Living at the bottom of a hole.

Bless me bloggers for I have sinned: I haven’t blogged for weeks!
After Interpreter Pavlov’s gentle ticking off, I’ve lain awake nights (though actually completely knackered) worrying about my neglected blog.
Why am I so knackered? It’s because I’m “on holiday” in France! For the first two or three days, we lay about in hammocks reading, eating conveniently handy ambrosia and sipping nectar from equally handy bottles. We lazed in the sunshine, had early nights, rose late, ate fabulous lazy lunches by the river, enjoyed romantic dinners in the caressing warmth of the evenings…………
Then the Amish came!

The Amish is a bunch of five English friends who, given sufficient amounts of food and alcohol, can raise a barn for each other’s daughters’ ponies in a single weekend! When they heard we needed to attend to the main roof of our French house, they volunteered to fly out for a long weekend and redo the entire roof.
They arrived in Toulouse on the 10 o’clock flight, and were in our house by lunchtime (i.e.French lunchtime) and as a light rain was falling, we gave them lunch. With beer of course! By 2 o’clock they were outside putting up the echaffaudage and swarming over the tiles like ants. By 4 o’clock, a third of the tiles (Romans-you know typical Mediterranean ones like elongated semi flowerpots) had been lifted and then stuck down with an incredibly sticky brown gunk squeezed out from a gun, of which we had bought several.
An elegant neighbour of ours strolled out into his garden, a la Noel Coward in a striped dressing gown (why at 4pm?Dunno!), delicately sipping his Earl Grey and stopped with the Sevres halfway to his lips as something caught his eye…. The roof of Les Anglais was alive with semi-naked men wielding glue-guns and swigging from “33” bottles.
“Cheers mate!”, called one on seeing him, and took another glug of beer. The one Amish who is Mr Health and Safety was unable to come, and without his restraining influence the others quenched their thirsts the English way!
So, the Amish slaved over our roof and quaffed for two and a half days.
Early on the second day, a 2.5 ton mini-digger was delivered. One of the Amish happens to be an expert with JCB’s and the like –
“ He’s so good with the controls he can take your bra off with the machine!”, was the boast. (Unfortunately we translated this to our elderly neighbours, prior to the Amish’ arrival, and the old chap kept his wife locked in the house for the entire weekend!)
Well, digger-Amish’s job was to dig the hole for our very modest swimming pool -plunge pool really.

He drove the little green digger off the lorry and straight across the lawn, threading his way delicately between shrubs and then worked his magic. He dug the hole for the pool,and redistributed the earth in huge piles,somehow not scooping up or concussing me while I scrambled to retrieve the flat Garonne pebbles or galets, with which we intend to surround our pool; he demolished the tumbledown pigsty, dug a hole and buried it; he grubbed out several scrawny but well-rooted cypress trees and a few plum suckers; he uprooted a concrete path, smashed the concrete and buried it in another hole-unbelievable!
By Sunday night, our roof was no longer prey to the winds and leak-free, the pool was more than just a twinkle in our eyes, the orchard was free of a redundant pigsty and the fruit trees had gained light, air and space. We had also 260 empty bottles to sneak to the bottle bank in the grey morning when there was no one about to witness our shame!
The house seemed very empty next day when they’d all gone back to England on the early flight.
The bottle bank was much fuller!

Our next job was to shape the pool properly.

We’d designed it to look like a bit of the Garonne (runs below our garden wall) and to be as natural as possible-no turquoise water here- with a very shallow entrance ramp and flat slabs of false rock for the water to flow across to warm it. I’m gun-ho about plunging into cold water (merses profundo..something something.. fecit ..more beautiful; basically, middle-aged bodies tighten up in cold water!) but my husband refuses to dip a toe anywhere under 28 degrees, so this was an important aspect of the pool’s design!
We divided the labour so that my husband did most of the digging and flinging earth up into the barrow, which I staggered off with and tipped it out and then raked everything level and retrieved every pebble I could-large or small and threw them into large heaps. This went on for about 4 days until we were happy with the contours and I had a serious six-pack and biceps like Amelie Mauresmo!
Next came the steelwork, where we bent six metre long 10mm steel bars into a 25cm grid across the floor of the deep end and up the slope. Ah yes-the bond de fond went in at this point. Now I hate the affectation of people who have spent time abroad and say “ Oh how silly, I don’t know the word in English!” I’m very sorry to say that I haven’t the faintest idea what a bond de fond is in English, short of , you know the plug’ole thing in the bottom of the pool.Anyway, we balanced it in the mesh and then mixed, barrowed and levelled 7.5cm of concrete over the whole of the pool area. This was followed by a 5mm metal grid and a further 14 cm concrete. While all this was happening, we were also embroiled (literally) in the July canicule or heatwave, where temperatures in our garden frequently topped 100 deg! We are now well embarked on the blockwork walls lining the pool.
My question to those bloggers, who know about pools and physics and all that is:
We won’t have the pool connected to pumps and filters this year, and we’ll have to return to the UK from October to April. The pool will inevitably collect rainwater. Should we fill or half fill the pool before we leave in October, in order to prevent any damage by hydrostatic pressure during the winter and spring? Any tips or advice is not only welcome but probably essential! We can easily pump water in (from river) and pump it out again next April if necessary.
The project continues………..

By the way, IP was this a good enough excuse for being too tired to blog of a night?

I need a Simple Explanation

I promised Interpreter Pavlov that I'd post a blog about the biggest mural I ever created - a digital one - in the hope that someone could help me come up with a short and simple explanation of the concept.
Basically, I covered 3 storeys of a hospital building with an exterior mural, to provide a view for patients in wards looking out on to the building.
You see? I'm already floundering about in a swamp of words in trying to explain the concept!

Scenario: Hospital Facilities Manager contacts me; he's become unpopular with patients,staff and visitors because he's sited the new Coronary Care Unit right across the windows of wards on three storeys.
These wards formerly had a million-dollar view across Poole Harbour to the sea beyond; once the CCU had been built the ward windows looked out on to the architectural equivalent of a plain brown envelope.Boring!
Pyjama paralysis set in early, particularly on the 2nd and 3rd floor surgical and orthopaedic wards. The 1st floor children's ward was given a nice flat roof play-area, but it was so dire that no one ever used it and the felt became mossed-over, with the emergence of spontaneous life-forms imminent.
Also, the windows never got cleaned!


















See what I mean about the plain brown envelope?

Anyway, the obvious solution was to reproduce the much-loved view of the harbour, particularly as there was a tantalising glimpse of the sea if one went up to the ward window and looked far to the right.
Traditional painting was impractical,partly because of the time scale, and partly because paints would would quickly deteriorate in the salty air. I suggested a digital rendering for the mural, i.e a computer-generated mural.
This is where my audience loses its grasp:
"How do you mean-'computer-generated'?"
"Well", I say, "the whole thing is designed on the computer and then printed out on to large panels."
"Yes but.... how does the design get into the computer?", they persist.
"It's photographic", I begin..
"Oh, it's a giant photograph!", they interrupt, "Like those huge posters in the 70's. You could have a whole room made to look like a forest!"
"It's not just a giant photograph!", I protest, "It's a series of professionally - taken shots, which are then cut about and pasted together to create a scene... Look, I'll show you the original concept sketch..."



"You see, if the mural had just been for the second floor, it would have been easier and we might have been able to have used just one panoramic photograph of the harbour and sea views. The trouble comes with trying to provide interest for the third and first floors too. We could have just had the walls painted in a sky colour for the third floor, but I thought they should be able to see some treetops and maybe some seabirds against the sky. The first floor children's area was even more of a problem; if you can see the sea from the 2nd floor, what on earth can you have as a view from the 1st floor that also makes sense from the 2nd and 3rd floors?"
"So you created a jungle!"
"Yep, I created a jungle from the typical trees and plants thriving around Poole and Bournemouth."
"So it's two photographs then?"
"NO! It's lots of photographs of lots and lots of trees and palms and plants, and lots of palm fronds and other leaves all cut out and pasted in and manipulated to seem part of the scene."
"What? You actually cut around individual palm fronds? Blimey! Like a collage -sort of."
"yes, I suppose it is a bit like a collage.There are also some tropical birds and lots of eyes at different levels for the kids to guess which animal they might belong to."
















"Ok, so you've got all this on the computer; how do you get it on to the wall then? Do you paint it?"
"NO!!! It's printed on to large panels which are mounted on the wall!"
"How are they mounted on the wall then?"
"Look at the next photo; it shows the hospital contractors installing the panels"














"Like a giant jigsaw puzzle!"
"Yes, I suppose it was a bit like putting together a giant jigsaw."
"Is the sky printed too?"
"No the sky was painted in blue gloss and the colour was matched in the printed sky. I bought some seabird images from a wildlife photographer and we printed them out on adhesive vinyl and stuck them on to the wall to be seen from the 3rd storey ward.Here's a photo of the finished mural. You can just see some of the birds in the sky. The tops of the palm and pine trees had to be painted in by hand as the printed panels only went up to 2m high".



"And here's a photo of the mural through a ward window. They clean the windows now!"




So, that's my attempt to explain my digital mural.I use a great many words and pictures to barely succeed in getting across its concept.
Help me? Please? or don't you understand it either?

The Trouble with Public Art is..............The Public.

I don't know what the extremely intelligent, educated and cultured bloggers around me know about painting, but I expect it's quite a lot more than The Public.

Scenario: I am painting a 10 metre long mural in the entrance foyer of a large hospital. Hundreds of people pass me every day; hairless and sunken-eyed cancer patients, vacant old ladies on hospital stretchers, screaming children visiting grandad, bored visitors, eager visitors,nurses, consultants, porters. For the sake of insurance my work area is surrounded by metal fencing, ostensibly to keep The Public from treading my paints over the hospital, but actually to keep It away from me!

The scene has been designed to scale on computer and all I have to do is scale up the design from a tenth size printout.
Work goes well the first day or two; the sky, sea and background go in amazingly fast and I am aware of murmurs of approbation behind me.

On Day 3, in goes the sand and the underpainting of the large boat in the foreground.
"Ooh look Alan! I'm sure that's Jim's boat... is it? D'you think it's Jim's? Go on, ask her... ask her if it's Jim's boat!... Oh all right I'll ask her then... Excuse me......"
First interruption of the day.

I begin putting in some of the background boats moored in the harbour.

"Excuse me..." (Second interruption already) Behind me is a dapper chap in a suit, "I wonder if you'd mind putting in my boat? I work here you see" Aha! A consultant!
"Of course!"-sweetest smile-"I'd be glad to! Just bring in a photo of it for me to work from."

"Excuse me miss..." Oh God, now what? "Aren't you putting in any seaplanes then?" Portly seventy-something peering at my painted sky.
"Seaplanes?"
"Well they had Sunderlands here during the war y'see and it'd be nice to maybe... well you could put one up there in the sky?"
Why not? Make a note to download some reference pictures tonight.

"Excuse me, is that Little Shore?"
"Yes it is", without looking round.
"It's very good."
"Thanks very much", still painting.
"My daughter's an artist!"
"Good for her!" gritting teeth
"Well Cheerio then."
"Cheerio."

I can hear someone behind talking to a porter through one of those electronic gismos you hold under your chin.
"Wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah",
"No sir, you need to go through to the Blue Clinic"
"Wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah?"
"Yes, they'll have all your details there sir"
"Wahwahwahwah"
"My pleasure!"
How on earth can he understand the poor guy? I muse on the misery, shame and embarrassment of not being able to understand someone when they talk to you. I have a problem understanding someone from another county, let alone a Frenchman, let alone someone with an electronic gismo. God forbid he should try to talk to me!

Day 4
"Excuse me, is that Little Shore?"
"Yes it is."
"Why are you painting a seaplane?"
"I believe they used to have a load stationed here during the war."
"Reeely?"
"Mmhm"

"Ooh look Beryl, isn't that lovely?"
"Yes very nice. It's Little Shore isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Yes, I'm sure it's Little Shore. Excuse me..."
"Yes, it's Little Shore!" from between teeth clenched around a paintbrush as I paint in the rigging on the consultant's 5cm high Sadler.
"Oh look, she's just copying from that photo! Oh! (disappointed) But it's still quite good isn't it?"

Silence! I work on in peace, then gradually become aware that there is a Brooding Presence behind me. At a convenient time I turn round to see a man staring gloomily at the mural.
"Something bothering you?" I ask politely.
"Is that supposed to be Little Shore?"
"Yep!"
So how come you've got a Sunderland flying over a marina full of Sunseekers then?"
"It's artistic license" I say before he can. "It's supposed to represent all the craft using the harbour, both then and now."
"Oh (doubtful). Well it doesn't make sense to me."
"Fine!"

"Wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah."
Oh no, he's back! I paint busily, knowing he's not going to talk to me.
"Wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah"
No one seems to be answering him - unless there's a dumb porter?
"Wahwahwahwahwah", getting louder.
I look round and to my right, leaning over the rail is an extremely handsome and beautifully dressed man, holding a sort of microphone to his chin.
"Hi!" I say and reluctantly move across to him.
"Wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah, wahwah, wahwahwahwahwahwahwahwahwah. Wahwahwahwah, wah, wahwah,wah."
I smile encouragingly, desperately trying to catch even one word!
I have a sudden idea-lipreading! I fix my eyes on his mouth as he speaks and lean closer. Aha!
"Wahwahwahwahwah....... wahwah wah wah wahing wah s.....p...rb job"
Eureka! he's not asking me anything - it's a compliment!
"Oh thank you so much!" I gush, overdoing it in my relief, "It's always sooooo nice to get positive feedback!"
He nods and smiles and moves away.

Day 5
"Hello again!" It's the woman with the artistic daughter.
"Hi", not encouraging.
"Have you got a minute?" She's holding something out - a book? "I thought you might like to see some of my daughter's work. She's very talented"
God!
"Oh! How nice." I stick my brush in water and go across to the railings. Yeah yeah, typical teenage stuff! "Very good!" I enthuse, "You must be very proud." She beams,
"She's taking her Art A level next year!" I hand back the sketchbook and get my brush again as she asks "Where did you train?"
"Oh I'm self-taught!" I say over my shoulder as I start work.
"Really? My daughter wants to go to Wimbledon!"
"Mm. " If I don't talk any more she'll bugger off.

Day 6
I've painted all the background boats in, including my husband and sons recurring three times in different dinghies!
Oh no, there's another Brooding Presence! I look round and sure enough there's a bloke with his hands in his pockets staring at the mural.
"Something wrong?" I ask; might as well bring it on-he'll only hang about otherwise.
"You've missed something out!" He states baldly.
"Have I? What's that then?," I ask, genuinely concerned.
"It's that Sadler there!" He points.
"Which one? There are several; these consultants obviously earn too much!"
He ignores the joke; he's far too intent on the glaring omission. "Can I show you?"
"By all means!" I move a section of railing for him to step through.
He walks frowning up to the mural and points to a Sadler about 2.5 cm high.
"It's this one; you've missed out the radar reflector!"
I was at primary school with little boys like this- the sort who would draw tractors in minute detail- anal!
I make a 5mm stroke with my smallest brush.
"That better?"
"That's it! Much better."

Day 7

I have taken the wise step of wearing a Walkman, so no one tries to talk to me. Even so,The Public is mysteriously quiet. It seems to hurry past me, intent on leaving the area as soon as possible.This is unusual as Walkmans are no deterrent to determined interruptors-particularly those with artistic daughters! When I stop for a coffee I realise the reason; there's a girl with two children sitting on the bench opposite me. The little girl is good and quiet- no trouble at all. The boy in the pushchair suffers from Torretts! He shouts obscenities, suddenly and clearly, and at the top of his voice, every few minutes. I'm a practised swearer with a full vocabulary, but this little boy was amazing! I'd never thought of putting the Deity's name together with c**t for instance.I blessed him for it; it kept The Public away from me all morning!

Day 8
The nearby harbour I'm depicting is very muddy and the locals long ago devised a boat to skim over the mud flats drawing virtually nothing. I put one in the foreground of my scene, propped up being re-painted, and rendered it in black with blue antifoul. I thought it would throw the sunny scene behind nicely into context, as well as providing a familiar local image.
No such luck- another Brooding Presence!
A hospital porter, (who's an amateur artist and been very positive about the mural) sidles up to the railing and sighs heavily.
"Ok?" I ask in a friendly way. He sighs again and shifts his feet about nervously.
"What's up?" I ask, going across to him.
" You've broken a rule", he says moodily.
Oh my God, what have I done? I stare at him aghast, wondering if I have hurt someone, endangered someone, put paint on hospital sheets, said something terrible out loud and upset someone, poisoned someone?
"What?" I croak through a dry mouth.
"You shouldn't put dark objects in the foreground of a picture." he says seriously

Well, I finished it!

Time and taille weight for no woman.

I've only been going to the gym since February. I'm not body-dysmorphic, nor a fitness freak; I've just reached that point where Something has to be Done about My Weight!
It was the HRT nurse who clinched it in the end. I'd gone for a routine review and confessed I was bothered that despite all my speed-walking and cycling-along with a careful diet- I just couldn't lose any weight at all!
She's a very plump young nurse- the type whose thighs wouldn't shame a speed skater, but the rest of the body was along the same proportions as the thighs. She sat there, this nurse, and lectured me on giving up all the things I don't eat anyway (I gave up carbs, dairy and chocolate ages ago!) and eating smaller portions, and I could have cried with annoyance and the injustice of what she was saying.It was fine for her to be-well-definitely not slim, because she was still young and obviously felt she had ample time ahead of her in which to lose some weight, before all the future heart attacks and strokes she threatened me with became a reality for her!
I walked out of the surgery and paid a year's subscription to the local gym.

There are some definite types you meet in gyms; I was dreading being surrounded by lissom sexy blondes in lycra and leg-warmers. The reality was that I found many other middle aged people in the same -or a more advanced- stage of decay as myself! The only lissom young thing I ever saw had obviously been warned by her boyfriend that she was putting on weight, and his threatened departure must have been imminent from the panicky way she was going at the step-machine. I wished I had her figure, but certainly not the boyfriend!
The gym-goer falls into one of five groups:-
the Worker-Out, the Gossipy Friend, the Iron-Pumper (usually young men), the Half Marathon Runner and the Stretcher

I fit into the Worker-Out profile, along with all the other determined overweight people (determined NOT to be overweight that is) who go to the gym every day. We sweat! Big time! We are new converts, we have taken on board everything the nice young instructor told us and we seriously work. Huge tidemarks of sweat spread across our t-shirts and we make the machines wet wherever we touch them! It's gym etiquette to wipe the handles or heart-rate monitors of any equipment one uses. Some people don't bother, others wipe with a bit of tissue, but we Workers-Out carry towels around with us to dry off the pools of sweat we exude. The handles, the pads, the saddles even! The important thing is that we really work.

The Gossipy Friends (always women) don't sweat. They come to the gym in pairs and one waits chatting while the other uses a piece of equipment. They then change about and the second one waits chatting while her friend works out. Works out? Definitely not! You don't have breath to chat with when you work out. Even a swig of water from your bottle sends your heart rate up; you certainly can't spare any of your breath for talking! Anyway, they move from machine to machine at such a leisurely rate that it's easy to nip in front of them to the rower, the treadmill, or whatever bit of equipment you are determined to grab ahead of them.

The Iron-Pumpers are cute! They're usually late teens to twenty-somethings, have residual acne (just enough spots to signify proper testosterone levels) and a burning desire to have macho arms. I've never seen any of them get on a bike, rowing machine, cross-trainer-nothing to work anything else; all they're interested in is their arms! No warm-ups or anything, they go straight to their first arm-workout, and on to the next , and then the next.They then stand in the weights room, concentrating on hating the overloaded bar-or whatever it is that weight-lifters do-for five minutes at a time before lifting it and after a couple of lifts they start the whole circuit again. They're there every day, sometimes slipping in during school lunch hour for a few minutes' pumping.
No doubt it all stops when they get laid! Another part of the anatomy demands regular work-outs and the spots probably disappear too.

The Half Marathon Runners puzzle me. Why don't they just go for a run? There are two treadmills in our gym, and no one has a chance of using them for over forty minutes if the Runners have got there first! They walk in, cast a shifty glance around the gym and then leap on to a vacant treadmill. On it goes and there'll be a steady thud thud thud of Nikes for the foreseeable future. It must be soooooo boring! One guy runs staring at the screen; the computer maintains the same speed, the same effort all the time, so what's he looking at? The truth is, within his peripheral vision is a little notice telling him "10 mins maximum on treadmill when busy" He can't look up in case he meets the accusing eye of a waiting Worker-Out!

The Stretcher puzzles me too. Most of us gym-goers carry out the pre- and post-exercise stretching advised by the instructors but Stretchers like stretching above all else! They'll put in a token 15 minutes on the treadmill, maybe add a desultory 10 mins on the bike, finish with a little rowing and then sprint for the rubber mat!
I've seen a Stretcher go for her stretch as I got on a cross-trainer, and when I finished my 30 minute stint she was still there, wrapped indecently around an ab-cradle or in a sort of splits-cum-lotus position. Maybe she plans on gym-births for future babies?Anyway, she was still stretching when I left half an hour later!
A male Stretcher regularly gets on all fours and rhythmically humps his back, looking like a sheep on heat or a retching cat! Sometimes he lifts one arm or one leg while doing this. Two Iron-Pumpers came in while he was performing and hurriedly disappeared, shoulders shaking, to hang up their coats before returning with almost straight faces.
Me, I steer clear of rubber mats, flick the wet fringe out of my eyes and stretch wetly over the absorbent carpet; I support myself against the wall to stretch my calves and leave damp handprints on the wall!
The Gossipy Friends stroll past, every hair in place and not a sweat patch on their white t shirts.
"Oooh, you look as if you've been working hard!", they say as they go out.
Grrrrrr!

Flatulence-a universal problem.

I know, I know, it's a low subject for such high-falutin company;I just can't help being fascinated by it!

My father found it utterly un-amusing and rather disgusting, and with amazing double-standards contrived to make loud, uninhibited belching respectable instead. As the poor man died tragically young of bowel cancer, I can't help wondering whether he'd got it the wrong way round! I may be accused of making light of his death, but I know that had he been less embarrassed about his colon and all its nasty habits, he would have visited his doctor long before he eventually did, and the cancer might well have been operable. I inherited his dodgy bowel, but I am wiser, more vulgar, and ready to subject the doings of my colon to minute inspection! I have also learnt never to suppress a determined fart even though it sometimes ends in shame.

I was once in Lyme Regis, having driven down there to meet a couple of friends who'd put in to the harbour in their boat. They suggested going out for dinner and we found a wonderful restaurant in the town, where we ate a four course meal. After coffee we sauntered back through the darkened streets to the boat, where my friends were spending the night, and on the way they asked me to take a couple of bags back in the car with me. I agreed of course, and they jumped aboard and fussed about in the boat,while I stood on the harbourside and felt a strong post-prandial wind rising within me.
I looked around to see if anyone was nearby, but the lamps shone down on an empty dock. Confidently, I relieved my bloated stomach and let out a tiny sigh of satisfaction, only to hear a muffled giggle from behind me. I turned my head slightly and out of the corner of my eye saw that the wall behind me was not just a wall but had a niche let into it, in which sat two young courting couples.

Every 2 years I have to have a colonoscopy-a wonderful examination which involves a camera on the end of a metal shower hose taking a detailed stroll around all the loops of the colon! It also has jaws, which nip tiny areas of the lining to test for cancer cells. To help make dodgy areas visible to the operator, a blue dye is somehow puffed with air into the colon. As Sopwith Camel says, "What goes up must come down...."
Later, once I'd woken from the anaesthetic, I was allowed to sit up and have a cup of tea and some toast, which of course stimulated the sleeping colon into life-agonising trapped air bubbles started moving about, making their way towards the nearest obvious exit. I didn't try to stop them!
In came the rather nice young "Bottom man" with my results, which were clear-hoorah! In came a nurse to tell me I could get out of bed and dress. I threw back the sheet and the Bottom man, still talking , moved to let me get up. He stared thoughtfully down at the bed; behind me I'd left "The Tudor Rose", a "Fleur de Lys" and a sort of ink devil all blown deeply into the white cotton in bright blue!

There's nothing inhibited about pilgrims!
A few years ago we made a pilgrimage (as mere heathen tourists) to Adam's Peak in Sri Lanka. This involved climbing a mountain in the middle of the night in order to admire the sunrise from Adam's/Buddha's/other Deity's Footprint at the top.
The climb is all frightfully colonial with concrete steps and iron railings (somebody or other from Sheffield circa 1950's), with a deep landing every so often with tea-booths and curry stalls.
It got progressively colder as we climbed, and had we not already ordered breakfast for our return, we might have tried the curry just to warm up. It smelled wonderful, and was a spicy chickpea and tomato concoction suitable for the Buddhist diet.We remembered our breakfast however, and settled for black tea trying not to think about how mugs were washed several hundred metres up a mountain with pedestrian access only!
Eventually after about 4 hours climbing we reached the top, admired the footprint and rang the pilgrim's bell to celebrate our achievement.The mountain top was a small area and even at that hour was crowded with pilgrims, many sleeping on each other, awaiting the sunrise. It was only about half an hour later that a sixth sense told the pilgrims that dawn was near. With grunts and groans they stretched and yawned and got to their feet, and yeah the chickpeas awoke too!
One thinks of mountain tops as the ultimate fresh air experience; not Adam's Peak.The atmosphere was actually sulphurous as we rushed to the railings to look out in daylight and see how high we'd climbed, and to try to draw in lungfuls of untainted air. Far below us was the bell-shaped Buddhist temple and I wondered what would have happened if they'd covered the mountain top with one of those and someone struck a match!

Lastly, an extremely useful tip passed on by a seemingly genteel and ladylike woman:

If you're stuck in a railway carriage with others and need to fart, discreetly slide your hand under one buttock and part the cheeks. With luck, there is no noise and if there is a resultant smell you merely look down your nose at your fellow-passengers! Go well, as they say in Africa.

Global Warming?

Suffering from a form of artistic constipation, I'm frequently in need of inspiration for paintings-more on this in a later blog!

I was recently in France and in my usual search for inspiration, I grabbed my camera and drove off to a nearby grotte -or more accurately the terrain surrounding and above it- and went for a walk in the hills above.
This mountainous area, the Hautes Pyrenees, is limestone of a hardness sometimes approaching marble, and the higher slopes are bare of trees, being scattered with fallen boulders surrounded by dry scrubby grass. The foothills are often densely covered with low-growing trees, of the sort one sees growing on rocky outcrops and walking amongst the trees is made virtually impossible by the ubiquitous fallen boulders as well as the low level of the intertwined branches!

I have a habit of turning my ankles, and as on this occasion I'd forgotten to bring walking boots, I wisely stuck to the well-trodden paths. Peering into the woods each side of the path, I was intrigued to see a grey-blue lichen clinging to some of the dwarf trees, while others, and the ground beneath were swathed in patches of thick moss. My attention once caught, I couldn't stop peering into the undergrowth, and eventually stopped in amazement when I came to the foot of a hill where the trees were at their thickest, and through the interlaced branches I could see an entirely green world. With difficulty I pushed my way between two shrubby bushes and found myself looking up the slope between the boles of tree trunks; as far as I could see in every direction, the ground was inaccessibly covered with curiously-rounded green hummocks. I grasped a branch to pull myself further in to the scene, and it was as soft and dry as a woolly jumper. Each branch and every boulder was perfectly enclosed in a coating of long-filamented dry green moss.














As it was impossible to move forwards more than a pace or two, I stood where I was and took half a dozen photos before grabbing the woolly branch again to pull myself back out to the path.

As I walked back to the car -and ever since that day!- I've been trying to work out how and why that particular moss-forest came into being.
I had no compass with me, but I assume that the hill was north-facing. The moss seemed to be confined to ground-level and to trunks and branches up to about 5ft above ground. The mossy covering continued out of sight up the steep slope of the hill, and continued almost to where the undergrowth met the path.

Could a moss-invasion like this could be explained by some sort of natural (or unnatural!) trauma, such as a sharp climactic change, global warming or acid rain; an occurrence or re-occurrence which made the conditions perfect for its super-growth? Will the moss eventually kill the trees, which will then allow erosion of the meagre soil and return the hillside to the bare, lunar landscape it was before?
Sometimes Life (as presented by David Attenborough) seems unbearably tenuous.