People who should be celebrated nationally

I'll do a long post on Jean-Paul one day soon but I just loved this photo of him washing his just-picked fennel. He's our local producer of beautiful organic vegetables, largely unsupported by the government, and surrounded by industrial farming which benefits in all ways from being supported by said government.

He works tirelessly, never takes a holiday - difficult when he's the one overseeing his non-intensive, biodiverse, and lovingly cared-for vegetable enterprise. Often when I go to get our veg it's an interesting process of having to find him, and if he's not ready due to sorting his market supplies, he'll suggest I pull my own carrots, cut lettuce etc. And I do with pleasure; there's not many things more satisfying than arriving home two minutes later with a bunch of sandy carrots, huge cabbage, coriander, potatoes et all, and then constructing a supper around his wonderful produce.

Our non-environmentally aware 'governors' need to wake up and realise the value of small farm producers like Jean-Paul, rather than blindly supporting the massive firms like the one next to us who turn the soil into sand; and now, (thanks to the government relaxing the laws on glyphosate), sand laced with dying pesticide-coated crops that have been part abandoned after whichever supermarket's quota has been filled.

I will rant further soon on this subject but here's a photo of our hedge compared to the 'soil' on the other side of it.

Painting revisited

Recently, two visitors kindly remarked on a few of my languishing works of art dotted around the house; kindly, and with genuine interest on subject. technique etc. I felt the faint awakening of interest in paint applied to canvass - or rather wood in my case. I had partly stopped painting as writing had taken over, but also as I felt unsettled about using so much plastic - in the form of acrylic - the paint, plastic tubes et al. I'd vaguely thought about using earth, naturally made colour - onion skin, beetroot etc but writing was my key interest leaving little other time for paint experimentation. I've kept sketching, mainly when in cities - especially London, so have a good backlog of stuff to work from. 

So, thought I'd leap in between narrating the Londonia audiobook (nearly finished...) and running our B and B. This time I'm using only old board - mainly abandoned pictures found in our local recycling place, and 'second hand' paint - from online old stuff selling sites, or paint donated to said recycling place; stuff that would end up dried out and heading towards landfill. My pictures might too one day but I'd like to have a chance at selling a few. It's all tied in with the Londonia project so who knows . . . audiobook, art expo, film deal . . . :0)

  work in progress - train window London sketch

London sketch from 2011

From a sketch done in 2023 - Muswell Hill (Mossy Well)