Are you a regular? The sort that when you go to the bar the bartender says “the usual”? There isn’t really a usual post here anymore than Rachid, the cocktail barman at my club, can anticipate my order. However, there are a few bits and pieces to update you on.
I did buy another pot from Caroline Winn, see A Win-Winn Situation. Her husband made a plinth and it sits on the upper landing, well lit by an overhead window which I can now open thanks to a pole presented to me by Alan and Ingy.
She told me that she draws inspiration for her pieces from artists she admires; in this case Giacometti. You will be aware that the greatest artists have learnt from others and she is a part of that continuum. I have shied away from buying pottery because of its fragility but every time I look at Caroline’s work it lifts my heart. She fires at a high temperature and uses oxides, a combination that gives her work a deceptive simplicity and also makes it robust. The pictures in the background are by Colin Willey and Nicholas Hely-Hutchinson, two artists living in Dorset whose work I have long admired.
Before getting bird feeders (see In Memoriam) there was nary a bird to be seen in the garden. Now a robin, sparrows, blackbirds, great tits, coal tits and goldfinches are regulars. The goldfinches always feed as a pair. I have laid in 25 kg of seed so they won’t go hungry. Pigeons are occasional visitors, wary of the cats. Skeins of geese sometimes fly over on their way to and from the Thames. The nesting boxes have become engulfed by jasmine and are vacant. The robin is becoming confidential. He hops into the kitchen and feels on close enough terms to leave a message on a chair. Why are robins less frightened of humans than other garden birds?
June Fairhead (see All the Fun of the Fair) did raise enough money to produce her book of photographs cataloguing Piper’s Funfair and Amusements – otherwise known as The Merries – in Co Cork. The launch will be at Prim’s bookshop, 43 Main St. Kinsale, on Thursday 28th July at 6.30 pm and will carry on at Piper’s Funfair.
Ned York (see How to be a Brit) is proving himself a true Brit. He will be attending, at least, two Proms with his lovely wife. I hope he wears his Union Jack tie. Actually I will be at the First Night this evening to check. Almost every one of the seventy-five concerts this year is sold out; sometimes the programme is unashamedly populist.