking for trotters and veal knuckles in the weeks to come.

On Sunday, as well as enjoying our customary roast, Mr Cooper and I went on a walk.  Last week, he announced that he wanted to walk the Pennine Way, but with Kevin, not me! (Rejection painting number one)  My most sensible bro told me to look at this another way, and join in as the coordinator,  taking our luggage from pub to pub, which would then leave me with a free day to fill as I chose.   Sounds even better than walking!  Mr Cooper was very taken with this suggestion, and when I said he had better get in training, even he agreed that a 5 mile walk with Kevin every fortnight was not quite enough!  Hence our new aim, to do a fairly substantial walk on a Sunday.

So this Sunday found us completing our first session, a lovely 6 mile walk starting from West Marden.  Stunning views and not too many ups.  Then we went to the Queen Victoria and ate all the free bar snacks (home made pork scratchings) which were a great accompaniment to pinot noir. Then home for a little lie down with some bars of chocolate.  Walking 6 miles made one of us very tired and both of us a little peckish. (Hersyey's nut bar, a duo Mars and a Caramac.)  So after stuffing them down, we spent the next 20 minutes moaning about how bars of chocolate are not what they used to be.  (Us older people really know how to have a good time.)

We are aiming to increase the mileage to 12 miles from 6.  Goodness knows how much chocolate we will be eating after that!

So a lovely end to the week, and lots to do in the coming one. I hope you are looking at a week ahead filled with lovely things to do, and I look forward to catching up with you again very soon. 

One day I will enter this century properly, and get the proper equipment so I can write and publish my blog whilst on the move.  As it is, here I sit, resistant to change, upstairs at The Gables at my PC, this being the only place in the world so far where I write and publish my blog.
Why is it so late in coming? I have been away for a few days, and away from the only place in the world where I can……….

Before going away, to spend a long weekend with my Mum and my bros, partners and select offspring I visited son John, to see the progress being made at Butser Ancient Farm.  If you ever visit, do buy a bag of food to feed the sheep. They were so noisily enthusiastic (stampeding and baa-ing) that it was well worth the £1 I spent on the food.

Here are John, Darren and Simon in action, I had to use a really quick shutter time for this, to capture the action!

There they are, lowering the latest upright carefully, after Darren has deepened the hole by another 2 inches.
Darren is away next week, in France, which in theory leaves John to be the man in charge.  Darren might return to find a pile of  broken archaeological students, who have buckled under the strain of lifting timber with John.
And no John, breaking the students is like this not the way to gain superiority!

But at the moment, things are running smoothly, thanks to the hard work of the above three,and constant bad jokes, usually involving cheese, from two of the above.

Last week I finished by wondering how my progress would be in 3 things. The 'Mousie Mousie' cake, flying milk bottles and mice, and the National Open Art competition.
Well, let's start on the most positive note.  The 'Mousie Mousie' cake.

I started off by making my 6 coloured and tasty mice……….

………..I always seem to model coloured mice better, whilst drinking gin.

Then, for the first time ever, after having made my 'classic yellow butter sponge' from my Martha Stewart baking book, I covered it with buttercream, prior to icing it with fondant.  And before you say it, Mr Cooper, it was the cake I covered, and not the book!

You may not be too impressed at this stage, but I certainly was!

To complete the cake, after icing with fondant the mice were applied, looking a little apprehensive as if they were at the start of a real game of 'Mousie Mousie'.

A word of advice here, a cake that has been covered with buttercream beneath fondant will not look at its best after 4 hours in a hot boot, plus at least one emergency stop.  But you would probably have known that already. We gained that knowledge through experience!
 After the cake had been re-aligned, we all enjoyed a slice as part of Saturday tea.  And I am not blowing my own trumpet here, but rather trumpeting about the recipe I used.  The cake was absolutely delicious, and well worth the initial outlay of £16 just for the right sized tins.
I will be baking much more from this book.  Thank you Martha, and thank you John.

Then comes flying milk bottles and mice, to surround Fluffy in heaven.  I have started my sketching, but have come to a bit of a stop, regarding the mice.  Obviously it would look pretty non-heaven like to  show the mangled mice corpses that surrounded Fluffy when on earth.  But that would be from my point of view, and not necessarily Fluffy's.  Then I thought, probably prompted by coloured fondant mice, that perhaps when in heaven, mice could become beautiful and edible, and sugar mice!  And why stop there?  What about foil-covered chocolate sardines also to be found gliding around in a beautiful way?  Sorry Fluffy, aesthetics have triumphed yet again!
So it is 'watch this space' again, as my idea takes itself on another direction involving pastel pinks, shiny foil, and wonderful wings.

What about the National Open Art competition?  Let's just say that next year's entry will almost certainly be based on a series of works entitled 'Rejection', and the many forms that it takes.  It has rather been a week of rejection, in several forms.

Let's blow away sad thoughts and cobwebs now, and head to the seaside, and to sunny Hunstanton, my Mum's second most favourite place, to be found on the North Norfolk coast.
It is a resort of two distinct parts, Old Hunstanton with its dunes and gracefully ageing beach huts……

………………………and New Hunstanton with the funfair, public conveniences and rock shops.

Both are brilliant, in many ways.  But I would choose to live in only one of them.

However, whichever part we are paddling in, it is still the same cold North Sea.  The first time Mr Cooper visited Hunstanton with me, he was struck, not by the clarity of the water, but rather its opacity.  For those of us who grew up for many years only knowing the North Sea, this appearance is normal.  But for those like Mr Cooper. who had enjoyed many childhood holidays in St Ives, this was horrific.
Here is a picture of me paddling, wearing my wonderful, new, bright turquoise crocs.

See what I mean? Or rather, you can see, by not seeing.

As we walked from Old to New, I took several photos, many of the cliffs that are crumbling and falling.
This one in particular reminded me of a walk Mr Cooper and I did many years ago in West Sussex, near West Dean.  A walk on which the sculptor Andy Goldsworthy had placed many gigantic chalk snowballs, which then began to weather, change colour, and crumble.

So this cliff-fall, at first a mis-hap becomes a thing of beauty in itself.  Perhaps a series of rejections from this week will become a series of artworks that will reach national acclaim next year. or even just acclaim. Who knows?  I do know that painting and drawing troubling thoughts and experiences is, to me, a far safer conclusion that just thinking about them..
So this coming week I am going to pick myself up and carry on.  You might be joining me in this, or be fortunate in just having to reach for a 'pick-me-up'.  May I suggest a G and T, or a bowl of Tiramisu? Whichever it is, enjoy, and I look forward to being with you in a week's time (approx).

Last week has been a week of many different conversations covering a wide range of subjects.  To start with, just before my Tuesday shift at the sink, I had a conversation with George about artificial intelligence.  Which became, what do you think 'artificial' means, and what is actual definition?
When I got to work with my thoughts on a higher plane, I found I was spending the session showing a potential KP the job.  Though he was an extremely polite lad, I began to wish there was a form of intelligence there that I could begin to understand, and then communicate with.  If there was a wrong way to do something, he tried it every time, coupled with an almost fervent desire to not follow instructions from me. When he left, a waitress said to me, 'He went to college with my friend, he is really strange.'  Which made me feel sad to hear him described as such.  But I don't think life as a KP is the best job possible for him.

Wednesday saw me return to the lovely world of Butser Ancient Farm, to see the progress of the Saxon longhouse.  It is very exciting to see, as part of it is now vertical.

It was very pleasant to be there, chatting to John, Darren and Vivienne as they worked away.  Whilst John was hewing, I talked about the lad from the day before, and the comment that was made, and John said 'Well I suppose that's what people call me' which led to another world of thought.  'Different' is a more apt word, if I were to choose just one word.  'Eccentric', if I was able to choose two.  For many people, as soon as there becomes a difference, labels like strange, odd, or weird are used. Two years ago, I did a lot of thinking about our perception of what 'normal' is, and how vastly different this can be. And also how difficult it can be when your idea of normal differs from many others.
The result of this was an artwork I created, called 'It Depends What You Call Normal'

The fluffy pink rabbit in the drawing is my childhood pink pyjama case rabbit called Normal.  We three each had one for Christmas when we were very young. Simon said, my bunny looks cuddly I'm going to call mine Bunny Cuddles, Mark said his looked sweet, and called his Sweet, and I looked at mine and said 'He looks normal.' And Normal he became.

Returning to Butser, I patted all the saddle-back pigs and fed them some grass, I saw the week old kid, Sorrel, with her mum, and then Vivienne and John took me to a place where the public are not allowed, to see adders basking on a log!  I had never seen an adder in the wild, and I hadn't ever expected to do so, but I am so pleased I did. And more than one, too.

  Then John took me to see the anaconda.

An artwork in progress.  It is awaiting it's markings now.  This is a lunch break project I hasten to add.

Wednesday was also Book Club.  There was no discussion about the book.  Only one person had read it, which had made Mr Cooper a bit more tetchy than usual as I had finished it at the weekend, spending a sunny afternoon reading on my own instead of doing 'weekend' things.
One of the group hadn't read the book, and opted to do something else.  One was a book behind, and was prepared to discuss last months choice, and the other 2 did not yet have a copy.  It was decided to go to the Wine Vaults instead, and drink wine.  The discussion will now take place in September which means I will have to read it again, as I can't trust my memory that much! (428 pages, small print)

Returning to 'normal', apparently being an artist isn't 'normal', which is always a surprise to me, as it is what I am.  And with a lot of people, anything different is avoided or ignored, which means that you do get used to some people you know having no interest at all in what you are doing, and not wanting even to see what you are working on!  'Getting used to' doesn't make it feel right, though. What a blessing to have a blog, where I can force my ideas and images onto people, on a weekly basis!
  And thank you all for continuing to read it.

My book this week is going to provide the base for the 'Mousie Mousie' cake, which I need to make for next weekend.  A few years ago son John gave me a lovely book for Christmas, which was right up my street.

A few months ago, John remarked, a little sadly I thought, that I hadn't made any of the recipes yet.  So another project is to bake from this book. Yellow Butter Cake will be the base for my Mousie decorations. Yum yum.  I think the result might be a little to kitsch for Martha's tastes, but sadly not for mine.  Perhaps that is why I am happiest in the kitschen!

And after a meeting on Friday with Sonia about 'Memory Cushions', I am now spending the rest of summer making examples using my own photos, ready for work in September.  This is a project that I am really enthusiastic about, and I will keep you posted with my examples as they are produced.
 First step, collect some photos.

On Saturday, I did a guest appearance as KP at Woodfire, where Sam is the junior sous.  What a treat, and how different from my last shift at 'The Greyhound', where my patience finally snapped at the way I have been treated at the end of each service by an agency chef.  I became so incensed at the repeatedly thoughtless way that I was treated as a lowlife form, that many expletives were used as I hurled the pots and pans into and around the sink.  The message did get across, and the other 2 chefs became immediately extremely helpful, whist feeding me homemade truffles too.
Expletives and anger, if seldom used, do have a dramatic effect!

So, Woodfire………numerous cups of tea, some of them Earl Grey, breaks outside in the sunshine even though I don't smoke, 3 fun and funky chefs to work with, my playlist coming through the speakers, and avocado and peaches being fed to me.  The only possible draw back was that it did get very busy, but the work is so light compared with The Greyhound, that it is almost like playing at washing up.  I must go back soon, as Tom Barney is leaving soon, which will be such a loss to Woodfire, and to Sam!

4 o'clock, £49 and 3 peaches later, I went to Owslebury to hand over my crucifixion work to Nigel.  I had spent a lot of Saturday saying to Sam 'I do hope he likes it' and Sam saying 'He will', which he did.  Always a relief, and a happiness too, to create something that is what that person really wants.  To make their idea into the image they want is a part of my work that I find challenging and ultimately so enjoyable.

Now, commissions over until I get my 'Seagull' instructions, I am returning to Fluffy in heaven,

Surrounding Fluffy soon will be flying mice, and flying bottles of creamy milk.  Fluffy was extremely found of both of these, but I am sure that in heaven they will be able to exist together without conflict!

And how can I talk about cats and flying objects without thinking about 'Flying Kittens'.  I painted this after a dream in which kittens were flying so happily above beautiful countryside.  I am so pleased to be  looking after it until its owner has room for it (it is a very large painting) and I am so happy that its owner is my niece Rowan, as I have grown so fond of the painting, and I know it could not be going to a more appreciative home.
( I hope you are having fun making music around Europe this summer, Rowan!)

So next week it would be lovely to show you a fantastic 'Mousie mousie' cake, and completed flying mice and milk bottles.  And wouldn't it be fantastic if I had some work accepted in the National Open Art competition.  But who knows what will happen.
I do hope that you all enjoy a good week until then, doing whatever is normal for you!