Much of a muchness

It was a wonderful weekend. On Friday, I went to Wimbledon with my friend Amanda and we managed to cadge a lift from a friend, John, who was driving up, instead of having to catch the train, so that was a great start to the day. When we arrived, there were security checks and my tiny Swiss Army penknife which is attached to my keyring was confiscated from my handbag. This was so irritating as they only seemed to be searching bags so if the keys had been in my coat pocket, they would not have been noticed. Some security. Note to would-be trouble makers - carry your machete in your coat pocket….

It started to rain just as we arrived but play was only delayed for 90 minutes so we did not have long to wait before watching Roger Federer walk onto a sunny Centre Court. He won his match against the French player, Marc Gicquel, in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. We then watched Serena Williams and Amelie Mauresmo play a thrilling first set which Serena narrowly won but in the second set, Amelie seemed to be carrying an injury and played below par and so Serena won easily. So all in all, a very bad day for French tennis players.

We managed to slip out between matches for a little refreshment  - my summer favourite, a glass of Pimms!

After an afternoon of tennis, we met up with John and Bob for a Wimbledon tradition, strawberries and cream - caused me no end of problems as I have an aversion to licking wet wood and the strawberries came with a wooden spoon! Still, undaunted, I ate the strawberries with my fingers and drank the cream from the bowl - not very ladylike but needs must… and of course, we had a glass or two of champagne.

The next day, I had to be up early as I was going to Glastonbury Festival with some other friends. #2 son had gone on ahead as he was camping and he sent a message that it had rained on Friday night so not good news. He said that he and his friends had put 10 tents in a circle with a tarpaulin on the floor, a gazebo on top of that and then covered the whole assembly with another tarpaulin so their encampment was snug and watertight! He learned his lesson after last year when they got soaked and never really dried out plus, it was so muddy, they had nowhere to sit down for 4 days.

By the time I arrived on Saturday, the sun had come out and the weather was warm and sunny all day - such a treat. Highlights of the day were Seasick Steve, Crowded House, James Blunt, Manu Chao, The Raconteurs  and a shambolic Amy Winehouse who manged to get into a fight with some of her fans….

This is my favourite bit - Crowded House singing ‘Weather with You’ and the wave at the end was fantastic! Did you spot me? In the middle, towards the back :-)

The next day, we saw John Mayer and bizarrely, Neil Diamond, who seemed to struggle to get the crowd going until he sang ‘I’m a Believer’ and then of course ‘Sweet Caroline’ which brought the house down. He should have just come on and sang ‘Sweet Caroline’ half a dozen times and everyone would have been happy. I love the way everyone sang the backing vocals as well as the main tune…

The weather stayed dry all the time I was there so I must thank you for all your kind comments and wishes - they worked! here is a small slide show of photographs from Wimbledon and Glastonbury.

I went for a walk on my favourite beach last night. I was delighted to find lots of the coastal plants in full bloom along the edge of the beach and on the cliff tops. I think the purple flowers are called ‘thrift’ but will have to check up on the others. 

I had lots of company on my walk - not of the human kind though.

The cliff tops are honeycombed with rabbit warrens and I saw dozens of them during my walk. It’s slightly disconcerting actually. The cliff edges are unstable enough without bunnies mining them! It was a lovely walk though, even though it was grey, the sun kept trying to break through and the sunbeams shining on the sea were gorgeous.

I went for a walk as I needed to get out - I had spent the entire day sewing this giant album I am making. I started by cutting 50 sheets of ivory Colorplan 270gsm paper (which is the same as Falkiners use in their photograph albums). Each sheet had to be measured and cut individually and then scored so I could fold over a 2cm section on one side. This helps to space the pages so that the album lies flat once photographs are placed into it. 

The next step was to sew the pages together which so far has taken me over a day and I am only about half of the way through. I normally just hold the text block in my hands to sew but as these pages are 40cm x 50cm, that’s just not possible. The sewing would be easier I think if I was using a sewing frame but as I don’t have one, I am just lying each new page on top of the previous one and holding them in place. It seems to be working so far….

I found this great web site the other day that invites people to post an image of themselves when they were a child and then to photograph themselves re-creating the childhood photograph. It’s called ‘Young Me, Now Me’ and some of the photographs are hilarious. I ‘borrowed’ these to show you what I mean. You must visit and see the rest of the photographs - or even post your own!

As you might have guessed, I couldn’t resist digging out a Young Me, Now Me combination. It’s not a direct recreation but with a bit of cropping and converting to B&W, it’s close enough…

It’s interesting to note I had bags under my eyes even when I was 8. Must have been all that reading after lights out under the bed covers with a torch! And my hairstyle hasn’t changed that much - just got longer. Which reminds me, I’m off to my hairdresser again on Wednesday. Last time I went, he was in a  wheelchair as he had broken his leg very badly and he did struggle to cut my hair - I’m amazed he even tried. It necessitated me lowering my chair until it was inches off the floor so that he could reach me - I felt like a little girl again, sitting on those miniature chairs we had in primary school.

Shall I be more adventurous this time….? Nah!

You may remember I was taking part in a Book Swap over at the Book Arts Forum. I made a book as a first effort, fully intending to have a second go at it but as is often the way with these things, time ran away with me and I had to use my original effort as I never got round to trying something different.

So far, so familiar. As the theme of the swap was ‘My Home Town’, I did hit on the idea of filling the pages with images of Dorset (as you can imagine I have rather a lot). This started out as a good idea until I realised that as I had used Bockingford watercolour paper for the pages, the printed photographs wouldn’t stick to the pages terribly well, but having started, I had to finish! I think they are secure but the other problem was that the pages curled slightly and even after a day or so in my book press, they wouldn’t straighten and as time had run out, I had to send it to Rhonda as it was (with a letter of apology!)

Here are photographs of some of the pages.

It’s very intimidating making a book for other bookbinders to see ‘in the flesh’ as it were and even though this is the second swap I have taken part in - I still feel as if I could have done better…. having said that, I’m really looking forward to receiving my book from Crazy Daisy Girl :-)

By the way, thanks very much indeed for the votes over at Kim’s competition. I didn’t win but happily I wasn’t vote-less which was very pleasing. You might like to check out the art work which won, a painting by Emmanuel Martinez called “Pain in the Eye’. Congratulations to the lucky winner!

Now I’m off to continue with my latest project, a huge photograph album for a friend. She has two enormous beautifully made, very expensive albums which she has filled with photographs and I am going to try to make a third which matches the others. No pressure then……. :-)

Well, I’m back. Thank you so much for all your kind wishes and comments, I will reply as soon as I have drawn breath. I’ve had a very interesting trip despite a lot of very dodgy weather that seems to be afflicting all Western Europe at the moment. We arrived in Geneva at lunch time and after our 2 hour train journey to Sierre then a taxi ride up the mountain, we finally arrived in Crans Montana in the early evening. It was surprisingly warm and sunny (we had expected to be cold!) but by the next day, it had become grey and misty and that set the tone for much of the rest of the journey south.

It was really interesting to see the same places I photographed a couple of months ago - minus the snow. It’s quite astonishing to see how quickly the grass and trees recover after being covered in snow for months on end. The snow covered hillsides had become meadows filled with wild flowers and the cows were out to pasture, each wearing a huge cow bell which rang constantly. The poor creatures must be deaf with the noise. 

Our journey was not going to be a leisurely sight seeing trip unfortunately. We were booked onto a ferry leaving Barcelona the next day so we had a lot of driving to do in a relatively short time. We set off in drizzly rain and and drove to Geneva and then down to Lyon. This part of the journey was through a region called the Jura and the scenery is quite beautiful. I managed to take a few shots as we drove through the mountains and through many tunnels.

After that we headed down the motorway which runs down to the South of France, (called the Autoroute du Soleil - the Sunshine Motorway) heading towards Spain when we reached Orange and bypassing some wonderful places like Montelimar, Avignon, Nimes, Carcassonne and Perpignan. The weather did improve as we drove south but as we were in the car, it seemed a waste! Just after we crossed the Spanish border, we came to Figueras (which has a famous Dali museum) and we stopped for the night in a pretty little fishing village called Port de la Selva.

This was the night that my team, Manchester United played Chelsea in the Champions League Final in Moscow. I managed to watch the last hour or so, in my hotel room on Spanish TV (so no John Motson or Alan Hanson - every cloud has a silver lining) The match was very close and even after playing extra time, the match was still drawn. The penalty shoot out which followed was unbearably exciting and stressful - I could hardly stand to watch it. Luckily, we won and I expect my screams of joy could be heard in Barcelona. Oops! Sorry! Manchester United knocked Barcelona out in the semi finals….. :-) Anyway, don’t let anyone say that we Mancunians weren’t pleased to win the cup!

We were heading for Barcelona to catch a fast ferry over to Palma in Mallorca. When we reached Barcelona, after only getting lost once (and that was because we had a duff road map and the streets had no names or road signs - honest! Maybe it was revenge for the football) we just about had time for a quick lunch before catching the Sea Cat, so I only had time for a quick look around the harbour near the port. (Click on thumbnails for a larger image)

I have stayed in my friends’ apartment in Puerta Pollensa many times and the weather has always been brilliant, so I suppose I was due some bad weather. Friday wasn’t too bad. We did manage to sit in the sun for a while but the three days after that were awful - very unseasonal rain, high winds and storms.

Having said that, I saw THE most amazing thunderstorm which happened whilst there was a spectacular red sunset. Even after many efforts, I didn’t manage to get a photograph of the lightning but shortly after I took this shot there was a HUGE bolt of forked lightning. With the building site in the foreground, this photograph reminds me of Mordor in ‘Lord of the Rings’ :-)

I arrived back in the UK yesterday after our grey, wet week to rain, rain and more rain. Marvellous. Welcome home.  

Just a very quick post to show you this book and to tell you I’m not going to be around for a week or so. I’m off on an adventure - I’m flying to Geneva with a friend and we are then driving to Barcelona and catching a ferry over to Mallorca. We are then going to spend a few days at her apartment before flying back to the UK next week. I’m looking forward to the trip - Thelma and Louise eat your heart out! On second thoughts, that didn’t end too well, so maybe not :-)

As I will be traveling around, I won’t be taking my laptop so I’ll be having an enforced break from blogging, so apologies if I don’t visit yours for a while. I’ll catch up on my return. In the meantime, Kim over at Laketrees is having a little competition and is inviting people to vote for their favourite art work. I rather foolishly entered a book and it is up against some stiff competition - mostly (if not all paintings). If you are feeling kind and generous, and like my books I’d appreciate a vote or two so I don’t end up as a complete ‘Billy No-Mates’ over there. Thanking you kindly….