Disaster Strikes!

Froggymeade Stone Circle

Do you ever have times when you feel like there is a cloud of bad luck hanging over you? We seem to have lurched from disaster to disaster this half term. It began on Monday, when we woke up and realised we hadn't seen our little cat Beetle ( short for Beetlejuice) at all the day before. This is unusual, as he is usually such a little homebody. He has a trace of siamese in him, which I hold responsible for the fact that he is quite vocal, and has an insatiable curiosity. If you open a cupboard, Beetle hops in to have a look,if I leave the car door open, Beetle makes himself at home in the car, if he hears a paper bag rustle, he comes running to see what is going on. There are days when I can't take a step without falling over him and swearing at him. Beetle not being there, particularly when the heavens have been throwing icy rain at us for the last few days, is just unheard of.
While reassuring the kids that he was bound to be tucked up in front of somebody else's fire, I secretly feared the worst, and rang all the vets in the area to see if he had been brought in over the weekend, and did a slow drive around the block in case there was a small body on the road. But nothing.

The same morning we found my eldest daughters pony hopping lame in the field, which means a couple of weeks of rest and recuperation for him. We have had one pony after another lame this summer. I go years without having a vet to visit, and then seem to be having to call them on a monthly basis at the moment. Thank goodness they are tolerant about having their bill paid in small dribs and drabs. I never seem to be able to reduce the size of it.
A series of small domestic disasters culminated yesterday in 'The Big One'. Middle daughter had just completed getting ready for a Halloween party. She was dressed as a vampire, and I made up her face to look like one of the undead - pale face, dark hollow eyes, and a dribble of blood running down her chin. Quite effective though I say so myself. In the usual scrum to leave the house, she swung a the carrier bag containing birthday present round her head, and clouted small son on HIS head. This resulted in a nasty cut, and copious amounts of blood, and meant that instead of going to the Halloween party, we had to go off to the surgery and have it cleaned up and stuck together. What a sight we must have looked in the waiting room. Small boy sitting on my lap, blood over him and me, small woebegone creature from the crypt sitting next to me, and my eldest daughter ( my anxious worrier) wringing her hands and looking tearful as she looked at the blood.
Still, it all turned out OK in the end - son cleaned up quite nicely, and got a lollipop from the nurse, the vampire only missed half an hour of her party, and now knows why I spend my time telling her to stop swinging things round her head, and best of all, Beetle turned up! He too, seems none the worse for his time away - he doesn't look as if he has been starving for 4 days,so who knows what he was up to?
I'm hoping for a less eventful end to the week!

On a slightly brighter note, I did manage to take poor Magpie out for a decent walk - there was even a brief break in the rain. I was reminded why Dartmoor is such a magical place - here are a couple of reasons why!

Illustration friday - Repair

"Painstakingly The Watchmender completed his Task"

I finally managed another submission for Illustration Friday, so I'm feeling pretty smug! This is pretty foolish of me actually, as the only reason I have it done is because I completely omitted to do the things I SHOULD have been doing. Such as ... making a start on two comissions with deadlines, altering a pair of curtains for a friend, which I promised to finish a week ago, taking the dog for a big walk ( she did get a little one, but it was hailing , and I just woosed out), planting winter salads in the green house, and a multitude of other houseworky sort of jobs. This original is for sale here, and I will list prints on Etsy.

I did at least manage to bring the remainder of my pumpkin harvest indoors, out of reach of the frost. This is a good harvest for us, and I'm going to show you a picture. ( All you pumpkin growers from the US, look away now, lest you laugh at the miserly size of my crop!)

They look pretty good in the kitchen alcove in front of the Tree of Life . The two pictures on the side are two of my favourite Arthur Rackham crow prints,and the central one above the alcove, the owlwoman, is a print by a friend , Virginia Lee.

A Gypsy Spectacle

I first came across Theatre Zingaro about 10 years ago, when I accidentally saw a documentary with a friend, Pip, about the founding of the company and the making of their first show 'Opera Equestre'. I was blown away, stunned, astounded, to put it mildly! It was the most beautifully moving and intense piece of theatre I had ever seen, combining incredible horsemanship with magical storytelling accompanied by the haunting sounds of a company of Berber musicians.

Bartabas, founder of Theatre Zingaro, is an unrivalled horseman, and a showman in the purest gypsy tradition. ( He is also the founder of The Académie du Spectacle Équestre (Academy of Equestrian Arts) in the Grand Ecurie of the Palace of Versailles - see the Youtube video at the end of this post for a sampling of his classical Haute Ecole work)

Pip and I followed their progress, and watched all the DVDs, and dreamed of making a trip to their purpose built amphitheatre at Aubervilliers, Paris, to see them perform. Tragically, Pip died suddenly and unexpectedly a couple of years ago, but last September, her husband Patrick, myself and three other friends made it to Paris for a weekend to see the latest show Battuta, a frenetic, passionate and moving show, which would have touched Pip's bohemian soul.

Battuta is a wild and exhilarating Gypsy spectacle with the musical accompaniment played by Moldavian fiddlers ( This was the icing on the cake for me - one of my favourite bands is Fanfare Ciocarlia, a Moldavian Brass Band - if you feel rather unsure about that, listen to them first - it's like nothing you could imagine!) With geese, and a dancing bear (not a real one, I hasten to add) a gypsy wagon made from a 2CV, and spectacular horsemanship, it is the most inspirational performance I have ever seen. I urge everyone to see it if they can!

In the rougher Parisien suburbs, lies Zingaro's home. Comprising a couple of beautifully crafted wooden buildings, and a collection of painted caravans and wagons to make anyone with a drop of gypsy blood in their veins envious! The first building, the original wooden' big top' is now a canteen serving hot beef stew and warm spiced red wine and houses the costumes from previous performances around the walls. Only the French could make a canteen this cool - trestle tables, and sawdust floor, roll ups and red wine and the smell of horses, and smoke drifting in from the bonfire outside the door ( I can't imagine Health and Safety regulations in the UK allowing anyone to light a huge blaze in the middle of the city, let alone without any barriers so that the general public can stand around occasionally poking the fire!)

The larger building is effectively a huge wooden circus tent, with integral stables. You enter up stairs and then along a gallery over the stables, lit with chandeliers, able to look down and see all the horses ready for their performances. It was truly amazing!

Thanks for putting up with the superlatives - I promise not to go overboard again!

Sewing Machine Days

"Queen of The Pumpkin Patch" - the only little ACEO I've had a chance to paint this week, mainly because I've been busy sewing for my sister. She has a fab kids clothes company, Blow-Pipe, which uses vintage and recycled fabrics to make great jackets and hats. I occasionally help out at times like this when she has more orders to complete than she can manage. I quite like it - it makes a nice change for me, and keeps my hand in cutting and piecing. We are both lucky that our mother was a textile artist and dressmaker, and we were taught to sew almost from the cradle, and were both making or adapting our clothes from our teens. It is one of the most useful and versatile skills I have, and I am extremely grateful for it. My sister went on to study and get a degree from the London College of Fashion, while I opted for ceramics, but that early grounding has left me confident cutting patterns and making clothes ( or curtains , or costumes, or anything else that might need creating!)

This weeks it has been hats - dozens of them in beautifully soft coloured fleece. The best part is going through the huge vintage fabric collection, and choosing linings for each individual hat. It's great - no two are the same, and I get to put together all sorts of beautiful combinations.

This is my all time favourite jacket - those vintage poppies are sumptuous. If there had been enough fabric for an adult jacket I would have been swiping it!

The finished collection! Most of these ones are intended for Wonderworks, a really exciting annual craft exhibition / sale in Chagford, on Saturday the 22nd and Sunday 23rd of November.

Illustration Friday - LATE

Mavis was bicycling along the lane to the Post Office, when a small bird suddenly flew out in front of her, causing her to swerve, and spill her packages in the road. By the time she had picked them all up, and adjusted her shopping basket, she was too late for the morning post.

I originally had bigger plans for this weeks Illustration Friday , but then reality set in, and I had to acknowledge the fact that I have deadlines and commissions waiting, and must stop procrastinating. So, I just did a little bit of procrastinating , and came up with this mini illustration, entitled " Mavis was startled on her way to the Post Office "

And another offering, a little gothic portrait to get you in the mood for halloween, called "The Haunting of Mrs Wilkins". Mrs Wilkins could always hear the voices behind her, the incessant whispering of her husbands two previous wives - constantly speculating on the likely manner of the 3rd Mrs Wilkins demise. Both are for sale on Etsy :)