Woh, sorry! That was all a bit heavy-heavy monster sound yesterday... but then you should have seen the mess I was in the day my cat died, on my fortieth birthday. It was not a good time and I sure as hell didn't know what to say then, either.
Mads, our lovely fat rescue cat, has cystitis at the moment, so we are suffering a cat anxiety week again now. Tonight she seems happier and demanded cuddles by standing on the kitchen table and shouting at me until I obliged. Once you have lost one animal it does make you wary though, especially in the light of the doggie bereavement of my pal, and I am making sure that there is not something more sinister going on in her little furry body. When I say 'I am making sure...' this is obviously not true as there is no way of doing this, but I am alert to her moods and toilet habits. More alert; I am already a little too familiar with the litter tray deposits because I am a saddo.
Had a great nature walk into cash-work this morning; my Monday's are always an early start at the moment so I can walk in along the valley by the burn. Today was unpromisingly dull and drizzley, but I went for it anyway, woolly hat in place and was rewarded by a particularly good array of wildlife. Probably helped that no other loons were out and about at 7.30am on a rainy morning, but I met a dipper doing what they do best right outside my back door (virtually) and then another at the far end of the valley. I love dippers, they do just what it says on the tin, although an alternative name would have been 'bobbers' as they do that very well too. The burn was very high and fast because of the onset of the Festival Rains (yearly occurence, set your calendar by it) and as I walk downstream it seems as if you keeping step with the water as it hurtles off to Leith. Apparently Mr Gormley's men in the Water of Leith have fallen in, which is a shame, and not a great vote of confidence for whoever installed them. If they have weed like 'up our way' it could actually look quite cool as our stretch of the burn is festooned with white blossomed mermaid's hair that would be perfect for Ophelia. It reminds me of that painting of her anyway by...dot, dot, dot, forgotten. Oh well, I'm sure you know the one I mean.
There were also a fine array of snails and slugs out to play including a vast number of albino (?) cream slugs, which were especially hard not to step on due to their unusual colour, which fooled my slug periferal vision radar. Still managed not to squish any though.
A willow warbler was also out doing absolutely exactly what it should have been; warbling on a willow. I have to confess that it could have been any old warbler, but its location has me convinced; it was just too good. No dog walkers today, must be sitting behind the curtains hoping the weather would pass. Pathetic. I have seen depressingly few people in the valley this summer apart from on the couple of blatantly tropical days earlier in the spring when the bacchanalia was taking place all over the green spaces of the city. Since then people, children, picnics... all no show. Have the horrific feeling that they are stuck indoors watching crap TV and eating crisps...
Finished the painting I started the other day; a throwback to another one I did a couple of years ago on monumental women dancing in a wooded glade that stemmed from a dream. This one has the advantage of potato print and I am now contemplating titles that encapsulate my feelings of the wooded canopy (roof, ceiling, vault) above the figure in her 'caryatid' pose. Off to check out some of my favourites in French to see if they sound better in another language, or suggest other ideas. I love doing the word bit of the painting almost as much as the painting itself. Somehow it 'ties it down' in my mind and gives it a completeness I can never feel if left untitled. It is like not naming children..
No comments:
Post a Comment