Ailyex vs. Dogboyo

In view of the bipolar weather we’ve been having, ’tis appropriate that my daffodils opened on the 1st snow day of the year. Outside it was like this:

I especially liked next door’s snow-covered palm trees.

While inside it was like this:

Daffodils have got to be my favourite flower, they’re so springy and Welsh and colourful. I mean, just look:

Lovely. And speaking of colour, I splashed out on these beauties from Faith:

their up-turned witchiness completely slays me.

Jan and I went on a photo walk on Barn Hill for the 1st sunny Sunday of the year - can you believe it’s this sunny in Feb? And this pretty in Wembley? Genius.

The last time we came up here it was late summer, 11pm, there was a bonfire and I almost melted my shoes trying to keep warm by the fire. But those trees on the right looked like they were swaying in the twilight, which always makes up for the coldness.

And then to the in-laws and home for movies together.

Pretty damn good. x

The best thing after a lethargic week of impoverished staying-in? One coastal roadtrip to a Brighton guitar shop with the Mister - and his insistence on leaving the house at 8am; Tommy in search of The Dream Guitar; Aaron - who mentioned (hair)’product’ to me at least four times; Khris‘must wriggle my arse despite 3 of us being wedged in to the back of Ian’s tiny car’Lilley and an unfounded hope of beer for breakfast.

I think this picture adequately illustrates how Tommy felt after purchasing this:

After a week of oddness - for me at least - ’twas wicked to just bum around at the beach. First Aaron helped Khris further his pursuit of the Zen Guitar State -

and some talk of Your Mum and what to wear when Thomas married his new guitar,

before Ten Ton Tabby regressed to hurling pebbles at a big orange stone target,

before deciding that a big orange moving target would be more fun!

Then the Great British Heavens opened and we went in search of Jack Daniels. Thankfully I ducked away from the camera when Ian decided to do some pub-stalking:

Despite a small incident surrounding the Upending Of Stash Jars Over Pebbles and Allusions To Poo-Sex, ’tis pretty neat when your boyfriend’s mates turn out to be your mates too. People rock. By the time we wedged ourselves back into the car - with Khris resuming the wriggling and Aaron taking up twice his normal space - and circled the A23 thrice over I was bloody knackered - totally cool.

Love this boy.

Today was sunny enough for me to have an actual shadow . . .

Welcome to Wednesday my dudes! Boy, has it been a strange week-beginning . . . there has been:

1. A weekend of varying intoxication, including communing with nature on Barn Hill - a place completely removed from the surrounding rabble, with at its centre the most serene lilly-padded pool, ringed with frosted-green grass and protective trees, all rendered purple and green-black by the moon. With the campfire going, I watched the patterns gather and the trees grow; giggled with Han until we fell off our log; let the boys wander and Alan discovered that he could talk using his guitar. Lovely. Even after getting the bus back with Alan serenading the poor commuters - but then, the Mr. and I did crash out rather than witness the happy trippers’ Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in the garden . . .

2. TVU finally revealed my results . . . yay for the 2:1!!! As my Dad told me - it’s the grade that says you did well, but spent plenty of time mucking about and abusing your student loan too!

3. Lovely prints finally going up in The Shop. With TVU Contemporaries over, I have four images from the Big series that I’ve shared before:

Nautical

Rebirth

Flight

Mind

They are all A2 poster prints on smooth stock in jewel-bright colour - they look a little dulled here due to compressing them for the web, but they are really vibrant in person. Nautical and Rebirth are currently in there, and I’ll be posting Flight and Mind shortly. Plus, my Rhodia set will be joining them shortly . . .

Happy Wednesday Dudes! x

Dad, the Munchkin and I toddled down to (sometime) sunny Brighton on Tuesday. There was much picture taking . . .

Brighton’s big skies always blow me away - the way the beach front snakes away so flat under the cloud tiers. I’m still getting to know my camera, but I think that when I can capture a cloudscape in all its layered magnificence, I’ll have cracked it.

Given the lack of a summer this year, the absence of precipitation and appearance of a few rays was wondrous, as was this sliver of rainbow:

The collapse of the West Pier was horrid - it looked so forlorn the next day. But four years later the weathered framework has a stark beauty all of its own - the play of the bronze, white and green girders, the repeated curves and criss-cross lines bizarrely beautiful and tragic, standing their last against the unrepentant waves.

Plus, I love how this section of what was the concert hall breaks the surf, like the hump of a bio-mechanical sea monster, shrugging up and down with the tides.

The weather left the beach rather deserted for July, but these carousels looked all the more colourful for the lack of riders.

The gothic lampposts kill me - they deserve killer storms, blackened clouds rushing past and star-crossed lovers in regency dresses declaring their love under them

or sheltering from the storm after murdering their spouses. Or something . . .

This bandstand was beautifully dying away - the rusted greens were stunning against the blue sky. Brighton’s promenade has many fixtures in need of repair, but this one was covered in notices about restoration and plans for future gigs, so hopefully it’ll get the face-lift it deserves.

And we found this little dude on the promenade edging on the way to said bandstand:

neat, huh?

I started today with an appropriately purple-hued breakfast you’ll be glad to know

By rights, I should not like blue. I attended the same all-girls school from the age four to eighteen, and what colour was I forced to wear until the age of sixteen? Blue. Navy bloody blue. In smock, pinafore, rank tablecloth-print summer dress, sock, tie, alice band, swimming costume, netball-skirt, stripy shirt, P.E. knicker, blazer, mac and boxy skirt form. And it’s the official colour of my erstwhile university. But perhaps the uniform-designers were just trying to look our best - navy is often said to be the colour most flattering to pasty English complexions, and as a result turns up on everyone from nurses and city bankers to the Queen - rather like the frequent occurrence of pale pink in Indian culture.

Either way, I have somehow acquired no less than four blue dresses and skirts -

two of them navy, plus this lovely peasant-girl purple one -

This photo is a very un-me white-balance test shot for a uni project - I look so mean!

I don’t really wear much purple, but I love its otherworldly association with royalty and deities - due to the skill and expense of creating tyrian purple dye from the mucus of the Spiny dye-murex snail. Blue shares this association - from the blue skin of divine or transcendental persons in Hinduism to a similar pigment rarity in European culture. Rich blue pigments had to be obtained from the hilazon snail, leading the Virgin Mary’s iconography to include blue robes, after artists chose their most expensive paint to clothe her in religious paintings.

One of my favourite blue/purple paintings is Rossetti’s Proserpine

the treatment of the drapery and hair is so beautiful, like waves in water. Also Van Gogh’s Starry Night -

after copying its moon and cyprus trees many times at school.

But most of all I love blue for the sky, and the endless beauty of cloudscapes, of which we get so many here. My sister snapped this sunset, on a shisha picnic, on the front of Harrow Hill a couple of weeks ago -

Having just decided with Bass Face to up sticks once again when our lease is up, there is something wonderfully reassuring and calming about visiting my Mum’s - the last house I shared with family. My mother and sister live just over the official edge of Greater London, and boy can you tell. My old attic bedroom looks out over green playing fields, private land and woods, and getting there from Harrow involves crossing Weald Common - acres of shady woods full of fond dog-walking and childhood play memories - including one where I convinced my poor little sister that the Ghost Pirate LeChuck was waiting for us beyond the next ridge - no wonder she now has nerves of steel!

The images above are from Mum’s garden this morning, just after the rain. My own backyard may be shared and unloved, but this purple-infused garden is always on perfect country cottage form, with it’s lavender, roses, silverleaf and dandelions a plenty.

Continuing the green green theme, I present Green Face, a cropping from a big sprawling illustration that never seems finished, but I continue drawing out of joy rather than impatience:

For a bigger version, go here ducks.