Better News

The rather startling news out of the CT scan was `There is absolutely nothing wrong inside. Absolutely clean` so I have to go through the whole thing again next week while they take tissue samples but they have prescribed a drug which will put a stop to everything. So there is much to be cheerful about.

The garden is blooming. I am frantically potting seedlings up and trying to find places in the garden for flourishing seedlings. This morning I found room for a wigwam of bamboo stakes in the front garden and planted out my sweet pea seedlings. I still have a load of seedings in the greenhouse to pot up. Man-yana!

 In spite of the need for gardening, I have done a lot of weaving and bookbinding. I am creating a fold out book of the Owl and the Pussycat. I started by intending to use linocuts to illustrate it but have ended up with photos. Not at all sure about this. But I have decided to finish it off and then look at it carefully. I am certain I will want to recreate it.

And in the meantime, the garden !

Not doing a lot

Now I must confess I have been ill since before lockdown and after several talks with my GP, I have been referred to Royal Berks Hospital and have an emergency appointment for a  CT scan on Tuesday. The hospital thinks the worst but I am not so sure. However at least I have been put on the emergency list for treatment. The countdown to the CT scan is horrendous  and everything I am allowed to eat today and tomorrow is laid down. I am going to be very hungry by Tuesday afternoon.

The only thing I have done recently is to watch webinars by Nigel Forster on photographing landscapes. He is very much my style and I am pleased. I got very little out of my year`s course with the Canadian which has now finished. But if I am fit enough I will go on a course with Nigel. One result of his webinars is that I bought a  wide angle Nikkor lens. But I have yet to try it out.

Not much else has been accomplished. I have done no weaving or book binding for the last two weeks. I have managed to keep up with gardening. Lots of little plants in the greenhouse and quite a few need planting out in the garden which is very colourful.

Still surviving

I am still here although I have an emergency appointment at Royal Berkshire hospital for an ongoing condition. It does not bode well and I am a bit scared. I have been through this thirty years ago and scared me then. But I have not been able to do much lately as I get hardly any sleep.

To change the topic completely, on the Tate website there are a few How-to videos, most are on painting (How to paint like Turner) but there is also `How to weave like Anni Albers`. Very do. She is working on a floor loom, four shafts I think and wizzes through designing, warping up and weaving in a few minutes. I cannot think who the video is aimed at. It is too fast for a new weaver, an experienced weaver would know all that. I was interested in the draft but that was never mentioned. To encourage someone to take up weaving? do you think?


In the meantime, I have gone round the garden with the macro les on the Nikon and got some nice photos.

It is very early for the peony as it is for many other flowers this year. My overwintered geraniums are madly flowering and have had to be shifted outside and the auriculas are flowering well too.