barleybooks posted: " Five of us met in Bron's kitchen on a fine frosty morning two days ago. We had plenty of news to share. Jane has been in Italy helping with her brother's olive harvest. Bron has been in London working with her very talented grand-daughter on an exciting " barleybooks
Five of us met in Bron's kitchen on a fine frosty morning two days ago. We had plenty of news to share. Jane has been in Italy helping with her brother's olive harvest. Bron has been in London working with her very talented grand-daughter on an exciting shadow-puppet project. Pat has been in Wales and will soon be off to Australia. Judith as usual has been to many places bringing back papermaking fibres and news of exhibitions. I have spent three exciting weeks in South Africa and Eswatini, meeting my daughter's in-laws and seeing as much as possible. We talked about plans for 2024, and Bron's suggestion of "Thread" as a theme for future work was unanimously approved. Looking at the Dove-droppings for the day, I see that untold secrets were a bit of a theme.
After a delicious and warming bring-and-share lunch we went to visit the tree plantation in Wild Lea. There were still areas of frost on the ground. The trees are doing well, thanks to Bron's watering during a long drought. The young oaks stood out in their rusty foliage.
Past the Tree House Library and into Wild Lea
The air was bright and clear
A distant poplar was bedecked with huge spheres of mistletoe.
November Dove-droppings
ladybirds hibernating in a clump have come a long way to infiltrate exhibitions
harvesting olives with a rake I found the spit on the rubbish heap small oaks appear as the mist clears
I was woken by geese in the estuary the Ordovician cliffs opposite the island full of boatbuilders
photos developed in the North Sea with ivy leaves tea and coffee not a patch on Clare's flapjacks
stuff I got in Germany nearly destroyed a juicer fermented hemp cooked with caustic
it's strangely heavy dividing life into portions I will never do that again
scissors but no left-handed ones and one scalpel kept under lock and key in the Doge's palace
a chain store for storing chains down Gas Ferry Road
the castle was occupied by Rommel nobody knew and nobody ever dared ask in the island of Reunion
talking in bed between two rivers about the last Victorian steamship
heat and good wine an old palace in Venice a secret I can't divulge
I missed the 21st October meeting, when work made from our indigo dyeings was shown, because I returned from Africa that day. Jane has sent me a photo of her box (awaiting contents), and I have made the first and second of many tiny books from my strips of folded paper. Eventually I'll need to make a box to contain them.
Clare, who was there, compiled the October Dove-droppings
here comes another person slimming down that line of thinking
leave something behind straddled between the two almost black
best of all I like the hairy bits you just cannot repeat them
seaweeds inside a drainpipe one of those lovely surprises
like creatures in the grass celebrating two hundred years of thistles
pushing themselves a soon as the weather is clement
press the pause button it's got a lovely sound a lovely rattle
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