A story

A wanderer

This week I have been on the coast so have not had much time for upcycling. I love the seaside; it taps into the inner child: the gritty sand between the toes, the salt of the sea, the taste of ice cream as it drips sticky onto fingers. The sea makes an edge to my world, but at the same time rolls out forever beyond the horizon, full of adventures and possibilities. I even think I saw the flash of water nymphs in the waves, but I can't be sure.
I managed a 12 mile walk through the stunning edge of the Mendip Hills, across a nature reserve, past limestone cliffs, along the beach and up pretty terrifying steps onto the top of Brean Down (the Brean Down way, which I would highly recommend and, as a public service, have included a link to). I would recommend this if only as a way to escape the crowds of holidaymakers and retired people in Weston-Super-Mare. The number of times I was nearly taken out by a pushchair or a mobility scooter or a dog lead...
As an aside, I hate how some dog owners assume that you must also love their dog. I do not like dogs. I do not want a dog barrelling into me at top speed as I sit peacefully reading. I do not want a dog sticking its slobbering nose in my bag and generally making a nuisance of itself. I will glare at you in a typically British way until you get the message and drag your dog off me, and then I will mutter for the next half hour while I try and get sand out of my biscuits, and curse your dog with fleas...  anyway...
Walking long distances makes me channel my inner homo sapien (as opposed to homo technologicus). It is the same feeling I get when I successfully make fire, or grow my own food, or swing through the trees like Tarzan. Maybe not that last one. There is a sense of achievement in doing something which takes so long, something you could achieve in minutes with modern tools. You are forced to go slower, to look around you, to concentrate on something. It is hard and that makes it satisfying. It adds context to life when you spend a day walking somewhere... and then get a bus back in 20 minutes. It brings you closer to your ancestors in a relatively safe way (hunting a marauding mammoth would probably achieve the same effect...)
So, I have been working on my nymph picture. Any helpful comments or suggestions would be very good:

Damsel Fairy

My cats are called Jemima and Puddle. As a rule I don't like cats, but mine are probably the most lovely things in my life. They are relatively undemanding: feed me! stroke me! play with me! Love me! When I first let them outdoors, it took them nearly a month to work out how to get out the cat flap, and then another month to work out how to get back in again, so not the brightest. And they still insist on pooing inside - popping in from their excursions to do a poo and then go back out again! And I was reliably informed that they would do their business outside in neighbours' gardens. O well...

Anyway, most of the time I love them. Apart from those times that Puddle brings in flying things, then she and I have words. Usually I try and rescue whatever flying thing she has, and she'll take it in her mouth and run away, and her mouth sounds like a fan from the sound of wings. When she is like this, she reminds me of a naughty child, although naughty children don't tend to eat moths. She favours moths, having been stung by a particularly indignant wasp. My next door neighbour hardly helps as she does a moth count every evening with a huge light and a trap: like feeding time in the zoo for Puddle.
I know that I didn't bring Puddle into the world and she would be chasing moths somewhere else (incidentally, don't be a poohead and refuse to neuter your felines so they can run around and get pregnant at the age of one and add to the cat population)... but still it hurts that she is killing my moths in my garden.    

A few months ago, I came into the kitchen to an almighty racket. Puddle was being stared down by the most beautiful flying thing I had ever seen: shimmering golden wings like a damsel fly spread out behind it, and the angriest glare on its face. I have heard that damsel fairies can communicate with animals as well as humans, and I think this one was telling Puddle where to go.

Now I know we have a small colony of damsel fairies in the oak tree at the bottom of the garden. They are very difficult to spot, but last winter I happened to see one gathering the acorns. They like the ones which are misshapen from parasitic wasps as they make the best stew - see link for a photo. This year I seem to have seen these misshapen acorns on every oak tree I've walked past, which isn't a good sign for the oak tree, but probably good for the damsel fairies. Apparently wasps lay their eggs on the acorn and the tree tries to defend itself by growing a protective shield around the eggs, thus protecting the wasp eggs through to when they hatch.

After a few plaintive mews, Puddle wandered away, leaving me with the angry damsel fairy on the kitchen floor. It was very shaken, so I provided it with a small bowl of sugar water (I know that works for bees, so I thought maybe it would work for damsel fairies!) This one looked unharmed by Puddle, but was so shaken that it couldn't fly for a couple of hours. I moved it up high so that the cats couldn't get it, and gave it a blanket to rest on and a range of food (sunflower seeds, honey, bread crumbs, pumpkin seeds...) And I drew it, with its nodded permission of course (it never said anything to me), twenty sketches or so while it sat and recovered.

After two hours, it rose to its feet, tested its wings, and launched itself into the air and through the open back door without a backwards look, leaving me with a handful of pencil sketches. The following morning I came downstairs to find a small collection of objects on my back doorstep: a misshapen acorn carved into the shape of a face, a smooth holly leaf (because you know as you go higher and higher into holly trees the leaves lose their prickles and become smooth, something a good friend once showed me and is probably my favourite nature related fact); and the husk of a spider. Objects are never just things, they are always imbued with their value by the people who find them or own them. Presumably these are worth something to damsel fairies.
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I have tried to reproduce the fairy on this piece of roof tile, left over after from when I had my roof done. I haven't done it justice, but I will keep trying. And maybe I'll spot one again before they go into hibernation.

Time

My house is a mess. I have half-completed projects everywhere. I am drowning in an ocean of glue, varnish, paint and paper... although I can think of worse ways to go. My garlic chives have finally emerged into the light, and my carrots stalks have little carroty frills on them. The first whispers of autumn are here; I can feel the slight chill in the air when the sun isn't looking, the earlier nights... I'm planning on ignoring it as long as possible, then going into hibernation. It is still summer dammit!

I decided to return in this blog to an upcycling project that I did a few years ago, probably my favourite upcycle. It isn't that the idea is unique or difficult, but just that the object means a lot to me. This record belonged to my Grandad. It has Sunrise Serenade on it by Glenn Miller, and I'm listening to it as I write this: the rasp of the trumpet against the brass band, the insistent beat of the music with that discordant clutter of notes. The music has an unmistakable inter-war feeling to it.

This record my Grandad had in the 1930s when he was younger than I am now, which makes it 80 years old or more. I can  imagine him sitting near the player, moving the needle over, and listening to the first notes. By the time my parents inherited it, it was scratched beyond repair; time had taken the music out of the record. But objects contain the shadows of the past, the echoes of voices, events, places where they have lain. They are a link to people who have gone, and people who will come. The record is a reminder of days when people owned their own music and played it on record players in an unconnected world.  

I turned the record into the clock you can see in the photo. It is a really simple process: drill a hole in the centre for the clock mechanism (you can buy clock parts online really cheaply); paint the hands the colour you want, and super glue a bracket onto the back so it can hang on the wall. I painted dots on for the numbers because it didn't really need anything else, it is simple, elegant and beautiful, and it ticks like a real clock.

Blogging about a clock made me think about time, and specifically my favourite Winnie the Pooh quote, because of course there is a Winnie the Pooh quote for every eventuality:

"What day is it?" asked Pooh,

"It's today," squeaked Piglet.

"My favourite day," said Pooh. 

Because,in the end all we actually have is today. 

Itsy Bitsy Spider

The house next door is finally being renovated...after sitting sad and empty for nearly three years. I have befriended the builders and they are putting aside tarnished treasures for me. One of them called me a magpie the other day as I glimpsed an old square window among the rubble and squirreled it away (think Golum, but with a better skin care routine). I am not sure he meant it as a compliment, but I like it. Magpies are beautiful and they like shiny things. And the window will be shiny, and will be painted with stained glass paints at some point and be beautiful too.

A few weeks ago, I took all the old drainpipes from the builders, drilled holes in them, taped the ends off with black tape and filled them with compost. I've put them on a couple of bricks in the garden and I'm currently growing salad leaves in them. One of the easiest things to grow, and it is wonderful to have fresh (and free) salad leaves whenever I want them - they taste better, they last longer and they don't come in a crappy non-recyclable plastic coffin. If you stagger the sowing of the seeds, you can keep a continuous supply going right through the year as you use up the plants.  

                                                                                                                                                                
I stole the idea from my parents' garden, and they may have taken it from Gardeners World. My parents' garden is still my favourite garden in the world. It is the type of magical garden that children love, full of pathways which demand exploring and hidden corners in hidden rooms. It is a natural, cottage garden, teeming with wildlife and spilling over with colour and scents. Most of the plants I have in my garden are stolen from my parents, dug up or propagated after frequent 'shopping' walks, with me pointing out to my parents things that are quite lovely and which would also look quite lovely in my small city garden hint hint...

I have also been nervously watching the Brexit chaos and, based on my strong conviction that the Tories couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery (some clichés cannot be improved), and that we are likely to crash out of the EU with no back up plan, I have decided to increase my vegetable growing activity - to channel the Good Life. I am following a month by month guide from the Allotment Source Book, by Caroline Foley. Generally I spend whole summers nurturing vegetables to only end up with a small handful of potatoes, some mangetout and a fat courgette, but this year I am determined it will be different. I have started an informal vegetable co-operative with friends (a triumph of hope over experience), so that all the vegetable glut which we will inevitably have next year can be shared out.... 

Unfortunately, gardening is also the best teacher of delayed gratification there is. You have to plan one or two seasons ahead with the garden, putting bulbs in during the Autumn so they flower in Spring, sowing vegetables in Winter and Spring so they crop in Summer. My onion seeds will be ready next August (which is a fat lot of good if we have an onion shortage in May next year...)
But anyway, I have sown small carrots and peas for October harvests, and stolen some spring onions and spring cabbage from my parents' greenhouse to get me going. I have also frozen rosemary, bay and mint from the garden for the winter months when I don't want to go outside; and taken cuttings of basil for rooting and potting off; and planted garlic chives for the windowsill. As things stand, I could probably ride through a herb shortage unscathed. However, I really need the Brexit chaos to be delayed until after next Summer when my vegetable crops come in if anyone in Government is listening.   

A fickle friend

Sometimes creativity sucks; it is such a fickle friend. I have periods of intense creativity, where I could do anything, be anything, with ideas and energy and passion overflowing from me. I feel the border between the mundane world and the fantasy world start to shiver and crack, I glimpse through into the startingly beautiful lands of myth and legend. And I am so close, I can almost touch it... I can capture it on canvas, in paint or colouring pencils, paper and varnish...  This is when I am most me, most authentically me.
And then there are periods where it is enough of a challenge to feed myself, my cats, find clean clothes and have enough loo roll in the house (certainly the sign of someone who is in control of their life, running out of loo roll is the ultimate adult fail); and I hunker down under piles of half finished projects, abandoned by my fickle friend. Sometimes she is gone for months, sometimes weeks. Sometimes I can prompt her to come back, sometimes not.  It is like walking in the valleys after you've glimpsed the heights of the mountains.
The last time she went, she was gone for a month. I decided that I would fight it. I would draw a tiny part of a picture every day on a sheet of A3 paper, just twenty minutes a day before I went to sleep

This is the picture with every white bit filled in:

 
 My cousin's daughter, Emily, requested the band (Wings of course) and the balloons, and in return she got her own ice cream shop. I think I would live in the teapot by the flowers if I had the choice. My fickle friend has gone again, but I am starting to feel the need to be creative again, that slight ache that heralds a new spring.

Kitchen Chalkboard

A few weeks ago I had my roof replaced.  I took the week off work because there is no back access to my property, so the roofers needed to get through the house... and let's face it, I wasn't going to miss a week of five burly roofers labouring in the extreme heat. There was a moment one of them recreated the coca cola add in the garden: shirt off, head back, sun glistening on tanned torso as he gulped down an ice cold drink...
So... anyway, these roofers arrived with a skip. Skips are very exciting for upcyclers (almost as exciting as half naked roofers!) People throw away the strangest things, some of which are absolutely crying out to be rescued and brought back to life. I haven't started clambering in skips yet, but I will always have a bit of a rummage on the edges to see what I can find. Now, a skip outside your front door is doubly exciting. People bring the upcycling opportunities to you (well, ignoring the dead sofa which was dumped on my skip after the first night - and as a bit of a digression, if you are going to dump a sofa on someone else's skip, don't also dump carrier bags of junk mail with your name and address on it, I mean really, the mongooses!)
Aside from the hundreds of broken slate tiles I rescued, the tacky white bird cage, the ridge tiles to become hedgehog houses (I told the 'gaffer' that and he told the other roofers and there was much hilarity at my expense) and a range of other unrecognised treasures, this blog is about slates on wooden frames. These are made up by the roofers for some very important purpose that I didn't really understand - they just shouted chalkboard to me (although not to the gaffer who gave me another couple from the skip with a look on his face that positively shouted 'she's cuckoo, but she's paying us, so just go with it and don't leave any power tools near her):

 It was an easy upcycle, the type where little input gives maximum effect. I took off one of the chunks of wood and left the other to make a shelf. I painted the slate tile with 3 layers of bright red chalkboard paint and let it dry. Then I painted the frame purple. This is good, as I can change the colour whenever I feel like it.
For the pattern on the front, I used buttons that I inherited from my nana. These are stuck on with super glue. They look lovely and bright in my kitchen.

The chalk board paint and glue were less than £10, so the whole thing was cheaper than buying a chalk board for my kitchen, and I've wanted one for a really long time, but the ones in the shops are all so samey. The trick with this one was being able to look at something and see what it really wants to be, like looking at a caterpillar and seeing a butterfly. Other than that, it was embarrasingly simple.