Ohh... such a great book!

I really did like this book and just thought I'd share the love - read it if you are feeling philantropic but feel like directing some of the man-love towards the green stuff as well, as it's man doing good by man - through nature. Spurred me to get planting some apple trees on the allotment ...

When it rains it pours

... on the allotment. I have to report a hiccup more the scale of a big bellowing belch. All is not too well in the good life of Gardnerville ... we've been attacked! We feel a bit like this owl I drew since we discovered that all our sturdy little seedlings have fallen to the jaws of ... what we are pretty sure be wabbits. Manu has decided we must've gone wrong not warning them about Manu's Frenchness. I'm sure they wouldn't have been so foolish had they known about his nationality's carnivorous tendencies: "Si'l bouge, on le mange." My mock (fish eating) vegetarianism clearly stops me condoning such behaviour, but I can't say vengeful thoughts have evaded me! So our befallen carrots, greens , oh and our tomatoes have succumbed to an unidentifiable sickness that might well be down to too much bloomin rain!!!! Dash these wet summers ...

Did have a real hoot at my parents though over the weekend. I met my little sister Libby (as previously seen sporting my wellies below ...!) in London and we went to see Taking Back Sunday who we're brill! I managed to arrive earlier that morning to trawl a few museums and galleries and still had the energy for some moshy pogoing! Saturday found Libby and I hama beading it up in bed before a brunchy garlic mushroom and veggie sos breakfast... (will stick on here for the pisces and swan I made later..!) and then we ate melon in the sun while they harvested the fields in the distance. Yes - the sun came out just long enough on sunday - was quite lovely weather in the end between the showers. Anyway. it's midnight so I'm going to take my elf off to bed now. More to come...

Rain rain go away!

Face painting fun!

Today was my forth week on the face painting circuit! Here's some pics of the face fun I persuaded my lovely fellow face painters to adorn me with ... and one of Grace in a Hawaiian style get up I bugged her into letting me do!

Latest bird drawings

As a continuation from previous bird installments - here's the latest doodles of feathered ones.


The diagrammatic style appeals to me but in fact it's for a purpose - these drawings are to inform my next brooch/necklaces.

The stuff of memories

Memories Chest in progress ...

The finished piece...

I've been to London again since my last post to celebrate Lovely Lioness Juliet's BIG (30th) birthday (it's actually today - Happy Birthday Missy!!) ... and boy did we find plenty of ways to make it a roaringly good and certainly memorable birthday weekend...more of that shortly!

As it was such a monumentus birthday for Juliet, I really wanted to give her something she could keep and use as an 'aide memoir' of all the happy times we've had together as friends since we met (nearly 20 years ago!!!) and so I decided to fashion a memories chest for all the photos an mementos of fun times past.

I actually got rather carried away by the process which was almost like putting together a jigsaw puzzle...I went back over all the old letters and stuff we had from college and gallery trips etc and created a collage on a lovely old chest, of which only the back remained free for me to write a little personal message!

So what of this memorable weekend, anyway?! Well it all started with a customary fancy meal at a great choice of restaurant: Moros in Exmouth Market and was followed by experiencing some pretty impressive belly dancing - at very close quarters!

Exotic (in the best possible taste ;-)) dancing!

Juliet laughing at my attempt at exotic dancing!

"She's my friend, she is!!"

As you can see everyone (well, Juliet and I especially!) got into the Moorish spirit at Darbucka (world music club) in Clerkenwell afterwards. We waited till the lights came on before ambling (slowly after all the hip wiggling!) to the Queen Boudicea and then topped the night off (actually it was well into the morning by then) with a rickshaw ride across Waterloo bridge. I have a vague recollection of saying: "awww - isn't this romantic?!" as I sat squeezed alongside Juliet and Henry and we all giggled at the notion that we were taking the noble way back to get on a night bus!

The next day we braved it out (worse for wear) to visit take in a bit of aquamarine life and some (not so lively) taxidermy at the Horniman museum in Forest Hill - which was actually a nice stroll from Juliet's pad in Gypsy Hill. There was also an amazing temporary exhibition about Chinese symbolism in silk which I got rather excited about - check out the amazingly radical head wear...!

Fetching Chinese day head wear - is it based on a pig I wonder?

I even got to get up close and personal with one of my favourite mammals - a real life goat - who got up on his hind legs to munch leaves from some seemingly unreachable branches and must also make mention of a dodo which was all smiley and charming - just a shame he wasn't as animated as the goat!

Like the friendly dodo, this kingfisher
looked so real I had to stand and
stare for a bit just in case!

Greens, sparrows and a sneaky squirrel!

I've been beavering away on the illustration front and above is one of the ones I did today. Direct observation all the way of course (have a rather scary red taxidermy squirrel called Gladys who willingly posed for me this afternoon!!!)

Promised some birds in my last post and so here are some that I did for Manu's mum - who reminds me of Edith Piaf. Moineau is the French name for a sparrow and is interchangeable with Piaf (although this is really slang!) The puffy sparrows brooch I made recently were also modelled on the sketches I did below ...




In allotment news, I planted some spring green seeds today ^^ ... in anticipation of some lovely bright green soup! The carrots and spinach are coming on nicely and will need thinning soon. We picked the first of the beans in the picture below (only at matter of a handful though so far!) The peppers are starting to turn orange too. The rain fell so heavily today that an inch fell in half an hour!! Needless to say didn't need to worry about watering anything - was actually surprised there weren't any puddles.

It really feels like we're starting to make a break through on the growing front, even though there's so much left to so on the clearing side of things. We've decided to get the right hand side sorted first as then tackle the dreaded brambles on the left. Here's some pictures to show the progress to date ...

BEFORE ...

AFTER ...

Mmm - sweet!

This great illustration is from a very exciting website I signed up to be a member of today - daily candy which describes itself as being at the ..."front lines of fashion, food, and fun." Sounds (and looks) good to me! As far as remits go I thinks that is a pretty good combination of interests - especially the food and fun side of it!

Allotment therapy!

Our dwarf beans are growing nicely!

Have been feeling a bit worse for wear today as didn't get home till gone 4 this morning! Had a really fab night out with lovely lady friend Claire and her buddy Cathy who came up especially from East Dulwich to eat an absolutely delicious crab supper a la Claire's fair hands. We ended up in Mustard (in the club not the sauce!) and some pretty liberated dancing was had by all! ^^

In between trying to distract myself from a sore head and recuperating with my uke* (played it virtually all morning!) I took a clothed outdoor shower (in the rain!) followed by invigorating fresh air gulps down at the allotment. I've also been doodling birds this evening. Now have lots of bird drawings which I ought to scan in and stick on here tomorrow when I'm more compus mentus!

We had potatoes from the allotment for dinner with 'macedoine' (diced veg and mayonaise!) which has made me feel a whole lot better this evening!

Here's what we had for dinner!

Decided the allotment blog was a bit of a non-starter so going to keep you up to date with gardnerville on here from now on! You're free of the burden Manu!

*Motivated by last weekend's trip to the Innocent Smoothie fete to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, as you can see we got pretty up close and personal ...

The 'Karauke' group were an unexpected and hilarious diversion - this (fuzzy mob) pic was taken after we all voted to hear 'the final countdown' and were treated to kazoos and everything!!