Another Monday.

Monday again and the day dawned pretty cold and grey. At the end of the afternoon out comes the sun which is nice....

Picked up 2 unsold paintings from an exhibition. This gets a bit depressing. The only high point was when the traffic warden told me to hurry up instead of giving me a ticket. I was going to smile and say something amazingly witty and clever which would make his day (!) but as he remained stony-faced and glared at the pavement I thought I'd better not in case he changed his mind!

Another exhibition to hang tomorrow at Tunnel End. Fingers crossed again although rather hopelessly.

My Grandad Mac stellar geranium won a first prize at York yesterday but just failed to get the best in show for the second time this week! There seems to be a pattern emerging here............ Anyway, on arriving home I popped him in a 'bath' to perk him up from all the travelling and promptly forgot about him. I remembered him at four in the morning! Couldn't leave him there to get waterlogged so I leaped  out of bed and rescued him to drain and dry off. Fortunately there was no-one about to see me ferreting about in the greenhouse at such an unearthly hour!!!

Allotment images.

A sunny Sunday morning on the allotment.  Although very untidy, it does look  rather lovely and the colours just lift the spirits.

Mick does his strimming in the sun. 

 Please note the wonderfully blue sky we very occasionally see here in Slaithwaite! If only we saw it more often.............

Every gardener need a shed - this is mine seen through the bean poles.........

Aspects of summer.

My tank full of surfinia - the fish were found a new home and I decided to plant up the tank for the summer. This has been jolly successful I think and when the sun shines on it in the morning it is an uplifting sight. The colours positively glow.

I have had a good harvest of gooseberries this year having  picked three lots so far and they are now safely in the freezer for fools and pies. I just had to take a photo of these because the colours are so lovely - every shade of green and pink.

And here I have the first tiny, delicate broad beans in my salad which contains my own lettuce and cucumber as well.

I always grow cornflowers and cosmos - what wonderful, glorious colours! Such unassuming little flowers which give so much pleasure albeit for a short time.

Holmfirth Art Week

 I struggled along to 'taking in day' at the Civic Hall in Holmfirth today with my three pieces for the exhibition next week. Why do I always have to enter three big pieces??? Mick is happily wandering around Cornwall in shorts and a Tshirt and I am wrestling with bubblewrap in uncomfortable humid heat! I requested that my 'Toucan' be hung at the top of the screens. In the past couple of years, my big ones have been at the bottom of the screens and they really don't look good. I do feel that a bit better hanging is in order - we'll see.

New work.

Am quite excited by this. Haven't yet discovered what it's called though. In my experience at some stage in the creative process whatever it is that I am working on reveals its name. I am looking forward to learning what this is called.

The other night when half asleep in bed, I was thinking about some tiny pieces that I am working on and thinking that I wasn't too happy with the texture of the paint. It suddenly came to me that I should mix my paint with sand. I did this and find that it solves several problems that I occasionally run across. The resulting texture is just wonderful and creates whole new ways of looking at a painting, for me. I can only hope that others find this interesting - it always helps if someone is kind............

I sold a small unframed oil today and had the winner of the Northumberland Plate up at Newcastle to top it all as well. Not a life-changing win - I rarely bet more than 50p - but that was nice especially as Tominator started off right at the back of the race but steamed through all the other runners. My jaw was dropping by the end of the race - it was quite something.

The painting I sold was a postSlade one. I've sold 5 of those now. Very pleasing.

Back again so soon..........

Was seduced by this most beautiful of poppies.........

And also have finally raised my 'Glastonbury' flag! It was being saved  for the wedding and I am now allowed to have it back.........

Welcome return of Google!!!

Have had trouble accessing all things Google recently but the wonderful Simon has ministered to the PC and all is right with the world again. If anyone ever has problems I recommend Simon - he is absolutely brilliant when it comes to ferreting about in your computer's innards! Contact me for details if you ever need him.

I am actually going to paint this afternoon - first time in a few weeks. The wedding did take over rather.

I am working on a series of small - tiny actually - abstract oils which I intend to mount together on a board. I find that I am quite excited by this and am looking forward to getting on - so off I go.....................