Alice

" No, no, too many choices...where is that caterpillar when you need advice?"

"Ah, now that one looks pretty."

"I'll just get a little closer and read the instructions on it"

HAARLEMESIS

Dutch Drops

" Well that's a bit odd...but if they are good for the Dutch, ....just think how tall the Dutch are,.... then I'll have a sip. Anything to get me down off this window ledge!"

The new show at the Tate Liverpool opened last night. I wasn't there, but I will be going as soon as I can....

...............and taking grand girls with me!

"Alice"

We live close to the area south of the river, where Charles Dodgson was a vicar.

Daresbury.

It was Alice who got us to move out of teaching and into our own art business.
Perhaps...I've just thought....we live in Wonderland!
The leaving of teaching is a long drawn out story...best left alone!
Suffice it to say that Alice had a big hand in the doing of that.
This Alice is far from the sweet, innocent portrayal of childhood seen in Disneyish type films....
....though I have to say that I really enjoyed the latest 3-d version of it ...if only for the portrayal of the Hatter and the Red Queen.
No this Alice has spawned a multitude of confusions and madnesses.
Salvador Dali, Peter Blake, John Armstrong to name a few of the artists drawn into her spell.
The Times review this morning by Rachel Campbell- Johnson mentions ...."the spectator soon lost in the labyrinths"....of the show I presume.
Maybe it's all Alices' fault that we have built a labyrinth in the field at the back of the Potters House!
I'm looking forward to seeing the original illustrations by John Tenniel. I sttill remember the feelings of uncertainty I had as a child with the book and his illustations and not knowing in my innocence where they could have come from !

[Bottle care of the late Sydney....really does say that!  I have just looked it up on Google and lo and behold there is a bottle of it for sale on e-bay...now how "wonderland" is that!]

Fuengirola Market!

It's market day!

Hooray!

Alan and I always start with a spanish coffee and a toasted croissante.

It costs all of 5.80 euros...that's for two of us.

Delish!

This year lovely Jean (the potter's sister] and gorgeous hubby, Rob..

joined us at the grand do.

But I had to go back the next week to see what the clothes stall was offering.

I'm hooked!

The stall in the market that has me in my best cherry-picking mode has got me again!

It used to be, "n'euro...n'euro!"

This year it was, "d'euro, d'euro!"

Three trestle tables piled up with clothes from all over the world.

"Roll up ladies and grab your hearts' desires."

Last year I was entranced with two African coats,

I flung them over my arm, to save them from the melee.

I posed wearing the blue....

and the potter kindly secumbed to my pleas to wear the green one.

( note facial expression).

This year ,

oh joy of joys...

a Japanese kimona..

I assumed that it was merely a pretty house coat...

but no,

there on the label in the back was ,

"Made in Japan.   100 per cent silk"

I often wonder who owned these garments

and how did they manage to end up in Fuengirola Market?

And when if ever will I have an occasion to wear them...

I don't get out much!!!

Well you may or may not remember the

Mad Hatter's episode last year

and there they were...

...those garments.

Though what they had to do with the Mad Hatter...

I'm not entirely sure.