Farewell old friend...

As I've no doubt gone on about many times on this blog over the years, I do rather imagine that so called inanimate objects are somewhat more than that. Yes inanimate but perhaps able to soak up snatches of the past and contain them - I suppose that's why our house is full of old, weird things we have acquired along the way and are rather sentimental about - books, china, furniture, and just objects for the sake of objects. 

One of the very first objects I acquired - which had a use - was an 1920s saxophone which my dear mother bought for me in the vain hope I would actually play an instrument, not just fiddle about with one, like I did with the piano which mostly sat neglected apart from me composing odd tunes on it with names such as 'Big Bad Mouse'. 

I did have a few lessons on the saxophone; took it with me to art college where I played it stridently and badly in a art punk group called Agitpop, and then largely forgot it as photography and painting took over. It then became part of each move over the years - various London bedsits and flats, equally dingy Nottingham abodes, onto rather nicer places in the Peak District, a rambling semi detached in Birmingham - where it did receive an overhaul from a German music student who lodged with us - and then a big move on a lorry destined for Southern France where it sat unused again for many years.

Why had I never sold it? That daft sentimental attachement thing - memories of art college, Mum, and vague ideas that I or Ezra our lad might take up playing it. But no . . . another move up to the Loire Valley where the poor thing remained in its case until recently I decided no one chez nous was ever going to play it and it was time to sell it, and probably a whole ton of other stuff . . .

I had it valued, put it on 'leboncoin' and dropped the price after the usual scammer rounds - I am very interested in your instrument; we will send a van, you give the driver a cheque and he will give you a special document which you will then take to a tabac and you will gain twice the demanded amount . . . or similar crappy nonsense. A couple of other people expressed genuine interest, offered ridiculously low amounts, or just disappeared, and so the sax stayed on the site and I almost forgot about it, until a few days ago.

"There's someone interested in the sax," said Mark over breakfast. "Oh yes?" said I, "van . . . cheque, offer of 20 euros, or, you are charming woman I send photo of my big sax and we make beautiful music?"

"No, really. He's going to come over at the weekend." And he did. Lovely young guy who stayed for a fair while, chatted over tea about favourite musicians, and tried out my old sax and his regular modern one for comparison. Great playing, and I must say that my ancient silver instrument had a rich, warm tone when played properly; actually a much more interesting sound that his modern one. So . . . he bought it and we agreed that meaningful objects either have a certain 'presence/soul or that perhaps a piece of oneself is contained in the item in someway. Whatever, I think he will treasure it and be happy that he met the person who had owned it for so many years. I look forward to a promised video of him playing the sax when his band perform. One less item in our overstuffed house . . . and I'm very happy to know where it is. 

Holiday

Well, small break, but it did the job. Two and a half days at the seaside in the shape of the sprawling and fascinating city of Saint-Nazaire which was bombed to bits in the Second World War. We have friends there so we did a house swap - rambling 1860s house with attached wilderness for an ingeniously renovated 50s terraced house with small garden and terrace.

St Nazaire docks and cruise ship being constructed

Yey, no  jobs . . . freedom!

The very pretty town of Piriac-sur-Mer

Just love a good French road name....

We explored the city on foot - not as much as we normally would the temperature being around 35 degrees - thankfully plunged into the sea several times and visited various coastal towns such as La Turballe, and the ridiculously pretty, Piriac-sur-Mer, and picnicked in a place called Le Rat . . . Actually, that was the place of my now logged 'best butter experience'. My 'best cup of tea experience' was in a National Trust tearoom in Corfe Castle, and this was the butter one . . . a paper-wrapped small round of butter from a local producer which went with the platter of cheese we had bought from St Nazaire market. Butter, not local producer. Maybe it was the sun-warmed wall we were sitting on following a swim, or the sense of freedom from jobs to be done, or the knowledge that we might eat something equally delicious in the evening . . . nope, it was that pat of butter.

Mark . . . or a mysterious religious figure on la plage de Brevin Les Pins

Anyway, I digress. No I don't, back onto the food subject . . . I had wanted to find that 'perfect fish dish whilst sitting in beach restaurant with chilled glass of white wine' experience, the reality was a nice cheese-filled 'crepe' sitting in an over populated café without sea view but it was perfectly fine - especially the chilled glass of IPA.

The following day featured more coastal exploration, swimming, and salt-buying from a lone salt producer in his small van. I asked how the year had been and he said catastrophic - too much rain and not enough heat; the salt pans not drying out and thus no lovely crystal salty residues. We bought several bags which were part of the harvest from two years ago; he mentioned wryly that some people expect it to have gone off after a year - eet is a natural preserving agent! quelle idiots!

My food dream still wasn't going to happen as we had failed to reserve anything and spent a couple of hours driving around the coast near St Brevin Les Pins increasingly desperately looking for, in the end, anything to eat . . . not MacDo - we do have a line to be drawn, quand meme! Eventually we found a beach cafe with a free table, sand underfoot, no fish as such but good tapas instead; the entertainment, a group of utterly pissed French guys who had obviously had been sitting there for a long time. I thought at first they were speaking in some rare North of France dialect where words are immensely strung out and mangled but no, just the effect of many mojitos, beers and a bottle of very expensive red wine that had just been presented by a tired but still-managing-to-smile waitress. 

We enjoyed the tapas, paid and went to stand on the dusky beach looking at the silhouetted shapes of the little stilt-y fishing huts and the distant lights of the 24/7 ship (sadly, ridiculously huge cruise vessel) building at the St Nazaire port. A last few gull calls spiked the balmy air, along with the drunken baaahh-haaaing of the inebriated French party as they raised their glasses to a probably non-memorable evening in South Brittany.

Second hand stuff

Anyone familiar with this blog will know that we attempt to buy everything second hand - drawing the line at pants, pressure cookers and socks for Mark - as no-one else has feet as big as his, so not much of a S.H market.

I'd been checking 'le bon coin' for some weeks hoping to find an inexpensive, very small boat. We are fortunate to have a river that runs through our property - marvellous except it's impossible to clear away the brambles and dead wood that accumulate around the inaccessible river banks. Wading in isn't possible as there's a couple of feet of mud on the bed, so I figured the only way was said small boat.

After ignoring several ads for cheap but hole-ridden specimens I opted for a mid price fishing 'barque' at half the new price, and made by BIC - not remotely biro-shaped, luckily. I went to collect it, admired the blokes super upgrade to real fishing boat and drove back feeling accomplished,

It's probably one of the top five things we've purchased on the B.Coin - solid, double layered, stable and totally does the job. And it's made me recall how much I love messing about in boats . . . Hmm, house boat . . . not practical with 6ft 6 husband.

 

A tale of three toasters

For about ten years we have shared various abodes with a 1960s Japanese toaster that I acquired from Le Bon Coin - incredibly useful recycling site from which we buy just about everything other than food. 

The toaster has recently become a little surreal in its toasting, carbonising the odd corner, small bits of metal becoming loose; generally a geriatric toaster but still doing its job. I like the simplicity of it - the clicky clockwork wheel which counts down the toasting time, its smart chrome and teal blue livery, solid; and it's called Tornado. Interesting. Not sure if the 60s Japanese design team/marketing outfit thought it through very thoroughly, Sunrise, perhaps, or Summer Breeze Rippled Corn Field - bit clunky, but something evoking bread, breakfast, etc. Or maybe in Japan toast is only eaten in fear as severe weather conditions loom.

For some reason it was agreed in our household that perhaps it was time to update the bread grilling experience, and maybe buy A New Toaster! What?? NEW? Maybe it was the fact that we had actually acquired a new electric kettle a few months back after genning up on the most fuel efficient ones, the gas stove and old stainless steel kettle situation not being ideal . . .

I relegated - a tad tearfully - the old toaster to the dump pile, and Mark enthusiastically unwrapped and installed the new 'vintage' Russell Hobbs, cream and chrome (plastic) interloper. We tested it over a couple of breakfasts all arriving to the same conclusion: it warmed the bread efficiently, but actual toasting . . . nope. Even on the max setting. Maybe it was faulty; the one that had escaped the no-doubt rigorous testing stages in whatever Chinese factory it had been expelled from. Mark repackaged it and off it went to hopefully not join instant landfill via Uncle Amazon. We perused other models after not finding anything suitably 'vintage' on the bon coin other than SMEG which hold their scary price very well on the second hand market. 

The second cream and chrome toaster arrived - a little more like a 50s car, rounded, more knobs, dials and even a little red light to indicate ON. But, the same issue: light warming of the bread, nothing more. Ezra pointed out that the electric elements are spaced much further apart than those of the Tornado. To accommodate fatter slices of bread, or perhaps the machines are calibrated to white flabby bread only, not home made rustic slabs; or maybe it's some paranoid decree over heat levels to stop people burning toast, setting fire to themselves, the house or neighbourhood.

The new model was re-packed and sent back, and the Tornado reinstalled after a major clean of its real metal and chrome.

The Tornado

I've noted recently the rise of 'repair cafés'. What a great idea. I'd love to know that I could actually extend the life of one of our mouldering household appliances when their time would normally be deemed to be up.

                                                     Think I'd rather like this fancy 20s one...

London wanderings, Number . . . I've forgotten.

There have been many recorded on this blog, and here's one from this June. At the end of a round UK trip of a couple of weeks visiting lovely friends and family I rounded it off with a three night stop in my home city, and the best B and B I can honestly remember - an elegant semi in south London stuffed with art, lovely objects, incredible garden, and run by marvellous hosts.

I'm currently working on paintings based on sketches in London - mainly from train windows, and so now how have a good stock built up, mainly from around Greenwich, east London and Highgate - the areas I was doing most of my wanderings, as ever exploring and marvelling over how many undiscovered-by-me places this fascinating city holds even after living there for years, and all the trips since. 

                                    Wig world and carpet corner - new to me bits of South and North London

Lewisham

Greenwich - somewhat different skyline from when I last visited about 30 years ago

Finds from Thames mud near London Bridge

Any problem solved . . . including removal of evil spirits

I would have brought one back . . . just a tad too heavy

but can wear tuxedos?

A very scary clothes shop somewhere on the Strand - I think

The Golden Hind - near Borough Market

 

I enjoyed a gawp-trip into Selfridges

The stupidest bag - ever (reduced to 690 quid )

The ugliest and most expensive training shoe (s) - presume you get two for over 1,000 pounds

The most ludicrous food product - the smallest gold tin of caviar, 900 quid

The most bemused people - other than me - a group of Tibetan monks who had been 'let out' for a day, according their diminutive female minder, from somewhere in Woking - not an average Best Western I imagine

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)