Dust if you must............

My Mum always said 'a clean and tidy house is the sign of an empty life', meaning that women who 'just' did housework, had nothing else to occupy their minds and bodies.
I reckon she was right. The farm house was cleaned sufficiently, but was seldom tidy, because there was always so much else for her to do. She belonged to a generation where women were not expected to partake in gainful employment and despite the fact that, once married, she never had such outside employment (to say she never worked would be just plain wrong) she always had much to do outside the life of a housewife. Whether it was knitting clothes for the children of countless friends, baking cakes for various village events, training sheepdog puppies for Dad, or just helping out on the farm, her days were full and happy.
I'm afraid my life (and my house) are much the same............

Anyway, I was reminded of her, when I cam across this poem by Rose Milligan:

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there,
With sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go - and go you must -
You, yourself, will make more dust.

Well I never.....................(well, actually, I did)

You may have seen the occasional post about my timid footsteps into the world of handmade costume jewellery.
Well, it's taken off rather well, and I now suddenly find myself with an internet shop!

If you want to keep up with what I'm doing, design-wise, you can find a link to it down the right side there.......
At the moment, I'm only selling to the UK, but if you're elsewhere and want to buy something, just contact me, and we'll make arrangements...............

I suppose now I've opened a shop, I've got no excuse to not spend hours in my workroom.................:) and spare time is something I'm about to have plenty of, as next week I'm off to hospital for some quite major surgery. So if you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know why!

Book Review - The Devlin Diary by Christi Phillips

Two murder mysteries and two love stories separated by more than 330 years. Two tales that are linked inextricably.
In 1672, a vicious killer stalks the court of King Charles II, inscribing his victims' bodies with mystical markings.
In Cambridge in 2008, a Trinity College professor is found dead, the torn page of a 17th. Century diary in his hand.
The two tales are written concurrently, but in such a way that they are not confusing, and you move seamlessly between the two tales as they begin to converge.
There is a slight, almost imperceptible difference in the way the two stories are written, and this helps you to keep them separate in your mind.
This is a well-written book, based loosely on known facts. It is a fast-paced narrative, and altogether, a most enjoyable read.

It's a sequel to Miss Phillips' 'The Rossetti Letter'. Think I shall have to go and seek that one out.......

Rating: a well-deserved 4/5

Antony Gormley

And while I'm in an artistic mood, how about my favourite modern sculptor? Antony models his figures on his own body, which gives them an incredible sense of life and realism. But there's so much more to his work than just the accuracy of his portrayals. The location of his figures is every bit as meaningful. This is best shown here:

This is Another Place, where his figures stand, looking out to sea. Search the internet, and you will find literally hundreds of photos of this installation, taken at all times of day, and from all different aspects. Each one seems to portray a different emotion and point in time.

Of course, Antony is best known for the remarkable Angel Of The North, which really needs no explanation or description



Probably my favourite - at least as far as atmosphere goes - is Sound II, in the crypt of Winchester Cathedral. When the crypt floods, as it often does, it imparts a very surreal stillness to the whole scene.



And now we have one locally. Hundreds of old nails taken from the restoration of Canterbury Cathedral, have been transformed into a 'floating body' by Antony, called Transport. Again, it is located in the crypt.



I could go on posting pictures of his work all day, and still not give it justice. If you're not familiar with anything other than the 'angel', I suggest you look on the web - there's hundreds of pictures, plus he has a web-site too

Time for another of my favourite poems.....

......by my favourite poet, George Gordon Byron.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

(It is known, that this poem was about his cousin, Mrs. Wilmot, whom he met at a party in a mourning gown of spangled black.)

Favourite paintings

I've always had a love of art, studying it at school, and later at art college. Can't paint now, as my wrists make my hands too unsteady, but it doesn't stop me loving fine art.
Thought I'd share with you some of my favourite paintings. I'll warn you though, I'm not one for realism and the old masters.


First up is Jack Vetrianno 'The Singing Butler'. I love the sense of wind and cold and movement. It's also quite a romantic notion - dancing on the beach, while the butler sings, and the poor maid catches her death of cold!



My friends Pat and Peter (The Old Black Dog, Uplyme) have this hanging in their dining room.

Next, we go to Salvador Dali, but not one of his surrealist weird things. This is 'Christ On The Cross Of St. John'. This used to hang in one of the classrooms at my school, and, although I'm not a Christian, it has always had a profound effect on me.............


Edward Hopper - 'Nighthawks'
If ever there was a picture which depicted loneliness, it is this one. Most people have seen it, but few know what it is - either in this form or one of its many parodies.



And talking of parodies, this is probably the best-known of the 'Nighthawks' parodies. This is Gottfried Helmwein's 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams'. Again, the sadness in the picture is almost tangible.


Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and James Dean - all great talents sadly missed.

More later.............................

More Jewellery

Finally, I feel like I'm beginning to succeed at this. I'm quite happy with some of the pieces I've produced lately, and I'm hoping soon to be good enough to market them. Here's some samples, anyway

gold butterflies and hearts on a silver chain

I really like doing chain maille. Don't see why it all has to be in precious metals though. This bracelet is a combination of silver and brass, of all things

And keeping to the theme of mixed metals, the above bracelet is made from stainless steel bike circlips, with a silver-plated and enamelled crash helmet.

A fun bracelet, this one is stretchy, one-size-fits-all, with Lucite calla lilies and leaves

and finally, the above is silver wire, strung with Honda 10mm mirror nuts and Czech glass beads. Soon, I will have a whole range of biker-oriented jewellery. Why shouldn't bikers be glitzy and fashion-conscious?

Book review - Ventriloquism by Catherynne M Valente

Hmmmm.............what to say about this book? Well, it's a collection of stories, strange, secret stories. An eclectic mix of steampunk, part fantasy, part history. Ms. Valente takes fairy tales and snippets of history, and weaves strange continuations on to them.
The wordsmithing is exquisite. Her use of language superlative, but somehow, the book left me a little cold and perplexed. As with any collection of short stories, some are more appealing than others, and some I regret I found almost incomprehensible.
Nevertheless, the words are beautiful, and Ms. Valente obviously has a remarkable imagination. However, probably the best thing for me about this book, is the beautiful illustrations on the book cover. They're exquisitely drawn by Rima Staines.
For those of you not familiar with Rima's work, check out my links, and follow the one to The Hermitage.
If you are into the unusual, and imaginative, then this book will probably appeal to you, but sadly, it won't be to a lot of people's taste

Rating: a disappointing 2/5
An extra 3 however, for Rima's artwork

A week of motorcycling or Honda get it right

Well, quite an eventful week for me and the bikes this week!

It started on Monday, with the annual May Day Run to Hastings - me and 29,999 other bikes!

This run has been happening since just after WWII, when a small bike club decided to take a run from Locks Bottom to Hastings on the May Bank Holiday. It's happened every year since, and, like Topsy, it's growed and growed

Weather this year was dry and sunny, but a little windy. Well, OK, a lot windy.

There were more trade stands in the town centre this year, and I managed to buy myself a new summer jacket for around 1/2 price. This is it


Unfortunately, I had to ride Paul, my CBF1000, as the Insect has been suffering with a mysterious electrical problem. Just what you need a few days before you're due to go touring on it. Not that it would be any hardship taking the 1000 on holiday, but I do love to disappear for a week on the Insect. Although it's a drag on the motorways getting to wherever I'm going, when I get there, it's fun fun fun all the way!

Anyway, back to Hastings. The day went well. We met up with our usual friends and spent an enjoyable time wandering around, looking at the bikes, and generally enjoying life.

Everything went well until it was time to leave. For those of you not familiar with Hastings, there is a huge car park called Pelham Place, which stretches almost the entire length of the seafront. On the Sunday evening prior to the May Day, it is closed to all users, and then opened on the Monday for motorcycles only. And believe me, it fills up with bikes very quickly. In fact, every available place where you can park a bike in town, has a bike or two parked in it.

At one end of the seafront, as you come out of Pelham Place, there's a large roundabout with a fountain in the middle of it. When we left, I got 2/3 of the way round the roundabout and had to stop because of the congestion. Imagine 30,000 bikes all trying to leave a small seaside town - it's murder.

For some reason, I put my right foot down instead of my left, and it was just as well. Two large gentlemen (for want of a better description) decided to cross the road whilst the traffic was at a standstill. Problem was, they were so busy looking at the bikes, and talking to each other, one of them walked straight into me. Yes - slap bang right into the side of my bike! Lucky I had my foot down firmly, or he would have knocked me off. I swore (involuntarily of course), and the expression on his face made me laugh. It was such a picture of embarrassment at what he'd done, combined with surprise at my language. Oops! Still no real harm done, except a bent mirror, which soon got straightened out.

As usual after this event, we returned home via the Woolpack Inn. This little Shepherd Neame pub, over 600 years old, stands down a narrow lane, in the middle of Romney Marsh, which goes nowhere in particular (actually to a place called Midley, which is a ruined chapel and not a lot else), and does the most excellent food. We've been going there for years. You can't pre-book, but they guarantee to fit you in, if you don't mind waiting a bit. They were so busy, we actually sat at a large wooden table set inside the equally large inglenook fireplace!
Looking up, you could see straight up the chimney to the blue sky outside. Made us wonder what would happen if it rained, or if a bird perched up there........


Anyway, rolling on the week a bit...........
Last week, I had a problem with the rear right indicator on the Insect. It decided it didn't want to work. The bike was booked in anyway for its MoT and annual service, so I asked Clive to have a look at it at the same time. He couldn't get it working,couldn't trace the fault, so he changed the indicators, and they worked.

That is, until I got home - when the same indicator packed up again. I took the Insect back on Thursday for them to do some further investigation. Usual thing with Kent Motorcycles is, I leave my bike there, and they give me a loan bike for the day.
This week, they were a bit short of loan bikes, so they asked me if I'd mind just having a little CBR250 for the day.

I was a bit disappointed, but given the choice between that and hanging around the shop for what might be a very long job, I took the little 250.
Now, I have a problem with sportsbikes, because of my wrists being fused and not bending, but this little thing wasn't too radical, so I reckoned I could probably cope with it for a couple of short journeys.

At first, I thought what a strange little bike. It's a single-cylinder 4-stroke, but it rides like a 2-stroke. There's virtually no engine braking, and you have to wind up the elastic band very tightly to get it through the short first gear. Once into second, it flies like a very sweet little bird.

Apart from the fact that, like most singles and, to a lesser extent, vertical twins, when it reaches a steep incline, it loses a little speed, cruising all day at 80-85mph is not a problem at all

Handling is sweet. The bike feels taut, precise, and oh so very stable. In fact, I can honestly say, I don't think I've ever ridden a lightweight bike that feels so stable and confidence-inspiring. To a novice biker, this bike is going to be so forgiving and easy to live with.

As to the rest, the seat is a little lacking in padding, but it's the kind of hard that doesn't get any harder with distance - if you know what I mean. As to appearance, well, judge for yourself -



Now is that pretty, or is that pretty? This is the version I rode, a sort of mini CBR600. They also do a version that looks more like a mini VFR1200.

I do think Honda are getting their range right these days. For a lad or lass learning to ride, who hankers after a sportsbike, they can start on a CBR125, progress to a CBR250, then either a CBR600F or CBR600RR, and thence to a FireBlade.
If they want to go the other route, as I said, there's a version of the CBR250 that will lead them on nicely to sports tourers.

Maybe (now here's a thought) Honda should introduce a scheme whereby if you purchase a CBR125, you get extra allowance on the trade-in if you buy a CBR250, and so on up the range...................

However, Clive traced the fault on the Insect's indicators, so me and it are off to the High Peak area of Derbyshire next week for a bit of fun. So watch out for more pictures on my other blog when I get back

more sparkly stuff......

Punk Egyptian bracelet. Made from safety pins, no less! Had a lot of fun making that one

Aqua Marine - tiny variegated blue rocailles and bugles, with silver findings