Tea, Anyone?

As a biscuit tin and tea caddy designer in my youth I was delighted to be given this lovely example of the art yesterday by my friend Joanne Dalston - it also contained fragrant Earl Grey tea. Val and I had driven over to Bampton in the Cotswolds to have lunch with Joanne. She’d spent six hours cooking a Jamie Oliver recipe for pork – and it was delicious. When I say Joanne lives in a cowshed, although true, once inside you’d never realise its origins as the whole ambiance is utterly charming. It’s so comfortable to spend the day with old friends.

And talking of old friends, Keith Lorenz – a colleague from those long gone days when I lived in Bangkok – emailed to say he was travelling in the north of Thailand and did I have Maurice Bowra’s email address, and as they hadn’t seen each other for nearly 30 years, if he managed to get down to Bangkok, he’d like to meet up with him. Maurice, my oldest friend, lives in Bangkok and we all worked together at Grant Advertising. We are so lucky to be living in the age of instant communication, as they did meet, and had a jolly evening together. Wish I’d been there. That same day Maurice emailed me a photo of the two of them at dinner. Here it is:

In the sixties I was the MD of a small American advertising agency in Bangkok – we were part of a worldwide International major company. Maurice dug out an old photograph of the agency as it was and this was also instantly relayed to both Keith (by now back in Hawaii) and me in England. Here’s the photo. Maurice is 4th from the left in the back row, I come next, then Keith. We’ve matured a bit since then, but like fine wines – as they say – improved with age!

This afternoon I gave an hour-long illustrated presentation to the local Remenham Women’s Institute. In two halves, the first part traced the origins of miniature portrait painting from the late 16th Century, with descriptions of the techniques of the major artists, culminating in the 19th Century when photography was invented. The second half demonstrated my own techniques and included a few anecdotes surrounding some of the more prominent or eccentric characters I’ve painted over the years. I think it went well, and as the only facility the WI was able to offer was ‘electricity’. I supplied the digital projector, mike, sound-system, screen, laptop, etc. etc. and a few assorted miniatures. One of the ladies brought a couple of her family miniatures, and very nice they were too – possibly Englehearts.

I’m sure we in England are going quite potty when it comes to political correctness! Maybe there are other counties as loopy, but I could hardly believe it when I read the other day about a Jobcentre somewhere in the country which had banned an advert seeking “reliable and hardworking” staff. Can you believe it? They said it would discriminate against unreliable and lazy applicants! I should hope so too. Just imagine if this rule was applied to athletes aiming to take part in the Olympic Games. I can see the objections now - “You can’t say ‘fastest, fittest, strongest, dedicated, etc” as this will discriminate against the ‘unfit, slowest, weakest and lazy’.
Another little item caught my eye as well – a motorist was caught by the police blowing his nose whilst stuck in traffic. He was fined £60! For blowing his nose! And the car wasn’t moving. The mind boggles!

Now I’m getting geared up to start painting a trio of miniatures for a New York client. Can’t wait for the morning to come so I can get underway.

It's Snowdrop Time

This morning Pootle picked me up to kindly take me to the Royal Berkshire Hospital for my pelvic scan (I need to have one every six months for three years). After drinking a bucketful of barium liquid and being injected with iodine, I soon was lying under the machine listening to the soulful sound of an out-of-this world voice telling me when to hold my breath and when to breathe normally. Later, as we came out into the frosty sunshine we decided to visit Welford Park, near Newbury, to see the snowdrops – a feature of the place. They are a bit late this year due to the heavy snowfalls but a few were bravely poking through the frosty ground.

My cousin Paul lives close by at Great Shefford so we called in to see him. My nephew Tim and his family had just come in from a shoot in the surrounding fields where they’d joined Paul’s boys. Paul and Jo have a beautiful herd of Hereford cattle and a number of adorable calves at least one of which they intend to show later in the spring.

Last Saturday Jilly picked me up and we drove to Paul and Debbie’s house to join them for dinner at the Bull in Wargrave - It’s recently been taken over by new tenants. A lovely open fire welcomed us and soon the pub was filled with the excited chatter of some of the soon to be audience at the nearby Woodclyffe Hall where a pantomime was to be performed at 8. My traditional dinner of sausage and mash with onion sauce nestling in the biggest Yorkshire pudding I’ve ever seen was delicious.
After dinner we walked the few yards to the venue. The hall was packed to the rafters – totally booked out. Great to see so many local people supporting their talented thespians. The pantomime we saw was Pinocchio – and was spectacular. Although everyone was an amateur we could have been watching top professionals in a west end theatre. The colour, brilliant make-up, costumes, and sets were marvellous. One very imaginative set was inside a whale - I can’t quite remember that scene in the original Pinocchio story – but the florescent lighting, together with the ghostly skeleton-boned inhabitants of three sailors swallowed on a previous occasion – made a great spectacle for Pinocchio,Geppetto and Rissotto. Joe Haynes acting as Geppetto’s wife Rissotto, was absolutely hilarious – his makeup and clothes hilarious. Everyone thought it was the very best pantomime the Wargrave Theatre Workshop had ever put on. We came away in high spirits with Paul and Debbie as professionals praising them to the sky.

The previous night I drove to Sue and Tom's on a very rainy evening andon to join the Harpsden Womens Institute party for a visit to the Mill at Sonning, where not only were we to see “It’s Never All Right on the Night” by Simon Williams, but Sally Hughes (the Managing Director) gave us a conducted tour of the building. As the theatre has been constructed within the original 18th Century Flour Mill, to venture into the bowels of the building with all it’s many tiny winding passageways, was very interesting. As for the show itself, performed brilliantly by Simon Williams, Issy Van Randwyck provided the glamour – and most of the songs, The show was based around life in the theatre, the gossip, jokes and scandals were interspersed with lots of spicy anecdotes and musical numbers such as ‘Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington’ and ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’. After the show, when we met in the bar, I gave Simon the miniature I painted of him last year.

I managed to complete another miniature this week – this one is of my great niece Becky. She’s nineteen and currently whooping it up at University in Exeter. And as I paint one every year this is not at all surprisingly the nineteenth.

Miniature portrait of Becky

Apart from painting I’ve spent a bit of time figuring out how to use my latest gadget – an iPhone. As it has a touch screen things move so fast that at this stage I’m constantly making errors. For example when I thought I was demonstrating to Paul Daniels a number of my paintings I’d added to the phone it wasn’t too long before I had a text from my friend Pootle telling me that she was inadvertently listening in to our conversation! Hope I master it soon or my phone bills will rocket! Pootle has been very helpful in teaching me how to add things like music, pictures, Apps, Skype, all the other settings I want (I nearly said need). Having only had a phone that’s a phone and nothing else I’m a bit overwhelmed with what this one can do. (Paul doesn’t think much of touch screen gadgets but then he is a very competent touch typist and can type out a message without looking at the screen)

Getting My Head Down

Because of the snow and difficulty about getting around on the unsalted roads (why is England so far behind the rest of Europe in this respect?) I’ve spent most of my time painting for about 9 hours every day. Quite productive in that I’ve finished the large painting of Rolf and Alwen Harris, made a smallish sepia painting of Paul Daniels and am half-way through my third miniature painted in the last three weeks. It’s been good to gaze out of my window to a snow-clad river and countryside and to feel as snug as a bug in a rug while happily painting away. I’ve not done much else. How boring I hear you say. I did go to Reading yesterday to take a few paintings to be framed.
As the snow is now rapidly melting I drove over to see Rolf’s latest paintings this morning. Golly, that guy is prolific! He paints about ten pictures in the time it takes me to do one. And he can charge about twenty times what I charge, so without doing the maths he probably earns lots of zeros more than I do. (He's also very famous.) But he doesn’t use a double zero, zero, or size one sable brush. And as my style is called ‘Pointilism in Miniature’ I guess I make hundreds more brush strokes in a day than Rolf does. Here are a few of my latest efforts:

Macho Man Paul - a Sepia Painting

Large Watercolour of Rolf and Alwen

Miniature of Max - my Great Nephew

Still on a snowy note, my niece Louisa sent me this charming picture of Kate, her daughter, my great niece.

Finally, I had to laugh the other day when I read about Simon Williams (he’s the famous actor I painted last year). Simon lives locally - he’s an old Harrovian and is probably best remembered for his part as James Bellamy in the TV series ‘Upstairs, Downstairs.’ He was also starring as the evil murderer who died a horrific death in a gripping TV play last week. Apart from his acting skills, Simon is a talented playwright and novelist. In fact I’m going to his latest musical at the Mill at Sonning next week. Apparently the title (when it was performed in the Jermyn Street Theatre in London three years ago) was considered too risqué for us genteel rural folks here in Oxfordshire. Then it was called ‘Curtains Up! Lights Up! Cock Up!’ Now it has been changed to ‘It’s Never All Right On The Night!’ As his wife Lucy Fleming remarked “It was just thought to be a better name for this location…”

The Snow People of Henley

Yesterday I gingerly navigated through the ice and deep snow and walked the mile or so to Henley along the towpath. It was a gloriously sunny day - minus something or other, but bracing and beautiful. The lock and the snow-clad woods behind make a lovely picture.

And this tree on the other side of the frozen lock looks quite magical

In my walk along the towpath I met a man who was hiking to work in Henley. He’d started out at 9 in the morning from Reading (about 7 miles away) so you have to admire his perseverance. This was the view as I made my way towards the town.

Here’s the first snowman I came across.

And later on I met this very artistic snowgirl.

Once I arrived in Henley confronting me in the middle of Falaise Square was this giant (about 12 feet high I think) snowman. He seems to dwarf the town hall in the background.

Moving on to Hart Street.

I was intrigued to see this lovely little pair of snowgirls nestling together outside the White Garden Flower Shop.

Then on to The Café Rouge for a light lunch and a warming drink of hot chocolate before venturing back home with the newspapers for my neighbours. (Because the ice and snow have meant that no milk or newspapers have been delivered for the past 3 days).
So what else have I been doing lately? Not a lot – apart from painting for about 9 hours a day. It’s been nice and cosy in my warm flat as I look up from time to time to this cold and snowy scene from my studio window.

On New Year’s Eve morning I finally finished my painting of Rolf and Alwen Harris. It took just over 222 hours. I’ll post it on my blog when I get round to photographing it.
New year’s evening was spent how I like best – with just a few good friends. Paul and Debbie had invited me to their home for dinner, together with Debbie’s mum and dad and sister Donna with her family. We had a lovely roast dinner, pulled crackers, read jokes, and later on played charades, interspersed by scores of incoming greetings text messages..
At the stroke of midnight Paul signalled the start of 2010 by letting off a rocket in the garden.

The parade of snow people has not quite finished. Here is the snowman that my faithful follower Pootle made yesterday. Note the spectacles – they are the 3D glasses that were issued with the film Avatar.

A Very White Christmas

It really has been a white Christmas this year – the first for a long time. The snow covered about six inches around Henley and as few of the roads were salted or gritted, driving became a bit hazardous from time to time. Coming home from Jack and Norma’s party last Sunday afternoon I discovered, when turning out on to the dual carriageway, a number of cars sliding sideways down the hill. I had no alternative but to join them but managed to stay relatively safe by using the lowest gear on the slope. But the landscape was beautiful. This picture is of the road just before you turn into the courtyard of my flat.

On Christmas Eve I tramped through deep snow to visit Nigel and Tracy who live in the lock-keeper’s house at Marsh Lock.

Nigel introduced me to the new assistant lock-keeper. He might feature on their next year’s Christmas card.

And this warmer snow man nestles in the fireplace at Bird Place.

Every Christmas morning I call in to Bird Place, the lovely Queen Anne home of my friends Peter and Diane Sutherland. For the past twenty years, as I arrive, Peter emerges from the front door dressed up in some sort of costume. These have varied from, for example, a cutthroat pirate, A French onion seller, Osama Bin Laden, General Gordon, to this year’s character:

Stewie, one of my nephews and his family were staying with Val for Christmas so I spent it with them. Louisa visited with her family in the morning so we could spend some time unwrapping presents. Here’s her youngest, my great-niece Kate.

We had a lovely day. Stewie and Tina have three lovely children, Annabel. Genevieve and Matty. The giant turkey was fabulous, as was everything else. Val made all the mince pies, Christmas pudding, brandy butter, jellies, etc. etc. and most of the vegetables were from her garden. And Genevieve and Annabel made and decorated the Christmas cake. Yesterday, Boxing Day, we all went for a walk through the snow and extremely slippery ice by the river at Marsh Lock ending up at the River and Rowing Museum for very welcome steaming hot chocolates.

Genevieve, Annabel and Matty

Tina, Matty, Stewie, Genevieve, Val, Annabel.

Here’s the view across the river towards my flat - it’s hidden behind the boathouse but you can just make out my snow-covered boat in the bottom left-hand corner. And the other picture is the view of the Millstream from my back garden

I’m going to end my last blog of the year by relating the latest ridiculous piece of political correctness to emerge this Christmas. British Transport Police very sensibly decidedly to alert the public to the fact that they would be increasing the number of police on duty over the Christmas period. The slogan on the poster was quite clever and was to be ‘Christmas Presence’ a pun on the word ‘presents’. But, can you believe it, the marketing manager – a harridan called Alison Lock – decided that “some people would feel excluded by the use of the word ‘Christmas’, so she ordered it to be changed to ‘Holiday Presence’, which obviously made nonsense of the slogan. How blinkered can one be?. These stupid people who make such ridiculous decisions should get out more and meet the people who they think might be offended. They will soon find out that, not only are they not offended, but in fact are insulted and feel patronised.

So on that note here’s wishing all my followers and readers a Very Happy New Year.

Ho,Ho,Ho

The snow has arrived. I love looking at it but am not so sure about driving around in it. Today, for example not only did I break the key pad on the outside of my garage (because it was frozen) when I did get the car out it slithered around getting up the slope of our forecourt and nearly deposited both me and the car in an icy river. But all was OK eventually. Now all I need repaired is my gas fire which won’t light for some reason, and as British Gas will only answer emergency messages (and I’m too honest to pretend it’s an emergency) I’ll have to wait till Monday before I ring again. Not that they’ll come out before Christmas – that’s too much to ask.

It’s nice when my paintings are used for other reasons than just to look at. Two things in this regard happened this week – Leslie Thomas, the famous author of over thirty books – including ‘The Virgin Soldiers’, rang me on Thursday to ask if he could reproduce the miniature portrait I did of him a couple of years ago, on the back cover of his latest book. I agreed immediately and have been invited to the launch at Salisbury Cathedral in March. Leslie was delighted as it also won first prize for portraiture earlier this year in Florida.

An unexpected little package arrived yesterday. It was from Paradisum Records and contained 4 CD’s by John Clegg playing the works of Nicholas Medtner, and features my large watercolour painting of John Clegg on the cover. It’s been reproduced nicely and I’ll enjoy playing the CD over the next few days.

Last night I went to see ‘AVATAR’ - the latest film by James Cameron. Not only is it the most expensive film ever made (it cost £400 million) it’s the first major film to be made in modern 3D. I wondered whether, having only one good eye, whether the 3D effect would work for me. But it did, which will confound Paul Daniels who didn’t think it would. Just the other day I tried to watch The Queen’s Coronation in colour and in 3D on television, but it had no effect. I had to use two-colour glasses for it to work, whereas Avatar needed Polaroid glasses (50 pence a pair, but you could take them home with you). It was a very long film – 3 hours – and although I was wriggling about on my seat for the last hour, the effects were truly spectacular and highly inventive.

On the way back from taking Christmas presents over to Jill, my cousin, the other evening Val and I passed by West Drive in Sonning. There a family spend thousands every Christmas in decorating their house with the most fabulous Christmas lights. Due to the amount of illumination and the disruption it caused to the neighbours the display was banned a couple of years ago, but now it’s back in all its glory.

All week I’ve been painting hard and now have to make a decision whether I ruin the whole thing (175 hours so far) by spraying a dark shadow over part of the background. Rolf’s shirt is approximately the same turquoise colour as his daughter’s painting and they tend to merge into each other. There should be more of a tone contrast I think. Decision day next week.

I see RG9 wrote a bit about my lapses into senility last week. When I met him in Waitrose car-park I also related another 'senior moment' incident that happened not too long ago. I went to London for the day and while travelling on the underground happened to glance down at my feet where I discovered I was wearing odd shoes! It must have been a dark morning when I put them on. My first thought was to find the nearest sock shop and buy two pairs of contrasting socks. I’d then put one of each colour on either foot with the bizarre intention of pretending to make some sort of fashion statement. But I though better of it, as who cares anyway?

Now I’m off to another party. Hope the roads are not too icy as the house is up a very winding and probably snow-bound lane in Wooburn. As I probably wont be writing another blog before Christmas, let me wish all my blog readers a very happy Christmas.

Working hard

For the past two weeks I’ve been so focussed on my painting of Rolf and Alwen that writing has been abandoned. So far I’ve spent over 100 hours on the picture. And as it’s about 24 by 22 inches and is being painted with the point of a number 1 sable brush, maybe you can imagine the work involved.

Only another 150 hours to go!

Close-up of Alwen's hands

So what else have I been up to? Last Friday Henley staged a late-night Christmas shopping and fun evening. The centre of Henley was closed at 4.30 and all sorts of stalls and children’s rides were erected in the main roads. Pity it was raining, but that didn’t deter the hundreds of people who flocked into the town. I had a few paintings on display at the Horizon Gallery in Hart Street so spent some time there sipping wine and munching mince pies. Then after a while wandered around ending up in the Lemongrove Gallery. The manager arrived soon afterwards clutching an enormous German sausage with both ends hanging obscenely out of the long bread roll. They looked so good and smelt heavenly so I ambled across the road and bought one for myself – which, with her permission, I ate in the gallery. She added mince pies and wine to the feast.

My goddaughter Emma celebrated her 30th birthday on Tuesday at Danesfield House Hotel near Henley. This magnificent 4 star hotel was originally a Victorian country mansion and is truly elegant. Felicity, Emma’s mother, treated her to a day of pampering – spa, massage, fingernails etc. Together with Martin, her grandfather, I joined them for a cream tea in a sort of baronial hall, complete with a minstrel gallery, in the afternoon. Very nice.

I went to see ‘Calendar Girls’ at the Noel Coward Theatre in London on the 3rd. As the show is all about the women from the Women’s Institute getting naked it was only fitting that I went there with a coach-load of mature W.I. ladies. Luckily they spared me by remaining fully dressed for the entire journey. But I thought the show was a bit amateurish, even though Kelly Brook’s gorgeous figure made the eyes pop a bit (she’s the one in the photograph with the skis), to see her tottering around the stage on high heels didn’t seem too authentic.

The highlight of the week was Vince Hill’s performance at the Kenton Theatre on Wednesday evening. Vince is in his mid seventies, yet he was on stage for a full two hours. How he can remember all the words – especially to that 17-page soliloquy ‘My Boy Bill’ from Carousel - I’ll never know. It was a magnificent evening and the theatre was full. So many of his friends were there (I was in the front row together with his family, Val, Paul and Debbie, etc) that he was a trifle nervous to begin with. He needn’t have been. At the end of the show the whole theatre gave him a standing ovation – so well deserved. Then about 30 of us went to a charming restaurant near Henley called Luscombes for a late dinner. We ate at 11.30 and had a very jolly time while Vince wound down a bit. Incidentally Vince donated his time and talent to the ‘Kenton for Keeps’ initiative, which aims to preserve the theatre for ever.

Ever lost your car keys? I did the other day. It was pouring with rain and I was returning to the Waitrose car park carrying three very large and heavy bags. I was soaking wet, the bags were nearly falling apart when I discovered my pockets were empty – the keys had gone. All I could do was to walk to the covered area by the store and ring Tracey, who happened to be at home cleaning my flat at the time to bring me my spare keys if she could find them.. I couldn’t get through for some reason so went into Waitrose to ask if I could leave the bags there while I retraced my steps right back to the Post Office. “Can you describe the keys?” the girl at the desk asked. When I did, lo and behold she handed me my keys! Someone had found them. Now mightily relieved I returned to my car, still soaking wet (my umbrella was locked in the boot, or trunk for my American readers) to find one of those big yellow warning notices under my windscreen wipers! I was sure I’d bought a parking ticket, and there it was attached to the window. Cursing loudly, and gearing myself up to confront the parking attendant, I removed it to find a little note underneath to say that if I’d lost my car keys they were in Waitrose. How kind, and thank you, whoever you were.