John's Quavering Pencil

Location: On the rocks; low tide; Whitburn, N.E. England

Peaceful sea

Smell: salty seaweed

Sounds: white noise of waves gently breaking on the rocks. Occasional seagull cries

Participants: None. Nobody in sight 360 degrees

Mood: 5/10. Pensive, tranquil.

State of belly: Recently satisfied by picnic on rocks here. Ham sandwich, raw tomato, Cox’s apple

Current activity (primary): Sitting on rock, drinking black coffee (poured from Thermos Flask into household mug brought in rucksack)

Current activity (secondary): sporadically writing these notes in spiral pad

Dress: jeans, blue shirt (sleeves rolled, open neck), walking boots, socks

Time: 1310

Personal orientation: North east (looking out to sea)

Wind: East-south-east. Sufficient strength to lift pages of notebook

Sky: blue with covering of low stratocumulus cloudlets

Blue sky and stratocumulus cloudlets from location of picnic

Scary moment: close encounter with a stonephant.

The stonephant, a distant cousin of the elephant

I survived the scary moment. Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

The time is 2215 and it is still light. I am in the garden. I disturbed a hedgehog when I came out; he or she shuffled off into the border, at the double. It is very peaceful out hear. I look at the grey clouds that are moving swiftly across the sky above. Their colour seems different from how they look in strong daylight.

Dusk

I have been sitting doing nothing for about half an hour. It is now 2040 and it is beginning to get dark. I see the light from my kitchen window. I must put away my sun lounger and go back indoors – to sleep, perchance to dream! Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

Cat is holding my 1984 mug of coffee. What she is doing with the washing line, I really do not know!

Cat – coitus washing-linus

At 9.30 I met up with my friends Tom and Terry and drove north of the Wear to Roker where I parked the car by the bungalow café. The weather report was not good but the rain was only slight at that time; it came and went. There was a good breeze but nothing more. We therefore set out on our agreed route from the Wear, along the coastal path northwards, to the river Tyne at South Shields.

Start of the walk, near the Cat & Dog steps

The walk was invigorating to start with, as we traversed the sandy bay at Seaburn up to the Whitburn cliffs; dog walkers abounded and their hounds bounded hither and thither with much tail wagging and enthusiastic barking.

As we walked past the army rifle ranges, on our left, with the sea now pounding rather more insistently on our right, the rain began to set in and the wind started to whip up cold and biting.

Once past Marsden Grotto the rain and the chill began to attack with more gusto; it became difficult to see the path ahead clearly with raindrops streaming onto my spectacles. Any car driver should know what I mean; can you imagine driving through rain with broken windscreen wipers? I had taken a clean linen handkerchief especially for the purpose of mopping the water from my glasses but soon it became sodden; it was no longer fit for purpose.

By the time we descended from the cliff, onto the promenade at South Shields, I was wet. It is said that walkers should wear appropriate clothing. I was wearing a Berghaus anorak and a pair of Craghopper trousers. Totally bloody useless. All that stuff about the water being wicked away – utter bollox. I was cold and drenched through. Grrrrr….!!!!!! By the time we got to the bus stop to get back to the car, there was a gale blowing and the sea was very rough. Utterly bedraggled, I was.

Still, it was our first walk out this year. I suppose we bonded in adversity. Maybe we will even laugh about it later in the year when we are sweating in the summer sun as we toil up a steeply-inclined footpath to the top of some  pretty knoll for our lunchtime picnic.

Today I play Terra Fyrmusica at 8 pm English time (midday in Second Life). Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

Today a took a big old TV down to the recycling tip. It was really too heavy for me to carry and last week I strained some muscles in my back lugging it into the shed. It was the tube and screen which made it heavy. Anyway, I dismantled it as far as I could, so that I could carry the tube separately and I was just about able to do that, getting it into the car and out again at the recycling tip. Here is a pic of some of the remains.

Remains of an old-fashioned TV

When I got back, I sorted out a few large cardboard boxes for our recycling bin (perhaps I should have done that earlier and taken it straight to the tip, but I could not concentrate on anything until I had dealt with the old TV). I swept up a bit in the shed and put a sun lounger out on the lawn. Even though it is still March, it was beautifully warm out there. I had a cup of coffee while I drew the water butt (and the over-turned wheelbarrow is next to it).

Water butt and wheel barrow

I am now back inside and am about to start my piano practice, having dealt with something very smelly in the fridge. I need to think about what to play for my gig at Terra Fyrmusica in Second Life, tonight. That will be midday SLT and in England we are back to the usual 8 hour time difference once more. Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

Today I visited a place in Yorkshire called South Kilvington. I was meeting up with some of my family for a lazy lunch at a The Old Oak Tree pub. I arrived a little early and to pass the time sat in the car sketching some of the houses in the village street.

Some houses on the main road at South Kilvington

It has been another beautiful day here, with temperatures up to our summer levels. Well, I must play some piano now.

Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

We have a lovely sunny day here in England and the spring flowers are looking great. Here is a photo to give you some idea of the current delights (actually, I think it is from a flowering current bush, so there was a bit of a pun intended).

Spring flowers

I now have some closure in terms of my autobiography project. I have received some wonderful feedback in emails, over this past week. I am going to see whether it would be possible to turn it into an e-book at blurb.com, in due course, but for the present I seem to be busy with other things. Yesterday I downloaded the Scrivener program and I am currently working my way through some of the tutorials. It seems like a powerful piece of software and many book authors love it. It certainly has some good reviews. It is too early to tell whether it will suit my way of writing. I think the only way will be to try it and see. I am currently thinking of resuscitating my previous fiction character, Harold Hake. Those of you who heard me read that book aloud in instalments on Second Life will remember that Harold had just retired from teaching at university. So I might pick up his adventures post-retirment and write that as an illustrated book. It won’t be a graphic novel, but maybe I could put 4 or 5 illustrations into each chapter. This would be following the pattern of my autobiography (I made about 45 illustrations for that book).

I am still hitting the wall in terms of my piano playing. I keep practicing and I have one or two ideas concerning the way forward. The guitar is being a tad problematic too. When I am noodling around at home I seem to be getting some nice fiddly bits going but when I am sitting all wired up and streaming to the internet my improvisational imagination seems to dry up. Maybe I need to put a bit more structure into it, song by song. Well, lots to think about there. Tonight I play Minstrel’s Point (that is at midday SLT and English clocks changed last night – so we are back to the usual time difference with Second Life now). Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

Yesterday, at my art class at the Lit & Phil in Newcastle, we drew a still life in charcoal. Emma had set out a guitar and a violin against some crumpled silver foil and I decided to include part of a door frame and a couple of pictures that were on the wall next to where the still life subject was positioned. I thoroughly enjoyed working with charcoal once again.

Charcoal still life at the Lit & Phil art class

Today has been a beautiful sunny morning and I took a book out to read on a seat in the garden. I wore a heavy sweater, but needed my straw Panama hat for the sun. As I sipped my coffee I learned that Inspector Gautier had gone to bed with Claudine, the artist’s model, and his wife has taken a lover. This is all part of the Parisian back story in Richard Grayson’s period detective story set in the early 1900s. As yet, I have not discovered who committed The Murders at Impasse Louvain.

Earlier in the week I read a Sherlock Holmes graphic novel. The text was adapted from Conan Doyle’s novel A study in Scarlet by Ian Edginton and illustrated by I. Culbard. I think the Inspector Guatier stories would also look good as graphic novels.

My art has stalled a little, since I have no major project for it now that I have finished my autobiography. I have also hit a wall in terms of my piano. Fortunately, the guitar seems to be ticking over quite well. Today I play my weekly gig at Ragged Edge (that is midday SLT, and 7 p.m. English time). Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.

Today at the Lit & Phil art class in Newcastle, I finished my self-portrait in oils. This was, in fact my first ever oil painting. I decided to digitise it and work on it within my digital painting program. Basically, the background in my oil painting didn’t really work. I therefore put a background of bookshelves into the digital painting and cut myself out, as it were. I prefer the end result of the digital manipulation to the basic oil painting. Anyway, here it is…

Self-portrait in oils, rendered digitally

I shall be playing at Ragged Edge in Second Life on Thursday 15th March at the earlier time of 7 pm English time (but that is still midday SLT, since there is an hour difference from usual because we are currently behind the States in our clock change for summer). Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.