Friday, December 21, 2012

Spinning and Mozart


And of course Ravilious's painting of the White Horse at Uffington *(no it's not it is the Westbury Horse you idiot; thanks Heather) as you come to that dreaded place Swindon.  Sorry to all that live in Swindon of course!  I remember driving my son to a job interview somewhere near Coate Waters, and he came out and as we drove back along the M4 to Bath, the phone range with a job offer, he quietly and politely turned it down.....
The painting is a favourite because of the quirkiness of the subject matter; Mozart's Clarinet Quintet & Concerto is  playing at the moment, a piece of music that has accompanied me through life and of course I'm spinning,  something that quietens and gentles the soul as does music of course. Also the starlings are joining in with the music, as the music swells so does their chorus...
So we arrived back in Essex yesterday, driving through the rain for 5 hours, the spray of those great liners of the road covering the car, but strangely it was an easy drive for LS. Fields are flooded and the great rivers that we passed are overflowing, lapping at the edges of the banks like an over full bath just about to spill.  The Yorkshire Moors were a dark grey mist of rain and probably the worst bit.
The cottage all clean and tidy, always a wrench to leave, Frasier our next door neighbour, away somewhere in a village, phoned as we drove along.  His Scottish accent normally leaves me puzzling, what the hell is he saying? He has a key to the cottage and is not well, one lung collapsed a few months ago so he has a range of ailments, must of have been a hippy in his day, travelled the world and enjoys conversations with LS about Japan. 
Another very large painting rolls up (via the internet), apparently in Germany and my love says no, its a Chinese scroll which has been Europanised, ie. the silk has been glued (heaven forbid) onto a canvas and so it sits prettily (it is pretty) in its frame 6 foot by 3 foot, to come to England will mean a large crate.  The last painting from this person who lives in Australia was rather beautiful, the gold work and turquoise, must find the photo one day.......

A serene Whitby, though parts of the cliff under the church above has slipped again, not many photos this time, mostly I took rather boring ones of the yards and their entrances.

*Reason, shows I was not looking at the painting properly!! 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Thelma, Love the Ravilious painting but, speaking as a Wiltshire Moonraker, I think you'll find that that is the Westbury white horse, not the Uffington one.

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  2. Thank you Heather for that and welcome. I know the Westbury Horse from a long distance up on the Downs above Bath, one had to focus on the smoke from Lafarge concrete chimney, but haven't seen it from a train.

    p.s. I think it was Lafarge....

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  3. I love Ravilious. One of the few artists I have a book about!

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  4. Hi Em. there is a blog on the side bar - Eric Russell, he writes about Ravilious.

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