Back on the Cat

On our last day, we decided to get back on See The Best to try and catch a glimpse of those illusive dolphins. A few days before, they had spotted Orca, so not having seen anything on the previous trip, was a bit disappointing. My nephew, the top spotter, was off to Portugal with his girlfriend.
As is policy, if a tourist does not see any sea-life while on the 3 hour trip, they get a voucher for another at their leisure.

Well we DID see loads of dolphin I did get in a few shots but decided not to post any...guessing that nobody would be interested in seeing a black blurry speckle in kms of water. Nor had the pleasure of sharing close personal space with a budgie smuggler on the trampoline :o) I've learned during our travels, that European males (and females too for that matter) have no qualms about showing off their goodies...I recon that would change if our local Zulu brethren followed the trend.

We didn't swim this time around as it was a bit chilly. Besides, we were just really enjoying a little travel without having to use our feet. The quiet time was just what we needed after a very busy and full trip, .....the free entertainment wasn't bad either!

Goodbye for now

On our last night in Madeira, we drove, what seemed like, forever, to get the best espetada in Madeira. It was! We gorged on our first taste of ungrounded beef in two weeks, fried semolina squares, chips and salad. Letitia, Carlos and family joined us. I sat looking at my beautiful sister, just watching her, trying to imprint her face and actions in my mind, so that when I'm back home, I will be able to see her clearly. Oh, how I will miss her. Gabriella, lay on my lap and held my hand tightly on the drive back home...sweet, soft-hearted girl, I will miss her so too.

Nor and I packed when we arrived home and I was uncommonly relaxed, unlike when leaving home..not bothering to check if my passport and docs were in the place I'd left them....(which fortunately for me, they were). As usual, we chatted and laughed, and took our last deep breaths of fresh night-time Madeira air and lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the odd dog barking, or demented speedster racing down the narrow road, young people chatting away as they walked up from the restaurants and nightclubs...this could be home and perhaps, in a way it is. A part of my heart will always be here.

The next morning, we were up early enough to see my niece and nephew at the breakfast table and give them hugs and kisses goodbye before they left for school.

And so ended a wonderful stay in Madeira. Spending time with my sister and the family was such a blessing. To be able to share my family with a good friend, even better. Noreen fitted in as if she was always part of it and strong bonds were formed, which I know will endure forever. In a way, her having met Colleen and having shared this time with me as a friend, makes me feel that I've gained another sister. I know Colleen has!!

Intermission

A frame for my last supper..at last.. done in copper. I gave this to Dave and Andrea, my daughter for their engagement. They love it.








I called this one "Spirit"...its filled with my many moods and helped me through them.

Finally, I've started sorting out my art that's been floating around, unfinished.

I have , at long last, put the final brush-strokes to my 'mental health' picture. Its a multi-media piece done with copper, newspaper, gel medium, acrylic and oils. I'd slap on something different each time I needed a break from the fine stuff. I had a fantastic and inspired trip but when I came home to some open-ended personal issues, I decided that, being such an emotional twit and prone to getting sucked in, I need to remain focused and positive and steer away from negativity.

One way to do that was to tie up 'loose ends' where I could and simply move on. There's some tings in life we cannot change, but we can learn from them.

Realism is alive and well

These two pictures were taken from outside the gallery: The landscape done by Christian Marsh, called "A moment shared" on sale for 12000 pounds.

This is a nude called "Balance" done by Juan Cossio on sale for 15000 pounds...

We decided to take a walk on our last night in London. We passed one or two very interesting galleries, one which was having its opening for an exhibition, another filled with strange pieces, including a large 'kitch' silver-plated elephant. There were stores displaying art-nuveaux style furniture, antiques...all rather up-market, good quality stuff for a discerning buyer......and then we saw the PLUS ONE GALLERY.

Nor is not a fine artist. Her style is very unique, colourful, filled with movement..she often does and has successfully exhibited her instillation art, so, for her to be astounded at the quality of work we saw, was really something!! According to her, this work is classified as 'Super-realism'.

I have NEVER seen such superb work in my life!! I am really a surrealist...enjoying the challenge of creating realism but also enjoying adding my own storey to it too. I never realised what type of art I did until now...until this trip and I finally UNDERSTOOD what I have been doing since starting to paint. Discovering this gallery (take a look!!! www.plusonegallery.com) was a blessing!!

Paintings like Kike Meana's 'The Thames', going for 9000 pounds;

Paul Day's 'Mini Scramble' which is a small copy of his brand new Bronze sculpture found along the Thames commemorating the London Blitz;

Then there's Simon Hennessey's "I (heart) Realism done in acrylic and ink of the eye of a woman (WOW, WOW, WOW), going for 14000pounds;

Juan Cossio's 'The Ladder', done with oil on board, is so incredibly life-like, you can feel the grain of the wood and have to stand with your nose almost on the picture to see and understand its perfection!!;

Paul Cadder's 'New York', pencil on paper, going for 3500 pounds;

Omar Ortiz's 'Sisters', which is an oil on linen, going for 9500pounds...my favorite as although it is brilliantly life-like, I still love the visible brush-strokes.

Philip Harris, Luis Perez, Otto Duecker, Carl Loubin..unbelievable works.

Understandably, I couldn't take photos except for the two here which were on display at the window, but the artwork we saw that night was absolutely breathtaking and I'm happy to say that there will always be a place for realism in this world. Its timeless and completely representative of the beauty to be found in its real state during our time.

Lets eat

Our suppers in London were pretty much like this...chicken, couscous and salad.

We bought most of our meals at Tesco's and were surprised that the food prices were very comparable to SA prices. We normally had a good breakfast, then a quick something during the day on the hop (that's a storey for later :o) ) then come night time, we'd go off to the local supermarket and get ourselves our supper....it usually cost us the equivalent of R100 for both of us!

On our second night, we decided to get the mixed vegetable 'salad'...which turned out to be a microwave vegie dish.... after I got monumental blob of butter in my mouth....Noreen nearly choked on her raw pees she laughed so much. I wasn't amused but crunched through and so did she.

On our final night, we couldn't find the single glasses of wine for our meal that can occasionally be found (a really good idea!), but found these Bicardi's were a rather good replacement.

They had given us the family suite which was awesome.....and just as well, I had an athma attack (I'd purposly left my pump with my little athmatic nephew in Madeira the day before ) so didn't sleep too well for the first few hours. Nor snuck in at 2am to see if I was still breathing!! :o)

We had mostly had twin beds in a small room and had to share a bed one night at Miriam's flat...the kind lady who is now my 'agent' in London, but we usually chatted about the days events and giggled till exhaustion took over. The night we arrived, Nor fell asleep while I was in mid sentance...I was incredulous and she woke up laughing and we spent another hour doing just that!

We took Miriam and her daughter to supper as a thank-you, where we splashed out on dishes of lamb which was yum.

So, in conclusion, SA is NOT that cheep....or rather London is affordable... if you are prepared to rough it a little without glass and steel.

St Martins in the Field, Trafalgar Square

This is the inside of St Martins...comparing to the Cathedral's we had seen up till that point, this one was brighter, far less ornate place of worship...no statues, paintings, crosses...it didn't feel like a church! It could very well have been a parliament building....but then I'm Catholic.
There's a lot of poverty in London, a lot of students, travellers and foreigners...especially foreigners...(we were eventually playing "Spot the Englishman".....and couldn't!) This chap had obviously sought out a safe place to rest. Nobody disturbed him even though his snores would have drowned out a wall full of organ pipes and a full choir! St Martins obviously doesn't attract the tourism which the likes of St Paul's, Westminster Abby and Cathedral does...its quiet.. so yes, in that sense, its perhaps REALLY a church.
I loved this. At the entrance to St Martins, there's this square block of concrete/stone. On each of the four sides of this square block were one of the four sentences of the first two verses of the Book of John 1:1-2 : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God".
This is the carving. It brought those four sentences to life for me, the essence of our Christian faith, the Holy Trinity, Jesus's likeness to man and therefore, His 'realness' and mostly, his ultimate sacrifice for us as a man. An almighty God and His ultimate sacrifice through love.

How can we not love? How can we not forgive? If Greatness has the ability to humble himself in unconditional love (and strewth!!!... that must take something in these times), who are we to cross our arms, judge and condemn!?

Art and cruelty

This is the artist who had her work on show in the Gallery in the Crypt at St Martins in the Fields. I will update more of her work as I get in all the photos (on all my posts). Mixed media, floral drawings, her work is fine and detailed but with purposely placed dribbles of paint to create an interest factor in a largely monotanal and rather dull picture.













There were other items of interest...like this whipping post. Hmmmmm...things have changed somewhat but only in its subtleties!

Barbarism and cruelty, remains part of the culture in many sectors of society, especially to women, but in this very country which we visited and the one from which we came, the 'whipping' continues relentlesly..

Have we really changed that much?????




This is pretty much an overview of the crypt downstairs. As always, I FEEL the presence of history in these old places and am transported