Cleopatra

Littlest Granddaughter had a wear-your-own-clothes day (as opposed to school uniform) to raise money for Children In Need. So she decided to go as Cleopatra. "They're my own clothes," she reasoned. Well, true. 

On Saturday, we had a lovely walk with our walking friends. One of us always takes a photo of us on any available bridge, so I took a photo of her taking a photo of us. 

It was the walk along the river that Mr Life and I did the recce for a few weeks ago. Mr Heron was there this time. 

It wasn't so pretty as when we did it before, because most of the leaves are now off the trees. 

But we had a great time anyway. Good company, beautiful day and lots of laughs, so the 6 miles passed easily. And then we had coffee at the Visitor Centre. 

Tomorrow I'm back off down to London to spend time with Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter while Son-in-Law 2 appears at the Birmingham Rep. 
 

Drawings

It's been a fairly uneventful week. I've mainly been hand-quilting my rainbow quilt, which is to cover a single bed and is thus, by my standards, quite large - certainly the largest I've done. I'm having fun, though, just quilting it to please myself, not to any particular pattern. 

But we did go to an exhibition of Renaissance drawings at the King's Gallery - everything here is from the royal collections. (Why does one family have so much? Hmm.) First, we had coffee in the cafe, which has nice views out on to the hill behind. Sustenance and then art. 

The drawings were amazing, not least because they were on paper and had survived 500 years. (I don't imagine that anything I do will survive me by 50 years, let alone 500.) Mainly they were sketches for later paintings, some of which are now lost (or, who knows? maybe on someone's wall somewhere). The one below is by Battista Franco. He lived from 1510-1561; not all that long. This is the flagellation of Christ, so not exactly cheery. But doesn't it have movement? And aren't the expressions of the two chaps on the right interesting? One just dogged, the other somewhat horrified, as one might well be if Jesus was looking so intently into one's face. 

This is St Jerome by Bartolomeo Passarotti, who lived quite a bit longer: 1529-1592. 

And this head of a man is by the Circle of Cristoforo Canozzi da Lendinara, c 1427- after 1477. So possibly not even by Cristoforo himself. It's thought that it was a design for intarsia, in which pieces of differently toned wood are inlaid - hence the sort of contour lines. 

Now, this is a sad one. Parmigianino (1503-1540) was commissioned to decorate the vault of Santa Maria della Steccata, and this is his sketch for the middle of it. It's the coronation of the Virgin. But he was jailed for a while for his lack of progress, and then he died - at 37. Oh dear. 

All these chaps were so much cleverer than I am and I'd never heard of any of them. I'm glad that their work is still around, though. So thanks, King Charles, I suppose, for letting us see them. 

 

Season of mists and all that

I've been back at Daughter 2's in London, trying to help out a bit while her husband's in Birmingham rehearsing for a Christmas musical play about Sherlock Holmes. It was Littlest Granddaughter's October week's holiday, so I looked after her for a few days. Here, a black cat and I went to a pottery painting place not far away from where they live. 

This was fun. 

For Hallowe'en, Littlest designed, and Daughter 2 cut, two fierce pumpkins. 

Here they are in the house window. 

On Saturday we went to a children's farm / play place, where we had more fun. 

There was a huge marquee filled with big building blocks, so she and her mum built a palace with a stable for a donkey (which was also there, for some reason). This took quite a long time. 

The Essex countryside is rather pretty. 

At home, Littlest built a Lego shop that sold potions. See all the bottles on the shelf? 

And this was a blindfold guess-the-taste session. 

So it was lovely to be there. But now I'm home again. 

We went to the Botanics yesterday. Here's my favourite tree, the bald cypress, with my favourite old chap standing beside it. 

Everything was looking lovely in the autumn colours. 

Pity that winter's on its way...

Look at this liquidamber - beautiful.

It's autumn in my garden too - not surprisingly. I should get out there and do some tidying up. Maybe tomorrow.