New Year's Eve

Went to friends' house for a lovely New Year's Eve party - six of us made a lot of noise, particularly when the crackers with bells were brought out, and we had our own little concert - I think Simon Rattle would have been amazed at how talented we were. Not.

Great meal, great company - good start 2011

silver in progress

At last I'm getting somewhere with the silver sauce boat I've been making - however, although it may look as if it's finished and ready for polishing, the handle is in fact slightly squint, so more work needs to be done. Hey ho, I'll get there in the end. It would look good with custard in it, to go with a yummy blackberry and applie pie for instance.....

Jewellery

A friend was asking me about silver jewellery, and whether I had any possibly to sell,
so I thought the easiest thing to do would be to put some on here, to give an idea - no idea of prices so far! However, the top one is the most elaborate and uses the most silver so that would be the most expensive. The space for the chain to be threaded through is on the right hand side in the picture.

Various others - including peapod with 'peas', sycamore 'key', an enamelled fish suitable for young girl maybe, an enamelled leaf, and an apple with 'pips'. They can all be worn by threading through a chain.

Roche Court visit

A trip to Wiltshire with all the trees dripping gold and fire, and in the evening the pale pinks and lilacs of the sky. Whoops, waxing lyrical!

A visit to Roche Court, where flowers were blooming in front of the car park, but photos were not allowed to be taken of the sculpures which dotted the gardens. My personal favourites were the hares in bronze by Barry Flanagan. These can be seen on his website, so this one here is not from Roche Court, but gives a flavour of his work.

It hardly needs saying that I loved the sweeps and curves and tactile textures of the Barbara Hepworths, and that they made me feel a bit homesick for St. Ives.

Roche Court is a 19th century manor house in Wiltshire and is surrounded by parkland which is the perfect setting for the sculptures - some of which I found decidedly weird, though even some of those I found fascinating.

Oh - I managed to move this picture from the Roche Court website - I could only see it from a distance when I went there, but next time I'll go closer and have a proper look. This place is a real gem.

I love this pitchfork by Michael Craig-Martin. Such fun! He evidently had a solo exhibition in Salisbury in 2006 - I would have liked to have seen that.

Pre-Raphaelite exhibition

Went to the Pre-Raphaelite and Italy exhibition at the Ashmolean. I liked this one by Burne-Jones, lovely deep rich colours.

I thought this was charming at first, then found out that the lady thought she was to marry the one who is kissing her, when in fact she was to marry his (ugly!) brother - you can just see the brother's hand at the left of the picture. Evidently he was painted in on the original, but then taken out, and only his hand was left. Boy, he must have been ugly. (Who says looks don't count?) This painting is by William Dyce.

I love the colours on this painting by Ruskin - he did so many beautiful architectural paintings, but this is one of my favourites.

Benson marina

Met up with some friends this morning down at Benson Marina, and had a walk round and a coffee. I just loved the shapes and reflections of the boats.

Turkeys and geese - must be October...

They're looking sort of snooty and distainful, so who's going to give them the bad news?

This one is daydreaming, while in the far background, the geese are making merry. For now.

I've just told this lot the date, and they are going to do a runner.....