Swallow

I thought I knew what a swallow looks like, particularly when swooping low in summer to catch midges or flying high overhead, these two motions often being taken to forecast the weather. Yet I never realised what an amazing red patch it has and wonder how much else I am missing in the common sights around us every day.

Cyril Centipede solves his commuting problem

No more travelling on a crowded tube for Cyril.

AUTUMN INSTINCT

 

As soon as the weather turns colder I start hoarding not nuts or acorns but jams, chutneys - and socks. There is nothing so comforting as a drawer full of new fluffy socks when winter looms and threatens.

LADYBIRD

From the back a ladybird looks pretty and harmless but from the front ...

it is a terrifying monster, enough to make any aphid's little green knees tremble with fear.

...

GREAT TIT

When I told my partner I had painted this particular bird an expression of bewilderment passed over his face.

Heartsease

 

This simple flower has a choice of names: the Latin Viola tricolor as well as the more endearing Cats'-faces and Love in Idleness. I wonder why the folk terms are so varied and whether or not they say something about different localities. Perhaps, somewhere, love is perceived as being possible only in leisure moments! Somewhere else people feel the need for solace after an unhappy affair whereas others are more concerned with their pets.

Happiness for all

There are not many news items that can - and perhaps should - make everyone feel cheerful. Yet here is one that does just that. The weather this year has been particularly favourable for butterflies and there is a large increase in their numbers. The gorgeous Red Admiral is now plentiful and lifts the heart with its colour and lively flight.

Horse-fly

Why on earth did I decide to paint a horse-fly?  Out of a kind of superstition in fact. One day, as I was setting out to walk round the estuary in Newport, Pembrokeshire, one settled on the inside of my wrist and started to have its lunch. Quick as a well-trained Girl Guide, I brushed it off, sucked the spot and spat enthusiastically. Despite this, I developed a large, hard, red swelling that looked unsightly for days. I though the way forward would be to create an image of the insect and flick at it to act as a deterrent by proxy. This technique has worked and the little menaces are now eating someone else. I hope it isn't you but, if it is, you know what to do.

GOTCHA

I baited the humane trap with their favourite cheese, put my expensive chocolates on a high shelf and went to bed secure in the certain knowledge I had won at last.




 

 

Self-heal

The Latin name for this plant is Prunella vulgaris which makes it sound too common. I love the older folk term which suggests something of its character, in this case the use as a general cure for minor diseases.  We can imagine the Friar from Romeo and Juliet gathering Self-heal in his basket, recognising it as one of the earth's "precious-juiced flowers."

Strumble Head Lighthouse

On the more northerly stretch of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path is the Strumble Head lighthouse which seems  potentially stormy whatever the weather.  Nearby is an old World War Two lookout station which adds another dramatic element to this isolated place.

Cabbage White

When I hike the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path in sunny weather I am frequently accompanied by two of these butterflies, circling around each other and me in a joyful dance.  Sometimes I think I must exude pheromones attractive to them and wonder if they will discover their mistake before the end of their brief lives.

The Joys of Hiking

I love hiking - or at least in good weather I believe I do. Yet all too often I struggle along, wet outside from the rain and damp inside from condensation with that inevitable blister developing within the first half hour.

The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path dips and rises for approximately 200 miles through fascinating scenery, dropping down to coves and lifting to amazing viewpoints.  Little buses take you, your baggage and your well-behaved dog down to the beach all summer long. Nearly at one end is Tenby with its busy harbour and ancient town walls.

The centipede's dilemma

 

 

 

Cyril Centipede wonders if the monocycle is, after all, the mode of commuting best suited to his personal needs.

 

The snake in the garden

The image of the serpent in the Garden of Eden is a strong evocation of nastiness lurking in paradise. I have wondered what kind of reptile it might be and decided it would be flamboyant yet urbane, like this leopard snake.

POPPY

The poppy is marvellous to look at but has also become profoundly symbolic. Who can forget the final episode of Blackadder where this flower added such poignancy to a comedy series?

Chameleon

 

Do they really turn bright red if they sit on something crimson? Perhaps it is just a gentle blush.

FOXGLOVES

Nothing my size and not much choice of colour.

Black Point lighthouse, Anglesey

 

A lighthouse looks unnecessary on a summer's day which is when we normally see it as tourists. Yet the rocks underneath suggest the dangers to seamen and ships in winter if gales howl and the mountainous waves lash.

European Goldfinch

 

The Latin name for this beautiful bird is Carduelis carduelis. He was a real challenge to my new miniature brushes - sable of course!

Mousy misunderstanding

 

The Linnaean term for the common house mouse is Mus musculus, the second word meaning merely (and redundantly) "little mouse". Yet mice are not renowned Latin scholars and this family has mistranslated the phrase, determined to keep up their reputation for muscularity.

 

Clouded Yellow Butterfly

 

 

Such colours!

Good Neighbours

 

A couple of days ago a new neighbour moved in next door. I asked her in for a cuppa: she accepted with alacrity, seized her little dog and jacket but not, unfortunately, one of her five sets of keys. The Yale lock clicked shut behind her. I phoned our friendly local builder and invited him to do a burglary, a request which he also accepted with alacrity. Five minutes later he was up his ladder, breaking a window and, with an ingenious lever, forced open the old sash window. This noise attracted a small but enthusiastic crowd who offered helpful advice. When it came to the actual entry, we voted for the thinnest amongst us and all was well within minutes. The irony is that, if I hadn't invited her in, she would have been perfectly OK as she had thoughtfully brought with her a kettle and other necessities.  One can be too much of a good neighbour perhaps. Yet it was one way of meeting everybody!

Quay Street

In the area where I stayed on holiday recently were two different Quay Streets. The houses, though varied other ways, were all painted in tasteful cream and beige. I think that, by the sea, bright and strong colours work best and so I have livened them up in this naïf representation.

Mendel's nightmare

 

Some nights Gregor woke up all the other monks with his screams.

 

 

The father of modern genetics, Gregor Mendel is such an admirable figure, growing 29,000 pea plants in his monastery garden and observing colour (green or yellow), skins (wrinkled or smooth) and other characteristics. He discovered precise rules of inheritance - a dream come true. But what if.......

 

Rocks in Dorset

 

When I see rocks like this I try to imagine the volcanic force that caused the upthrust - impossible to conceive of its power.

Not tonight, Joseph

Sometimes a girl just has to say, "No."

My little friends

 

I have recently had a massive invasion of mice. Someone left a bird fat ball in the scullery, the result being a family of HUGE plump rodents settling in. The smell of next door's cat did not seem to bother them in the slightest but, thanks to a humane trap, they are all now happily established in the garden compost heap.

Lizard

 

When I see a lizard I feel that time has suddenly reversed by thousands of years - almost like meeting a dinosaur.

The Daffodils speak out

 

Looming too near our jocund crowd,

Stood Wordsworth, muttering aloud.

No one could catch Testudo graeca when he put a spurt on

 

I simply cannot resist posting some of my drawings and cartoons.  There will be more to come in the future.

Doing something badly

I have taken up drawing late in life and am not very good at it - such a pleasure! After decades of striving to achieve in other areas and feeling disappointed if I fail, I accept that my sketch book will always be mediocre at best. No-one needs to know and nothing is at stake. I can gaze lovingly at my amateurish efforts and colour them with delicious tints, reverting to childish enjoyment despite the outcome. But today I produced a passable thrush, albeit so plump that it couldn't leave the ground, and I'm worried that the process of improvement and anxiety has started. Tomorrow I shall attempt a massive landscape and go back to square one with a sigh of relief. And - sorry folks - there is no illustration on this post for obvious reasons.

WISTERIA

I just love wisteria, particularly as it grows around my neighbours' back door and forms a frame which I can enjoy across our little courtyard. It seems a miracle that each huge yet delicate clump of pale purple blossom was ever packed inside a bud.

MY METER CUPBOARD

The interior of my meter cupboard is terrifying. For years I had never seen it because a pleasant tall man would come, gaze at the meter, click his tongue in sympathy, write something down and go away. But now I never have such a visit and I have to get a ladder and a torch and climb up there, press a little button, squint at the day figures, ignore the one that looks like reading but is the date and another that is, deceptively, the time and finally achieve the night digits.(The two rarely add up to the total given and so I have to begin again.) Worst of all I need to brave the family of HUGE hairy spiders who dwell there and adore being in the limelight for ten minutes, running around before preening themselves and posing egotistically. Perhaps I shall just stop using any electricity at all!

DIAGNOSIS

I've caught an unknown virus: I
would like to drop right here and die,
collapse upon the kitchen floor;
maybe I will but not before
I've ironed shirts and found the cash
for dinner money, riddled ash
from our wood stove, fed kids, dogs, fish -
I sense a mega-sneeze; "Attish ..."
the phone ... it's double gazing.."OO"
I started so I finish. Two
bonus explosions, she rings off;
I shiver, ooze, drip, shake and cough,
my nose is sore, my legs aren't there,
I've this strange feeling in my hair
as if it's turned to drowned sheep's wool
or strangling tentacles. I pull
what's left of me together and
prepare a tray with clammy hands;
broth, beer, asparagus souffle
for him who's been (since last Tuesday,
nearly a week) confined to bed.
"Poor chap," old Doctor Watson said.
"He needs light food and lots to drink,
plenty of rest and care. I think
he's down with one dread ilness you
will never suffer from - Male Flu.",

FACT TO FICTION TO FACT

I have a lovely cast-iron stove of French origin, delicately wrought and capable of giving off a marvellously cheering warmth. However, yesterday I worried that, in her temperamental fashion, she might also be exuding carbon monoxide and so went to my local store for an alarm/indicator. The owner told me that he had sold hundreds recently and had none left because of an episode in Coronation Street where there was an incident involving this deadly gas. Here is a prime example of fact influencing fiction which then influences fact in the form of supplies in shops. Yet, five ticks for the script-writers and five also for the elegance of my Gallic friend.

Plastic Bag Faff

Otherwise known as PBF, this is the term given to that process by which you peel off a plastic bag at the fruit counter in the supermarket and spend the rest of the day trying to get it to open. Firstly you prod at the sealed end before transferring your attentions. Next you fiddle pointlessly with the correct part until someone suggests you lick your index finger and thumb. Now you have a damp bag to contend with. When you finally succeed, night has fallen and you have forgotten what you wanted to buy to put in it. Then you remember and insert the apples, realising with a sudden pang that you have ripped the bottom with your struggles and they all drop out, bruise themselves and roll across the floor.
PS. I use the pronoun "you" but I never see anyone else suffering in this way. I am alone in my pain. Where are you all, you PBF victims?

VERY BRITISH ADVICE

Now that a thaw is forecast the powers-that-be have some instructions for us which will help prevent flooding: build a snowman! It seems that these constructions will melt more slowly and ward off distaster.  I calculate that we each need to make thirty to help the situation and who but the Brits would dream up such an idea? Here is one toddler doing his bit!

My one New Year's Resolution

Drink better quality wine.

P.S. So far I have kept it!