Milwaukee!!

Convergence 2016 is at Milwaukee! Yippee and Hurrah!

I have been there and I will go again no problem. The reason? The city art gallery is to die for, both the architecture and the contents. It is built on the edge of Lake Michigan and looks like a huge seabird just taking off. In the evening to music, it slowly folds its wings up, tucks its head under its wing and goes to sleep till morning. The architecture is by Calatraves (Barcelona airport). But there was a Saarinen wing built earlier!

Apart from two or three rooms full of Georgia OKeefe, there are Braques, Picassos, Kandinskys (lots), a Rembrandt or two and an impressive photographic collection. 

So start saving! See you there! Never mind what the classes are!

Isn't it great?

Living with Ruth

There is nothing wrong with living with Ruth except that I do not have my belongings with me. Rather more important, I do not know what I do have. Occasionally I am pleasantly surprised to find that I did bring something sensible.

Yesterday I joined a group of weavers, lace makers etc and had a very sociable afternoon. I wound a new warp. I have at long. Last finished the piece of Biederwand which was on the 12 shaft loom.

I will hem the ends when I have a sewing machine. But at last it is done. The wound warp is the multicoloured stripey piece of complex twill I showed a few days ago. 

Most of the family's efforts are currently going into THE PARTY. Anne is 50 and I am older so we are having a joint party, going up the Thames on a boat with a jazz band, party food and lots of friends. Oh and dressed in 1920s clothes! This is happening next weekend.

Madiera Day 2

D

This was dominated by Reid's summer party for which we all had to turn up in white - all quite something. Above are the dancers.

Our contribution! The food was fantastic. I never got past the starters! And there was a band, rather standard and eight dancers - fantastically good and all teenagers. And a lot of champagne. 

The next day we managed to crawl out of bed and take a taxi to the Botanical Garden. Like everywhere else here, it is on a steep slope, so we started at the top and wound our way down, taking in the cafe on the way.

You would not have thought the gardeners could find enough flat space for a glorious parterre!

The Santa Maria de Columbus returning to harbour after a day at sea. This is a complete replica of his ship. Except that in addition to sails it has an engine!

Late in the evening we sat on the hotel terrace looking out to the darkening sea and drank. -- Madiera of course.

Madiera Day 1

T

After a traumatic week in which all my worldly goods went into storage, three of us are in Madiera for a few days. I have always wanted to visit Reid's Palace Hotel and it is exceeding expectations. The three of us are my daughter, Ruth, my grand-daughters, Charlotte and myself. 

This is us having scrambled eggs and smoked salmon plus Buck's Fizz for breakfast at Gatwick. Charlotte starting as she means to go on. I had tea!

The hotel is at the upper left and the hotel pool is at the lower right. Everywhere means stairs.

A tiled picture in the hotel. There are tiles everywhere and flowers.

The hotel restaurant has  a terrace and we had dinner up above the sea cliffs looking out to sea. I am feeling more cheerful already.

Last Thursday Dorothy and Robin and myself went and inspected the  new house and made a list of things to be done. All looks good to me. Now off for breakfast down by the pool.

Removal, well partial removal

On Monday, four removal vans and a lot of men turned up at 0800 hours and stripped the house. They were gone four hours later leaving me to finish cleaning, lock up, deliver the keys and drive to Ruth's house. Tuesday was spent sorting out everything and visiting Rosie in order to cadge some orange 10/2 and 6/2 cotton as well as  bobbin winder. Mine are in store.then I sorted out the bank. Today was spent filling up forms for the lawyers which involved an awful lot of copying and downloading.

However I found time to look at a gallery's catalogue of Sonja DeLaunay and wondered whether some could be interpreted into weaving so I have spent time on drafts. The simpler ones work but the most complicated do not. I will continue because i am sure it an be done. Tomorrow Dorothy is coming down and we are going to see the house to measure various places. The day after I go to Madiera For a long weekend. Charlotte found out that the party of the year being held on Saturday. So we are going. I will take photos.

Halfway Through the Dismantling

The removal men were here on Friday and swept up all sorts of things. Mostly I got out and packed in the car what I need but I was not quick enough for some things, for example, the yarn needed to finish the weaving on the 12 shaft Meyer  and my bobbin winder. I shall have to borrow some from Rosie Price. I have already taken some stuff to Ruth's house and maybe it is there - - - but I think it is now in store in Gloucester. Half the house contents have gone and I am living in chaos for the weekend. Also they have packed all the rubbish in the garage which was to be taken to the tip!! I am living in two (untouched) rooms and will finish my packing today. I intend to put everything by the car early tomorrow so they do not pack that.

 

One entertaining bit is that the foreman was dismayed when shown round the house. I could not quite see why. It turned out that no one told him about the number of books we have. He had brought 30 boxes and it was not enough so he obviously phoned HQ and someone appeared with a van load of book boxes - 200 in all. When they left on Friday, which they had to do at 1500 hours because they had run out of van space, they had packed 150 boxes of books! And they were not finished. They have to be out by lunchtime on Monday so they are bringing twice as many removal men and two big vans!! I spent Friday keeping out of the way and will spend Monday the same way.

 

I had not realised that how awful it was not to have access to my books. Reduced to watching television!!

 

Today I need to pack my clothes. And collect the last pieces of paper. Then this afternoon I am going over to Anne's in Leamington Spa with some stuff for her. I meant to take her some wine but the men have packed all that. This evening I having supper with a friend.

 

Dorothy took her self, her luggage and the animals over to Northampton on Friday early and will stay there till we move into the new house which is really much better than the Reading house. We had discovered some weeks ago that the Megado would not fit in the house without occupying an entire room. As a result, we decided that we would have to build a room for it in the garden which was not cheap.  The house we are now buying is much bigger - 700 sq ft more space. It is more expensive but the cost is less than the Reading house plus garden loom room plus conservatory which we do not need now. And instead  trying to work the optimum room usage, we have two large rooms one above the other which we will have as studios, one each. They are 24 by 12 ft (downstairs) and 20 by 12 ft upstairs. And we still have four bedrooms, two reception and a whopping big kitchen/diner. The kitchen floor is ceramic tiles and is to die for.  The garden, by the way, is a reasonable size and smaller than the Reading house. It needs attention. The house did have tenants in it - who have left recently  and the owner had intended to send in gardeners but we told him not to waste his money because we would be altering it. So he is on our side already!

 

What else? It is on an estate and was built in the 90s. The main bedrooms are big and the two smaller ones are very respectable in size. The smallest can easily take twin beds. Because it is on an estate, it is much safer for the dogs and cat and there are a lot of copses and woodland near by to walk in.

 

I have not mentioned the desktop which cracked up on Thursday. The hard disk has gone to the great rubbish tip in the sky. Thank goodness for Dropbox. So I am operating on a laptop and the iPad. I have decided I need to take the defunct desktop with me - just in case. I have not managed to connect the laptop to the printer but I have managed to connect the printer to the iPad. So things are reasonably okay. I hope I survive another 10 years because I do not fancy moving again any time soon. I have to admit that every move I have previously done was a lot less traumatic that this one.

Moving day

Or rather, first moving day. I have to be out of here by 1400 hours on Monday. The removal men are in full residence and I am keeping out of the way. Every now and then, I suddenly remember that they might have packed an item I did not want packed and there is much searching in boxes. They have been here since 0800 hours and intend to do 70% of the packing by close today. Several of the rooms are now empty (1430). They were very dismayed by the number of books. I pointed out that I had shown the estimator round the house. Nevertheless they had to phone base in Gloucester and get someone to bring more boxes. I have put lots of stuff in my car to keep it out of the way. And there is more to  put in.

All sorts of things have been uncovered. There are very nasty stains on the sitting room carpet and they look to have gone right through to the back of the carpet. There is an unrecognised sheet of green glass which the removal men say came from a table. ?? Did it really? I remember no green glass anywhere.The Megado came apart yesterday and is packed in the van. The bookcases came apart eventually. The garden furniture is currently being packed up.

Oh and we had a serious problem with the big table. I have a very heavy oak table with extension leaves. We bought it for one pound more than thirty years ago and I had it professionally French polished. It seats twelve with ease. Well, the removal men started by taking the front door off its hinges. Then summoned me and asked how we got it in. We eventually worked out that the front door was replaced when we had double glazing put in. So they dismantled it by unscrewing bits. I only hope that it can go together again. 

It looks as though I am going to be living very oddly over the weekend!