Collage in the Morecambe house...

 I studied for a BA fine art degree at The Wirral Met ...

...five years as a mature student...

...did'nt finish it, but after five years I felt I had some understanding of what it didn't mean!!

However during that time I collected some cartoons that were published each weekend in one of the papers....by Psillos...a Greek artist working in fashion and political cartoons.

The papers got filed in a folder in my studio and there they have been ..on the shelf with all the other arty stuff I've accumulated since 1999.

Until this week.

We were up at the bay house and the weather as you know was fierce...

...so no walking for us.

It only took a couple of hours and a pot of wallpaper paste and we clad an old wall outside the room at very top of the house under the eaves we call  ...

"The Club Room "

A  wall at the  top of the stairs and above it in the space made watertight by the builders last year.

...a painting of the seagulls that nest in our tall chimneys.

... the collage really brightens up the space..

...with a great smiling mouth in the middle!...

Some information about Psillos....

Demetrios Psillos has worked for John Galliano at the start of his career, he moved into Illustration and found success in New York with clients including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, The New Yorker, Wallpaper and The New York Times. On returning to the UK, he continued working as an illustrator for The Times and Vogue. His successful illustrations for Nigella Lawson’s Food & Lifestyle columns led Demetrios to create the animated title sequences to the multi-award winning ‘Nigella Bites’ series. Love his gorgeous vivid colours! www.demetriospsillos.com

I'm planning another wall...I have lots of cartoons left still...but the clay man doesn't know that yet.

Keeping it as a surprise for his March birthday!!

paulatim

Just one day in February.

 On Friday we drove up the M6 to the old house in West End Morecambe and popped the heating on to warm it up.

...then  switched on the electric blanket to air the bed...

...and off to Arnside in the wind with big skies and rainbows over the Bay.

A train goes off to Whitehaven again.

It looks like a toy train as it trundles over the bridge on it's way up the west coast of Cumbria.

We sit and stare and promise...we'll do that trip this year.

 

...my mum loved seagulls...her favourite book was " Jonathan Livingston Seagull"...

Rosie bought it for her.

...we used to watch them from the old caravan at Ballyferris...fighting the winds and soaring over the wild seas.

...we were just in time to catch the "bore" as it powered it's way up the Kent ...roaring like a tractor...

...sudden downpours...

...caused many rainbows...I love a rainbow...it tells me " All will be well"...

(Julian of Norwich...thankyou..)

...then back to the old house and fish and chips with the blessed son...who now lives on The Bay.

A big fire in the grate and rugs around the knees and we talk of this and that ...

and are thankful.

The End of The Line

I'm reposting this poem for dVerse Open link night week 41.

It's one that I like reading myself...if that's not too arrogant!

Also it takes me to a place that I love to go...the seaside!

I'm really only just getting into linking to all of these wonderful sites.

So a big thankyou to dVerse for the opportunity to get my stuff...out there!

The End of the Line

Let’s go and live at the end of the line.
Where breakers fall over rolling stones.
We’ll board the train that we rode when young,
Watch how the steam mists our view of the sea
As it hisses and cools on the iron and the brass.
And the cry of the gulls as they dive, as they soar
Will welcome us back
Will welcome us back.

Let’s board the train that we rode long ago,
Where the end of the line will have water and sand.
We’ll be welcomed again by the crying of gulls
The smell of spun sugar and hot lardy chips.
There, will be space enough for our thoughts
And salt winds that blow away stale urban fog.
To welcome us back,
To welcome us back.

They say that the crust is beginning to crack.
That the cold winds of change are blowing our way.
Yet when I take the journey again to the end
Of the line, where the seagulls are soaring above
To the edge of the tide, to the line in the sand.
The memory of all of things, of all being well
Embraces me back
Embraces me back.

"The Big Fight!"

Ohhhh!

Very exciting watchings in the garden at lunch time today...a big fierce fight.
...Buzzard  v  "Craws"....
...that's magpies and crows to the more informed!

I'm in the kitchen preparing a pan of soup...home made, delicious tho' I say so myself...
...the potter is next door in the studio glazing puffins...a good seller by the way...

and then the kerfuffle and the screaming of the birds... a lot of noise and beating of wings.

I had put out the seed, worms and peanuts as usual earlier. Mostly blackbirds, robins and bluetits frequent the "stall!" Oh yes and of course, those fat waddlers of the field...the wood pigeons.
But now and again the magpies will swoop in and devour the lot.
So whether the buzzard had foolishly come over at the same time as the "mags"... I'm not sure.
But one of them had the buzzard by the throat and another had it by the leg and the feathers were flying
... and we were left gobsmacked ...as they say!

The pack of crows that nest in the highest trees down the field , had gathered on the tops of the bushes nearby... crawing and jumping up and down like mad things.
The rest of the magpies who normally compete with the crows ...had joined the throng and were flying and swooping down on the fight taking place on the bird feeding stall.

I wasn't sure where to put my money. At times, the crows will beat off the little birds, and of course the magpies eat their eggs and babies....such is the reality of lovely nature...I like that in a weird sort of way. Life everywhere is tough. I would say dog eat dog ...but it's more bird eat bird!

Anyway the potter must have had his money on the buzzard...as it managed to struggle free and flew off at top speed...ahhh... beautiful bird.

Excitement over..the craws and other birds settled down again up in the tops of the trees...well that is except for the seagulls who always circle overhead on the currents coming up from the Mersey which is close by. They continued to cry with their childlike "mews". Often an unearthly sound.

Years ago when the "blessed" Tom cat was in his prime, he too had taken on the magpies.

The fight was fierce, and once again all the other magpies gathered around and swooped at him as he taunted the bird in his mouth. Again, in that instance, the magpie got away and Tom made a dash for the bushes to hide until the furore was over.

Ohhh!  what an exciting life I do live!  All back to normal now...potter in studio...me at the keys and the sun starting to shine.

Can I smell spring?  I think I can.

A Poem for Thursday

the bolt

came out of a clear blue sky
one minute
drinking guinness
watching gulls slowly rising
from the river
as the tide returned.

cut grass and cylists
and a Ferry view.

then

somehow we knew
as she crossed to the window
wound down to take
the unexpected heat.

parked cars and parents
and the green of the playing field.

loss

this like the loss of the Angles.
no good screaming down
dream corridors
after a departing soul.

bacon, eggs and tomato
and the presentation's the thing.

now

a knowing look
and again
Castor and Pollux had all the answers.

Click you heels together
and Kansas is home.

This is my dear friend Dorothy working at the Oaks Cafe.

Sweet memories. 

.

On Their Way to Kent.

Some work just out of the kiln, already packed up in boxes and on it's way south.

A close up of the fish box.

These huts are the net drying huts found along the harbours.

Inside the thrown part of the ceramic.

Crown of huts.

The little seagull icon Alan puts on a landscape sculpture.