Just outside Painswick in Gloucestershire, Paradise is a few scattered houses, a former pub, and a simply glorious valley. Just the place to go on sunny summer evening, with my good friend Robin and a bottle of beer each. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. In a moment of weakness I mentioned a way of describing art in an unintelligible way and it’s known as “art bollocks”. Robin has adopted this with enthusiasm and is now adept at the language. He did use the words “dimensional clutter“ in this short video. Hopefully this was the beer talking. Continue reading Late walkers in Paradise and dimensional clutter.

You know what it is. The deep bit of dashboard in front of the steering wheel awash with old bills, probably unpaid, empty fag packets ( that’s cigarette packs to anyone outside the UK ) , old takeaway wrapping and detritus. In some cases the vehicle is relatively new and the purchase date can be probably ascertained by digging deep and finding the invoice for it deep in the dashboard. Poor chap never has the time to clean it out as he’s off to the next job, not yours, to try and make headway on it before he finishes at … Continue reading Builder’s Dashboard.

I thought I’d posted this some time ago, in June. Of all the walks that Robin and I have been on this one gave us both the biggest pleasant surprise.It feels like almost the end of summer here now with a hint of cool in the air. This was an evening walk, but as I recall, quite warm. I hope you enjoy this like we did the walk back then. This is the post from then: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ This evening my friend Robin and I went for a ramble on the banks of the River Severn near Apperley in Gloucestershire and … Continue reading Hello buttercup…later.

Another of my portrait shots and unusually in this one my good friend Al Blethyn is facing the camera. He wears well does this fellow. We shared offices for nearly ten years and never a cross word. Unusually in this picture he’s not smiling broadly, which is something we do a lot when we meet. He’s a fine designer with a brilliant feel for type. We are at present collaborating on designing t shirts! Possibly the oldest t shirt designers in the country. Take a look at them here, and you’ll see what I’m on about when it comes to … Continue reading How does he do it?

You mighty see a few of these portraits in the next few weeks, so don’t say you were n’t warned. This is Ron and as you can see from the background it was taken when there was very little green around. It was cold but bright, unlike now in May, when it’s cold and very damp. Ron is one of my fellow plotters and has been working his allotment for a number of years. I have only one instruction to my fellow allotment victims, and that is “Look noble” and they do. Ron’s potatoes seem to grow at exactly the … Continue reading Ron from the Plot

Nowhere. Like everyone else I’ve been nowhere but around where we live. I’ve also been pretty quiet on the blogging front too. But like a duck in the water I’ve been paddling away. More projects and one in particular has taken quite a bit of my time. I have a habit of never finishing projects and it may well be tricky to get to the end of this blog without drifting off. That aside I’m determined that my new project will take off and it’s all about t shirts. Odd really, but I never wear them myself, but leapt at … Continue reading Where’ve you been?

My mother and father inherited a small cottage in Wales in the 1970s which was formerly the home of my Aunty Gracie. Gracie lived with her sister Mary, in the house for many years, almost all her life. I remember the place well with it’s black cast iron kitchen range in the quite dark back room, usually lit even on the warmest days. We always went to visit the two sisters when we were on holiday in what was my father’s home town. We were allowed to view the parlour: the front room, but not allowed to go into it. … Continue reading Gracie’s secret.

My good friend Steve has let me borrow a book that he thought might suit me. “Edgelands” by poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts. I’m not much into poetry but this book is prose. Not quite sure how one writes a book with someone else but they seem to have managed it seamlessly. I’ve really enjoyed it and what shows how good it was that it sent me off in other directions to look for things I knew little about. Including the authors. If, like me you like to see broken down old sheds, and find beauty in broken … Continue reading Meat and potato pie from Edgelands

Choosing the right place and time to go out for a walk seems to be more important these days than before we were locked in with the key seemingly chucked away somewhere. In this country you can be lucky with the weather and the further north you go the luckier you can be, or not. For instance, if it rains in the Lake District there are days when you can’t see more than a few feet in front of you and you might as well be walking around the old sewage farm close to where you live. At present we … Continue reading Spring loaded.

Same old, same old. TV is a massive hole that needs to be filled every day. Something the local council have really given up on around here, and probably everywhere. Before the ‘C’ word arrived was no better. Suspension testing holes in the roads were rife. When we lived in Gloucester the road men used to come by occasionally with a teaspoon of tarmac and add another patch to the already patchy road. It had the look of a grey quilt which had been sewn together over the years, when one big road refurb would have solved the lot. My … Continue reading “I don’t need a watch, I tell the time from the crap TV programmes I’m watching.”.