doorway

For this I used the image of my mother’s doorway – sitting here I can smell the stone and plaster walls (unless my sister is cooking ratatouille, bread pudding with ginger toffee, or some other deliciousness). The house dates back to at least 1595, the records before that were lost when the town was sacked in 1576, and when she moved in the only plumbing was a sink underneath the window to the right of the door, all cooking had been done in the fire.

I love row houses because I love town noise, and my mom’s house is so accessible when someone drops by for a visit, but my dream house would be a ‘portland’, a row house with a long strip of garden behind. I recently stayed in a beautiful example of that in a medieval town outside London while visiting relatives (including my most adored aunt and uncle who are fixing up a barge in the gorgeous port of Sandwich), the garden was 40+ feet wide and 630 feet long, on a south-facing slope with orchard, pond and nuttery. Perfection. An upscale version, built 70 years after the one I stayed in, is Rothe House in Kilkenny, which has been restored and opened as a museum. It would be great to be part of a project like that, they did such a good job on the gardens and orchard, and next time I’ll definitely spend more time in their library.

90%

This is one of the pieces that doesn’t seem to be quite finished, but I’m not sure what it needs. I keep going across the room to look at it, but the solution has not jumped out at me, so I will let it sit a while then try again. It’s funny how time can change what one sees in a work.

I am listening to a frog out in the woods while I work but the birds are quiet now. I’m going to take a dozen of the apples weighing down the trees out back and make a crisp, then take the fiendish hounds for a long run on a trail nearby, they weren’t with me for the last two months of travelling and the one I adopted last year didn’t do so well with the separation (she stopped eating and lost a lot of fur). The dogs I’ve rescued from shelters seem to do worse when I’m away, plus she is a dominant dog and doesn’t like the boss being absent, so long walks now that I’m back are essential.

Hopefully the time outside will be enough so that I can look at the pieces I’m unsure about and know what they need.

entry

My three+ months of travel will come to an end soon, it’s odd making that transition from mobile to stationary. No more thinking about which stamps to use, or how much money to exchange, and no scramble to get Ryan Air boarding passes printed to avoid a penalty at the airport that is bigger than my ticket cost. Post-travel life always feels so quiet, too quiet, but it will be nice to have predictable internet access, plus it’s easier to cook in my own kitchen. Except that I love to eat but am not that wild about cooking, so I don’t care about that last one. Oh well.

In these last weeks I’m getting a bit of work done, but I have several pieces that I am 90% happy with and can’t decide what the missing 10% is, very frustrating.

15 kilos

No art today because I am travelling, all packed to Ryan Air’s precise requirements. These are photographs I took during a drive with my sister the other day, all things we won’t see for a while. The farmer who sold us honey that day insisted that we come down to pick the tomatoes with him so that we could appreciate the layout of his farm. The tomatoes were amazing with some herbs we picked and chevre on bread.