Walking in the rain and getting arty farty

Greetings. I hope you’ve all been having a good weekend. Welcome to our Waffle friends in Ireland and Thailand, the two most recent countries to have stumbled across this humble Windsor Waffle. That’s 43 countries in total since I started the blog at the end of February, amazing!

David’s been a bit incapacitated with his poorly knee, so yesterday I went out for a walk on my own. It was actually quite nice as it was raining a little, which meant all the wimps who are scared of a little rain had stayed at home, and I had the place to myself. I even stopped to take some snaps. Nature still looks very beautiful in the rain.

I’m loving the colour of this hedge at the moment.

I think this might be the tree we hugged the other day..

Weeping willow and the green, green grass of England.

This orange tree is glowing like a beacon of flame..

Lovely leaves on the ground EVERYWHERE! I love it!

This made me smile, a little pseudo Banksy artwork I came across on my stroll.. do you like it? I think it’s quite cheeky!

So I’ve also been getting into art this weekend. What a luxury when we could visit all those fine art galleries and museums, before Covid and the lockdown. I’m dreaming of visiting a different London art gallery or museum each month, if we ever get back to “normal” and it feels safe to do so.

In the mean time, I’ve been finding some good arty stuff on the internet and on TV. We’ve watched from time to time “Secrets of the Museum” (BBC2) which goes behind the scenes and into the archives of the V & A Museum in London. That’s very interesting. And then this weekend I found a marvellous programme called “Tate Britain’s Great British Walks” (SKY arts). The presenter takes you on a walk with a celebrity in the location where the artists painted their landscapes.. the first episode is set in St Ives, Cornwall, following in the footsteps of the fisherman painter Alfred Wallis in his home town. Some people (including David) find his paintings of boats in the harbour too simplistic, but I like them. The programme’s about the British landscape, painting and biography. Lots of stories going on. The second one is set in Suffolk, London and Salisbury in the steps of John Constable. I never knew before how much Constable was into clouds and trees, a man after my own heart. He would’ve enjoyed The Waffle!.? He only sold 20 paintings in his lifetime in England and was more popular in France. I found it all fascinating and am looking forward to continuing my home based art education through the rest of our lockdown 2.

I’ll leave you with a picture of my art books from my shelves at home.. I’ll be dipping into these too. They’ve been there for years, but I think I forgot to look at them.

Feeding the soul on art and nature, I haven’t told you about my food today. Don’t panic, the roast chicken is in the oven and the veg is going on now. Bon appetit! Xx