Week in review

Some weeks, everything gets scrambled and it's good to have a chance to look back and straighten things out in your mind.

Sunday - by train to go walking with the Ramblers in south London -

 I peeled off at an old lunch haunt in Camberwell and got a haloumi wrap

 to eat in St Giles churchyard, watched by a murder of crows

 then by bus past the Oval, where it was England v. Wales -

 - got a mere glimpse of the action through that tiny gap, so I can tick the box that says "see live cricket".

Monday - continuing fascination with twisted old trees and a big hunt for a small notebook to draw them in [none drawn yet, though...] -

 The afternoon at a writing-related event at the British Library -

which continued to the evening's discussion with Alberto Manguel, Ruth Padel, Boyd Tomkin, and John Mullan -

Tuesday - drawing at the British Museum

Discoveries in the Chinese gallery

 I was on a quest for foliage but didn't really succeed...

Not my drawing!

 Later, these came out of memory...

 ... and are much improved by a tiny bit of cold coffee -

Walking to King's Cross

 and later to Crouch End library, where these books begged to be rescued from the book sale -

Wednesday - reassessment of "progress so far" before going to the woodblock printing class -

In the afternoon, a rainy walk to N8 to cook dinner

and have some time with the baby, who has discovered the joys of fabric, if only for sucking on -

Thursday - getting out inks, thinking to try some suminagashi marbling

 but ending up writing emails and "making things nice for myself" (=tidy, serene)

Evening talk at Royal Institution about how batteries will change our world, eg, electric cars and their refuelling, and some wider issues -

and on the walk to a distant tube station, finding this elegant architecture near Warren Street -

Friday - suminagashi happens!

 At first all the ink sank. This is WH Smith Writing Ink -

 so I switched to chinese ink from an old bottle, and though it was faint and some of it sank, it did make patterns -

 This is the sort of thing I'd like to put woodblock prints onto -

 My son came for breakfast, and I went to Sue's for lunch and a "review of work" in her studio. She's been playing with what she calls her stone template -

and showed me what can be done with photocopies+transfer-paper+heatpress+fabric -

Evening talk at British Library on the languages used to write history in medieval times - Latin or the vernacular - and which vernacular ... in England the Norman conquest brought French and English almost died out...

Saturday - wardrobe control: some of these have to go, or do they....

Lazy breakfast -

Quick check on tidyness shows there's now time to read another chapter in my book

before packing up a little toy-making project

Dragons with "issues"

to work on at my afternoon craft group.

And thus passed another week. 

Ceramics - none made; thought about (with guilt); nice ones seen at Contemporary Ceramics on Tuesday

Lara Scobie

Sewing - no handstitching preliminary to pots. Must find some quiet time....

... which brings us to...

Podcasts etc - Gresham lecture on Treaty of Versailles; a few episodes of Science 5 Live (did you know that gravity travels at the speed of light?); Digital Human on "Haven"; hmm there were others ...

Printmaking - my focus at the moment.

Domestic maintenance - minimal. 

Purging of stuff  - none. Ehh, never mind...