Nasturtium envy

For the past 2 years, I have had great Nasturtium envy.  Friends with gardens have had great successes. Vix and and Ann have had astoundingly prolific Nasturtiums these past 2 years.  

Ann very kindly sent me a pack of seeds last year when I bemoaned not being able to obtain any.  I grew some in a shallow tray last year but they didn't get huge though they were fairly pleasing.

This year, I decided to plant them in the pot with my Fig tree as I had visions of them trailing beautifully down the side of the large pot.  Sadly, my first attempts all seemed to either get decimated by caterpillars or chilled by the frost and they died off.  

I planted some more but the same happened again.  In the meantime, everyone else's made a take over bid for the world.  

I tried planting some in the hanging baskets at school- they started to bloom and grow quite large, nurtured by my year 4 girls.  Then it was the Summer holiday and they weren't watered for 6 weeks.  Despite rain, I returned to dead Nasturtiums.

Another fail.

A few weeks ago, CBC said, "Have you noticed the Nasturtiums growing out of the drain/grid?"

Lo and behold, there were some growing in the drain.

Fast forward a few weeks and here they are.  They are not massive, but they are still alive and had their first flower last week (not in the picture!).  I'll take what I can get!

TARDIS Tuesday - Clara's glamorous red outfit from The Caretakre

 Hello there.

This week for TARDIS Tuesday, I am featuring yet another outfit from The Caretaker.  I featured one of Clara's two main outfits last week from this episode.  You may be wondering why she wears so many outfits.  Well, the episode begins with a series of flashbacks from Clara's manic double life trying to juggle a full-time teaching job along with dating Danny Pink and running off in the TARDIS for adventures with the Doctor.  Thus, we see a variety of outfits from Clara.

The most dressed up is this one.  Clara is just about to go on a date with Danny Pink and the Doctor arrives in the TARDIS inside her flat.  He persuades her to go off in the TARDIS.  Unfortunately, she turns up to her date with Danny with seaweed in her hair in this outfit.

Let's look at it:

Image borrowed from 
https://claraoswaldcosplay.dreamconnect.de/?p=622 

Clara wears this red lacy mini-dress from Kooples along with her Topshop black and gold ankle boots and a silver sparkly handbag on a chain.

Image borrowed from
Clara Oswald Cosplay

I can't seem to get a full shot of Clara wearing the dress from the front so here it on my friend Chrissi's mannequin.

And here's my version of it:

Kooples is a very expensive brand and to be honest, the fitted nature with daring front plunge (though covered in thick lace), means I would probably not pursue the screen accurate dress unless I found it super cheaply- I don't think it would suit my pear-shape.

I found this alternative dress (originally from Oasis) in my local charity shop and I figured for a fiver to charity, it was worth a try.  It's much more my shape as it has a loose skirt but I can definitely see the similarity to the original.  It only JUST fits me- I had to work hard to do it up! 

I have Clara's original Topshop boots which are very smart.  

My sparkly handbag is one I bought for another Clara outfit but realised it would definitely do!

I'd love to wear this out for a smart evening with CBC.  As it is, I just wore it for photos on a Sunday afternoon!

I thought I'd try to do 2 side by sides with the photos I had.

Alas my lighting is a bit different, but it was funny to realise I had a suitable corridor to recreate this photo!

Just for Sheila, here's the STUFF in a closeup!

A rare outfit with no jewellery!

What do you think of this outfit? 

Do you prefer my one or Clara's?

Hope you are well!

xx

Conkered!

Hands up who used to love searching for conkers when they were little?

I certainly did!

I always feel sad that, for many of my children, they have never had that pleasure of searching for a pocket full of shining, brown conkers.

A couple of years ago, I gathered some conquers on my way home from work and talked to the children about searching for conkers.  I then told them I would hide them round the playground and they could search for them.  They loved it.

 

As I returned home from the station yesterday, I decided that it would be fun to do that again so I gathered a few.   This time, I thought it would be fun to add a little message to the conkers. It was quite hard to write on the curved surface

Let's hope it doesn't rain when I hide them!

Hope you are well.

 I had a lovely Friday and Saturday.  I performed a recital with my flute trio on Friday (lovely, enlightened Senior Leadership team gave me leave to perform) and after the performance, I went round to my old work colleague's house (she lives in the same town) for a cup of tea in her garden.  It was so nice to see her.  Saturday, I travelled to Islington to take part in a playday with the City of London Symphonic Winds which my Gamelan friend D asked me to do.  It was so nice to play in a windband again AND a windband where there was only 2 to a part, not 6!  

I hope all is well with you.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday meets Style Imitating Art- The Caretaker

 Hello there,

I missed TARDIS Tuesday AND Style Imitating Art these past two weeks and I thought I'd combine them today.

Let's look at both inspirations:

Here is the Style Imitating Art piece chosen by Salazar:

Gunta Stölzl‘s tapestry “Cows in Landscape

Here's my Doctor Who Inspiration:

Clara Oswald in The Caretaker

And here is my outfit:

The reasons I chose this outfit for both posts is that the art piece is a tapestry piece and the star of this piece is the Topshop tapestry skirt.  Also, a lot of the colours of the skirt are in the tapestry inspiration piece. There are touches of burgundy in the tapestry which are the colour of my shirt. Also, I am wearing black tights and shoes and the edging of the tapestry features black.  It may be a tenuous link but there are lots of circle/spots on the tapestry and perhaps that could be the moon collar-clips I am wearing.  What do you think? Are you convinced by my explanation???

I love this Clara outfit but it is very unforgiving to wear- the skirt has NO give whatsoever.  I wore this outfit tonight to go out for a Thai meal with my Mother in Law and Brother in Law.  I felt smart and comfortable until I ate too much food!!!

My mother in Law is staying with us for 3 nights...she was supposed to be staying in a hotel by the seafront but she hurt herself turning on the high bed and got a bit scared so she came to stay with us...which I'm not sure why she didn't do in the first place.  Anyway, I got a text from CBC telling me she was going to come and stay as I returned home from school, exhausted after a long day and staff training. I was dismayed...the house was an utter tip and really in need of a clean! Honestly, the worst it could be. It was a frantic hour of cleaning and tidying and further background cleaning before and after she arrived.  And then more later. And our bedroom has a massive spread of stuff thrown in there across the floor. But it is nice to have her here with us.  Hurrah!

Tomorrow night I have a rehearsal with my flute trio for our recital on Friday (hurrah, I've been granted the day off school) ...isn't my September musical!

Hope you are well!

xx

P.S.  If you haven't looked at my Colourscape post and you love beautiful bright colours, please take a look!  It's my last post!

Colourscape- Clapham Common 2021

My first proper gig of 2021 (AKA performing to the paying public) took place last Saturday on Clapham Common at the Colourscape festival.

If you're not sure of what Colourscape is, I have taken the liberty of  borrowing some information from their website:

Cwmni Colourscape is the partnership of Peter Jones and Lynne Dickens, who create Colourscapes. Peter Jones developed the first Colourscape structures in 1974. Colourscapes were preceded by 'Spaceplaces' from 1963, which were installations of coloured surfaces made inside buildings. In 1970 they became open-air structures. Experiments with air-inflated sculpture gave new possibilities of working directly with colour. Early structures used large primary colour chambers interconnected by tubes. Subsequently, many different Colourscapes, have been made, growing more complex in colour relationships. Cwmni Colourscape have several Colourscape structures, which they show at festivals and other events in the UK and abroad.
Cwmni Colourscape also creates and makes other structures - tensile canopies, wind sculptures and giant bubbles, all of which have generated and been part of many events. Many people have been trained with Cwmni Colourscape to make structures, to develop colour workshops and to run Colourscape shows

Eye Music:

Eye Music Trust (formerly Nettlefold Festival Trust) was founded by composers Lawrence Casserley and Simon Desorgher. In 1984 they founded a contemporary music festival in south London, the Nettlefold Festival, which was particularly dedicated to live electroacoustic music and music theatre. In 1988, seeking to expand the scope of the festival and to reach new audiences, they formed a charitable trust to oversee their work.
One of the most significant moments in the development of their work was the start of their collaboration with Cwmni Colourscape, which lead to the first Colourscape Music Festival, which took place on Clapham Common, London, UK in 1989. Since then the Trust have presented many Colourscape Music Festivals, numerous other events involving structures created by Cwmni Colourscape, and hundreds of educational workshops for people of all ages throughout the UK and abroad.

In 2005 the Trust was restructured as a Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee (Reg No. 05466017) - and the name changed to Eye Music to reflect the connections between music and visual art. In 2008 Eye Music Trust became an Arts Council Regularly Funded Organisation.

Info from the Eye Music website 

I was performing with my Balinese Gamelan group- Lila Cita, on a beautiful Balinese Gamelan Angklung called Kembang Kirang which is owned by SOAS. Angklung is actually ceremonial music for Cremation but it is the most cheerful, bouncy-sounding music.

It's about the 4th Colourscape festival I have performed at, but it's been a good 10, possibly more years, since I did one, I suspect.  I forgot HOW amazing it is to walk and play in those brightly-coloured structures.  The colours are so mesmerising and you go on journeys throughout the chambers and see different shapes. As you can imagine, it is a joy to photograph.  We had a really appreciative audience who sat and listened to us for their allotted times as well as dancing through the chambers and delighting in the colour and light interplay.  A couple of times, I turned round from my suling (small Bamboo flute) to see a group of people in a far off chamber...or not so far off.... making up their own dances to music, I saw a small child leaning comfortably against an inflated wall looking content as he listened to us and when I smiled at him with my eyes, whilst playing, he smiled back in a way that suggested all was well with the world.

We played about 4 sets of music and paraded through the structure twice with our Baleganjur (street parade) music.

If you ever get the chance to visit, I strongly recommend it. It's wonderful.  I had a break where I leaned against a wall and read my book and it was so relaxing. I feel so lucky to have been able to take part in this performance.

And now, I will leave you to have a look at my photos of different views from Colourscape.  You might even find a video in there! Enjoy!