Day: January 17, 2017

Art in Our House

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We have quite a lot of art in our house – some of it brought from our previous lives (and quite different tastes ) and therefore some pieces are having to live cheek by jowl with pieces they would never normally want to cohabit with.

In our bedroom we have what I think is a great piece. Painted for me by a struggling artist – he swapped this piece for a sofa I wanted to get rid of – it is an abstract made up of lots of small squares in which you can find all sorts of images if you look at it in the right way.

I can find hens in a wintery yard, hook-nosed man, birds, reindeer..… sorry this is not a good image of it but you, dear reader, get the general idea.

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It used to hang it in my sitting room in a previous life and many a friend has sat on the sofa – obviously not the one I swapped for it – and found all sorts. Mostly they had a wine glass in their hands, but it whiled away many a pleasant half hour or so.

As it was painted for me. So it has a lot of snow in it. I like it very much.

(That cannot be said of my best beloved and my family who with the exception of my very smart, insightful, artistically thoughtful niece, seem to have no inclination appreciate it at all.)

In our sitting room we have some pictures which really, badly needed lighting better and it is amazing what a difference good lighting makes to how a painting looks.

Never ones to go half measures, we set about designing and installing really good lighting appropriate to each picture.

No, of course we didn’t.

But we did buy, from Ikea as it happens, a central fitting with directional lights so each picture now gets its own lighting. It works very well.

But it does show up that the painting of Aunt Jessie needs some attention. Aunt Jessie is some relative of the best beloved’s mother’s family but we have no more details.

 

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Isn’t she an amazing woman?

She used to hang above a mantlepiece in Brussels which could be seen from the street and more than once, a passing neighbour would stop us and say how much they liked to see her as they walked past.

One day soon we will get her cleaned up and the small tear in her mended.

But what needs more urgent attention are the more than 20 pictures which we have earmarked for the small bedroom.

Framed by the BB way back in the Autumn, they are waiting to be hung.

It is a testament to this year’s good weather that we decided to wait until there were some grey days when we weren’t doing anything else to set about hanging them.

As I speak I can see them over my left shoulder, all propped up and anxious to be hung….

Remind me one day to show you all the lovely woodcuts I have found in books falling apart and the hare painting, and while I am it, remind me to tell you about the Japanese images we have got in the kitchen and the two images my BB bought as cards for me to describe our relationship, and then remind me to talk about how we bought the painting by a Brussels painter of the walk we used to do – and it is a snow image, and the boat painting we bought in the Paris antiques market and the painting I bought him when he thought I was leaving him – and he loves best , and the one over the sofa in the kitchen, painted by the same artist who did my bedroom painting – this time I swapped it for a bed…….

 

The Sussex Housewife Syndrome

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There are some days when I realise just what a Sussex Housewife I have become and some days when I see another example of the tribe and don’t like it.

The other day, and dear reader this is my annual moan about the after Christmas donation ‘boom’ to our Oxfam bookshop, there was a woman who brought in some books.

It is not an absolute rule, but more often than not a snitty donator gives crap books and never buys from us.

( Nice donators do too, but at least they are nice about it.)

She was a Sussex Housewife like myself so there might have been some tribal loyalty, but oh no.

We were stashed out with books and I was on my own sorting them. There were boxes, carrier bags, black bags, piles, heaps, crates, of books.

She walked in with a bag of books and handed them to me saying, ‘ I need my bag back and I have more in the car so if you could empty that bag quickly, as I am parked illegally, I will bring the next lot.

I asked how many more she had as we were rather over-filled – as, I might add, she could see.

‘ I have as many as I have and no, I didn’t count them individually before I brought them to you. But as I said, I am in a hurry so could you just empty the bags quickly.’

She might as well have said, ‘You can’t get the grateful charity volunteers these days, no more than you can get good staff.’

All of her books went in a sack. They were some old law books, written on, out of date, unsaleable.

Followed by bags of battered, dated cookery books, browned paperback fiction and a few Jeremy Clarkson’s for good measure.

I was tempted to just hold a sack open and get her to empty them in but of course, we don’t do that.

So, I have spent a lot of the past couple of weeks, practising my sweet smile in the face of adversity.

But just as I am mentally spitting venom at the Sussex Housewife syndrome, I come up short against myself.

This week, my book club is meeting to discuss an intense, pre-war Norwegian book. If that isn’t Sussex Housewife, goodness knows what is.

And to make matters worse, we are meeting in a nice local restaurant and the book title, and subject matter, is Hunger.

No Trace Remains

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Some years ago my best friend and I walked sections of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path and very lovely it was.

She was map-reader in chief and my role was to enliven our walk with snippets from a guide book.

‘As you rise steeply from the beach you will be passing the site of XX Castle – of which no trace remains,’

Now, there were a lot of similar sentences in that book and whilst I am prepared to believe that there were a lot of castles on the coast of Wales, for so many to have left so few traces is rather suspicious.

It is not as if the stone has been used for local dwellings which is often the case with under-used castles, because the local dwellings are usually pebble-dashed bungalows and I for one, am not convinced they have a strong layer of castle stone underneath all those pebbles.

Anyway, I was reminded of this ‘no trace remains’ phrase when we were recently in Stratford-Upon Avon, home of the bard.

Of course there are loads of references to Shakespeare – every second shop is Shakespeare’s bakery or bookshop or something- but not much of a real trace remains.

Yes I know,there is the house where he was born with several engaging guides dressed in appropriate costumes who can point to gloves like those which Shakespeare senior might have made in this workshop and painted wall-hangings like those his mum might have brought as part of her dowry.

And there is a child’s sized bed which pulls out from under the adults’ and its base is a criss-cross of rope with a device to pull the strings taught – from which comes the phrase ‘sleep tight.’ Which is interesting but no one has the faintest idea if Shakespeare slept on something similar.

And then there is the place where the house he once owned stood – now it is a garden, unimpressive very small museum, and of course, expensive gift shop.

But all in all, not much of a trace remains.

Which, of course, is not putting off the millions of tourists which go there to see the merest sniff of a trace magnified into various ‘attractions.’

We stayed in the White Swan which was all very nice and old and cosy etc etc. (As far as I am aware it has no real connection whatsoever with Shakespeare.)

Above the mantlepiece there was a quote written in suitably Olde Englishe script and it said, ‘I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. Henry Vactz. ‘

‘ Well,’ I said to my best beloved, ‘ At least half of that  quote worked. I have never heard of him. Looks like he might have been Czech though.’

‘What?’ he said, ‘ That’s Henry V Act 3.’