Song Saturday...................Madness, House of Fun

I thought this was appropriate, the grandchildren are staying the weekend................no quiet sedate weekend for me. it's all go here.

BBC3 Greece bust and broken

I’ve just watched a BBC3 programme ‘Greece bust and broken’. We all know its bad there but to see first hand exactly how bad is shocking. People have to queue to attend special free clinics. Ordinary people have no access to the health system unless they pay, all medicines have to be paid for and no one has the money to pay. Charities are distributing free food and other essentials.  Over 50% of young people are unemployed. Public services are breaking down; people are talking about revolution and an end to austerity. In one day the whole of the Athens public housing department was closed, 500 people with families lost their jobs with no hope of finding other work.. The social housing stock is being given back to the banks leaving one million already poor  families homeless. Hard to believe this is happening in Europe.

I do wonder why we (the rest of Europe) are demanding the debt is repaid. I wonder why, in return for loans Greece can’t afford, we are demanding public spending cuts that destroy housing, health and education. When underdeveloped countries were in that position public pressure eventually made the banks write off the loans, so why does Greece have to drive its people into destitution to satisfy the banks?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kbz15


Maybe they should do what they did in Iceland……………..say no to the banks, spend the money on the people and arrest the corrupt.

In fact maybe we should all do what they did in Iceland. I quite like this report on the Iceland situation.

Art Sunday; Deborah Kay Butterfield

Art Sunday; Deborah Kay Butterfield

I came across this artist earlier. I wasn’t looking for art at the time I was looking for pictures of horses to draw for my horse loving daughter, and this is what I found. I love the way she fashions horses from pieces of twisted wood. The wood retains its natural form and somehow these natural pieces of wood are merged together to form the distinct shape of the horse. What she does with wood and metal is quite remarkable. Personally I prefer the twisted wood horses to the metal ones........

Deborah Kay Butterfield (born May 7, 1949) is an American contemporary sculptor. She divides her time between her ranch in Bozeman, Montana and her studio in Hawaii. She is best  known for her slightly surreal sculptures of horses which are always made from found objects, sometimes metal, and sometimes  pieces of wood.

Originally she chose to create self-portraits using images of horses. Gradually, the horses themselves became her primary theme and the self portrait element of her work became less and less evident. Butterfield earned her bachelors degree in 1971 and an M.F.A. in 1973 at the University of California, Davis, where she met her husband, artist John E. Buck. They married in 1974.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries internationally and there is growing demand for her work by private collectors. She began crafting horses out of scrap metal and cast bronze in the early 1980s. She would sculpt a piece using wood and other materials fastened together with wire, then photograph the piece from all angles so as to be able to reassemble the piece in metal. She only works in the winter, so pieces usually take 3 to 5 years.

More information here



http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/5aa/5aa365.htm

the video at the bottom of the page is interesting, its the artist herself talking about her art. Unfortunately the interview cuts off suddenly and I'm still looking for the video that follows on.

Song Saturday; Johnny and Roseanne Cash

Nice cheery music for a dull wet day, the gravel voiced Johnny and his delightful daughter Rosanne Cash

Garden 2012 no 11

GARDEN 2012 N0 11

It’s Saturday 23 June, and still raining. Woke up this morning and the news said; ‘serious flooding throughout the country’, guess I’m lucky to be free from the floods but we have had serious rain over the last three days. The news went on to say, ‘this could be the worse summer on record’,  ‘COULD BE’?? I feel that’s a little optimistic, as far as I’m concerned it already IS the worse summer on record.

ABOVE, PRIMROSES MID MAY

But it’s not all bad, we have had the odd day or two, even the occasional week, where the weather has been lovely and I’ve been out in the garden.

The first photos were taken mid may, we had some bright sunny days, the skies were blue, the garden was warm and the flowers were in bloom.
The primroses and bluebells covered more ground and flowered for longer than usual, the pond looked especially good last month; I had more blooms in the pond than I have ever had before and the London pride was better brighter and more prolific than last year.

And then a bit of a setback, some local kids were playing in the street and jumping over fences. What ever game it was they were playing involved jumping over fences, climbing on shed roofs and running in and out of gardens. They trampled a corner of my garden and some of my plants were ruined.

I was really upset but when I went out to see what I could salvage, the damage wasn’t as bad as I thought.  We had weeks of rain and I thought I would never get out in the garden again, but when I did eventually get there, I found the rain had stimulated growth and the garden looked like a jungle. I lost a lot of seedlings and small plants, they were washed away but those that were strong enough to withstand the wind and the rain actually benefited and had a growth spurt.
I’m now picking a couple of strawberries every day to eat with my cereal in the mornings,
the beans and onions are looking great and  I’m eating fresh lettuce, radish, nasturtium leaf and assorted herbs every evening.
I’m also getting a regular supply of rhubarb every couple of days.
The spinach took a long time to establish, I thought I had lost it several times but now its looking good.
The potatoes will be ready to pull soon; I hope to get these ‘earlies’ up in time to put another lot of ‘lates’ in.
I’ve replaced quite a few of my herbs this year, I bought new ones but I also cut back the old ones and took fresh cuttings.
I have an established patch of Tansy and Curry Plant; they are doing very well this year, they look quite similar but are very different.

And I have flowers, in no particular order and not highly cultivated but flowers they are.

School finishes next week and (weather allowing) I’ll be out there more often and hopefully get the last little bit dug over ready for another small veg plot next year. I’ve already salvaged a whole load of bulbs from the last tiny area I dug over and I expect to get at least as many again.
Oh...........and I decided I liked this so much, I bought another

But for today……………the weather is awful and even if it wasn’t I’m booked for babysitting. I’ve packed my bag, packed my paints and I’m going to try to get some serious painting done over the weekend. My granddaughter is 11 now and I'm hoping she will amuse herself while I get on with the serious business of painting.