Paints and plants

Rudbeckia, acrylic resist and Indian ink

We inflicted our regular canelloni on Mr & Mrs Engineer Smith last Tuesday, having not seen them for quite a while.  No reports of ill effects.  They went away with their Christmas present (left), having given us an extremely generous theatre voucher.  Martyn tells me it can be used at the Theatre Royal in Brighton, so we might use it for the Rambert show in a fortnight or so.  (Mainly because Yshani is playing, and I've promised her a jar of marmalade...)

make me an offer...

On Thursday we took a ride along to Edenbridge to see the little exhibition that Miss has organised.  We're evidently exhibiting as the Pinnacles Art Group, that being the name of the now mercifully demolished pub near where we meet on Thursday mornings.  I'd only planned to put in the two big pieces, since they are part of the growing corpus of paintings I can gladly live without.  I'd sent off a sunrise and a sunset for framing, and Miss had thought I wanted them included in the show.  Neither is for sale, though the big ones are.  The group turns out some fine stuff, and we have bought two lovely watercolours by the very talented Irene Swain. 

Irene and two fine floral watercolours

She says she's principally a potter, but she sure can paint, and these two will grace Forges-l'Evêque when the show closes.  (Get along to see it if you can: it's at Bridges, a drop-in centre run by volunteers in an old Ebenezer Church building in Edenbridge High Street.  Should be on for a few weeks longer.)  Thence to Chrissie's for a stand-up buffet lunch, to which we contributed a faintly indecent looking panettone.

Amusing interlude today: around midday the doorbell rang.  A neighbour from six houses up the street needs a couple of new windows, and, having seen our contractors' van, came to ask what we thought of their work.  Avis favorable from us, but we're not sure what she thought.  We certainly didn't spare her our thoughts on JokersЯus Home Improvements....  Nice to meet another neighbour in a street where we don't really drop in on each other.  Seems a bit foreign to me, but there you are.

The garden is starting to get cracking.  I've pruned the red-barked dogwoods and the roses that I can reach at this point without sinking into the ooze.  The spuds are chitting nicely in the sitooterie, so should be marching on in their growing bags by the time we head south for a quick break in late April.  Daffodils are starting to go over, but the miniature ones are up now, the narcissi are doing well and some purple and white crocuses are joining their yellow brothers.