On! On!

How is life so busy? How do other people manage to post every day? Anyway, I went down to London again on the train - nice views, see above - to try to be slightly useful to Daughter 2 while her husband is at the Birmingham Rep. I'm not terribly useful really, since Littlest Granddaughter reasonably enough prefers her mum to do things for her, rather than her elderly granny. However, I collected Littlest from school one day, did some dishes and cleaned out the guinea pigs. 

This is Chingford, where Daughter 2 and family now live. It's really quite nice - it doesn't feel at all like London, but rather like a small town. Which it was, of course, though has now been swallowed by London. But just along the road from D2's house you're in the Essex countryside. 

I did do a small amount of gardening, though it was rather cold. Can you see me down near the bottom of the garden, doing some minor weeding? I'm the black lump near the slide, or as we'd call it in Scotland, the chute. 

The way home was brightened by kittens! 

Very cute. 

Son and family came for the weekend I got home, which was lovely. Then,  after rather more socialising than I had time for early in the week, I had to get stuck into the church magazine, of which I'm the editor (it's not finished yet), and quite a lot of choir stuff. Mr L and I took our banner up town to attach it with many cable ties to the railings in the street outside the church where our concert is, St Cuthbert's, as is normal, but we then got an email to say that the council, which owns the railings, has decided that no one is allowed to put up banners any more. So the next day we had to go up and unattach it, but the church admin chap has allowed us to fix it to railings outside the church door, which is invisible from the street. This won't be as good, but it's something. 

Considering the ghastly things with which the centre of Edinburgh is currently cluttered - a big Christmas market which cuts off the view of the Castle, a huge Ferris wheel, a terrifying spinny thing that sends people round and round AND UP AND UP - the council is being a bit pot-calling-kettle-blackish. However, there are worse things happening in the world. And how. 

Meanwhile my other choir, the one of which I'm (thankfully) not the chair, is having its concert a week on Saturday. I've missed quite a few rehearsals through being in London, so I should really do a bit of practice. Not today, however! On! On!

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.