Severe Weather Warning ...

These snow pictures were taken on 4th December the first near our house and the second overlooking the sea where we walk Alice most days .

The severe weather warning on Metcheck suggests more snow will be arriving on Monday , coming from Russia . Today the temperatures are at 6degrees but its so windy that that the dog was prancing like a pony and quite unable to enjoy her walk . The noise of the wind and attendant bangings outside make her nervous and she attempts to nip off home at every corner . Suits me as its still cold out there , I'm still suffering the after effects of a drugged up week and a half and another day catching up at home is not without its attractions . I'm completely caught up in Lionel Shriver "The Post Birthday World" .

I wish ...

I wish I didn't have migraines .
I wish a lot of things weren't the way they are . But , since they are , its good to have this photograph of Brinkburn Priory from last year . To look through this window and picture stepping out onto this lawn again later this Spring when the cold has gone and the head is clear and the pressure is less and .....watch the dog flying about and hope the English heritage man doesn't catch us .

Mr F will enlarge here if you want to see him in the water . Brrr ! Brave man !

Is your daughter allowed to swear ?

Today most of my plans have been cancelled due to a sickness / achey joints thing that has been creeping up for a day or two .

My CatCalling done and the dog walked , I settle back into the armchair in an array of comfort-clothes, namely my skinny jeans now baggy due to weight loss ( ha! not that I'm boasting and I am well aware that this is fragile and could change at any moment ) , a silk camisole now settling somewhat lower on the torso than it should , due to different aspects of the above ( the semi disappearance of the chest ) a striped cashmere sweater ( no issues apart from a large darn under the arms ) and a zipped up puffa waistcoat . Makes a change from the Lush pj bottoms and the bravissimo top and soft downy plush bathrobe with giraffe spots in brown and cream : a pile of newspapers to hand and a pot of lapsang souchong tea at the ready .

I have time . There are no pressures . I can take a slow chug through the travel section and enjoy at my leisure Tim Dowling's family ski ing trip in St Moritz. It will be as if I were away myself , and if ski ing does not take my fancy today , already having spotted Mr Fit- and -Eighty -if-he's-a-Day throwing himself into the icy waves on King Edward's Bay , and indeed photographed the moment for your amusement , then maybe Haneif Kureishi's trip with his son to Venice may be more my thing until at least my own fingertips have de-iced, and who would blame me ?

(Click to see Mr F in the water )

But .... and here's the thing , Tim Dowling is funny and relevant wherever he is and today he is talking about his boys ;

"The exhileration of the first day ( on the slopes ) ..is slightly tarnished by the walk back to the ski hire shop , listening to my children swearing behind me " and my heart leaps .

Tim , you are so on my wave length !

Though I failed to mention it earlier this week , I had a mobile phone adventure towards the end of the Grace Jones gig , when my new touch screen phone was located behind my seat at the Sage and handed back to me by a kind stranger . It had parted company with its back but as we were all filing out at this point I stuffed it in its entirety into my coat pocket only realising later that the sim card was missing .

Return to Hall One was necessary , scrabbling behind seats was done , to no avail , and the Sage engineers continued to dismantle Ms Jones's hydraulic platform in peace .

Meanwhile my phone was behaving most strangely . It no longer appeared to believe that its sim card was missing but instead was intent on making calls , to my local out of hours emergency doctors service and nothing I said or did would stop it . ( Touch phones , you have to hand it to them , once on a roll there is no stopping them ! ) The doctors were understanding . I was mortified . After them it rang a professional contact of mine . Argh ! At almost midnight . Not good . I finally managed to move it on so that if it rang anyone it would be my daughter's friend , so that I could ask her advice ..she has the same phone .

A text arrived from N telling me about her evening . She had had cider spilled on her by a large lady at the Pussycat Dolls and her description of the event contained a colourful expletive .

" Oh " said my friend curiously , trying to help me with the management of this evil phone which was completely beyond my control at this point . " Is your daughter allowed to swear ? "

There is really no answer to this .

It is the same question as " are your pets allowed on the soft furnishings " .

Kitty ( above ) was wondering the same thing about Greyhounds . Background detritus reflects onset of flu like symptoms . That's my story and I'm sticking to it . Usually D would not allow said detritus . Flu like symptoms largely his .

Grace Jones at the Sage

I saw Grace Jones last night at the Sage , see above for images of Ms Jones now and (top) , how she looked at the time of her

well known attack on Mr Harty on his own show of all things .

Though for a while I avoided the Sage , I now revel in the upmarket ambiance and views across the Tyne from Gateshead towards Newcastle and the knowledge that in such a small world I am bound to bump into someone I know , but without the actual bumping which goes on in the City hall which is wonderful but altogether more of a crush .

Back to Grace Jones , an icon whose images were postered in the wine bars and drinking emporia of my twenties . Three shots for a pound after work on the sea front , with a six foot tall model on a leash with an oiled body and pushed into a cage glaring out at us . Grace Jones as angry big cat , claws at the ready .

Now sixty years old , nothing much

seems to have changed . She appears after something of a delay on a hydraulic platform looking like a zwarovski jewel , huge stiffened feather adorning her head and adding two feet to her height , and wearing a man's suit jacket , leggings and skyscraper heels .

As the show progressed there was a costume change with each song ( how does she do that ? ) and the audience was treated to increasing displays of..... well ... not to put too fine a point on it , everything . Accustomed as we are to displays of nudity behind the body stocking and flesh coloured undergarment , I found myself turning my head from side to side and thinking , why is the word "pudenda " springing to mind here as the only suitable word to describe what we are seeing and which is it which seems the rudest , that , or the intriguing way she manages to shimmer her well honed bottom cheeks ( at sixty ? ) . At audience participation time it seems the latter . The chaps giving it what for with her to " Pull up to the Bumper " can't resist cupping her cheeks and she chuckles " hey I think I'm gonna get laid here " or words to that effect . I am more fascinated by the guy who as she dances close is sidling off stage left .....

Without a doubt her body is amazing , her voice stunning and as far as I could see no one got slapped about . The excitement was palpable throughout and if I hadn't had such a migrainey , stressy day for quite other reasons , you may have seen me raking through boxes digging out some old vinyl version of Nightclubbing .

Grace Jones , what a legend .....Grace Jones Interview : Celebrity Interviews - Access interviews with the worl

Live music review: Dave Simpson on Grace Jones Music The Guardian

Yoko Ono at the Baltic , Gateshead

I managed to take a few shots before I got the tap on the shoulder thatYoko Ono - BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art reminded me that I shouldn't have my camera out at these functions .

But , its irresistible . How can I explain the perfect magic wish tree without a photograph . How can I inspire you all to come to Newcastle / Gateshead to see the tree and pin up your own wish ?

The first one I read made me walk away to laugh in private , so strong was the wish to capture it on film yet I knew the light was not right , nor the crowds .

" I wish there was not hair all over my crack " .

Only in Newcastle I thought .....

On second thoughts , I have no guarantees about who wrote it . Or from whence they came , for that matter .

Where are you from ? What do you think ? Would such a price of poetry issue forth in your neck of the woods ?

More pictures tomorrow from The Baltic , unless the man who tapped on my shoulder has me closed down overnight .

I only have two more so I think it's unlikely .

Technology !
I can use touch screen phones , though its taken me a few days to realise it . And I can upload my own photos from the phone as well as from the camera without reference to Nat , though it did take me a while to get that bit organised .( poking cd s into the laptop and figuring out what they meant ) . And this time it was almost worth it as the resulting shots are ok , the outdoors one anyway .
What really galls me is that being one of those sad adults who reads the manual would you believe , is that there are almost no instructions on how to use the camera , so its all trial and error , mostly error .
I did consult Katherine, who is 14, and has the same phone , regarding the so called smile feature , which didn't appear to be working . This apparently enables the camera to detect when someone is smiling and yes , take a shot automatically . Ha! As nothing much about either phone or camera worked first time ,( my ineptitude) I hurried off to see K , but on this one she admitted defeat . Its rubbish , she said , doesnt work ! What I squealed ? That kind of thing I find completely unacceptable in a silly old bat kind of way which has me reaching for my old fashioned pen and paper , all ready to scribe a pompous letter of complaint to Samsung . K is far more sanguine . Nah she said , munching on her crisps , doesn't work . End of story . No big deal .
I take a deep breath . There are things to be learned here . Who cares really? My subject smiles . I press the shutter by hand . That's what photographs are , really .

Jess the cat is sufficiently recovered from her inflamed bladder ( for thus it was ) to be able to perch on the edge of my paper making table ( dining table transformed ) and making disapproving faces of the " when are you doing the tidying ? "

Meanwhile after much procrastination , I suddenly mid blend of some red and black paper , find the right words to start a new draft of some writing I am doing and head off to the laptop leaving Pearl investigating the shallow tray of yellow pulp ( hmm , not a good idea . Ten minutes later I am investigating a lovely custard yellow puddle on the floor and the guinea pigs are ranting disapprovingly in tandem from the top deck of their abode ... " You shouldn't have left her in charge , you shouldn't have left her in charge . Now give us a grape , now give us a grape . " )
Pearl is by this time surveying the scene from the top of the freezer presumably in case I hand her a dish cloth and ask her to clear up after herself . There is a definite smirk on her face , in recognition of the fact that she managed to up end the half full blender last time I made paper too and this time I had warned her I was keeping an eye on her . Score two nil .
Nat texts through her first GCSE results , I wonder if I can work out how to download some photos from my new camera phone , and I scratch about for bits of old wool to add interest to my cards . Fridays .... I love them !

666 posts

I see I have written 666 posts on my blog as I log on today .
Not quite sure what this symbolises , although I ruminate as I drive to a piece of private work ( Day Job variety ) this morning that today feels like the day I am ready to put pen to paper and start Something Different . This is not anything new . I am good at starting new things . I have a dozen "fresh" pieces of writing in files on my laptop and perhaps twenty notebooks with first , second and third drafts of this that and the other . My best piece is in a tiny notebook in my second last bag but one and was written in a garden centre coffee shop just after one of those defining moments driving along the ... anyway as I ever I digress when I could be getting on with something .

The point is I forgot to soak my tiny pieces of paper last night . Which needed to be soaked for my paper making this morning . And the reason for that was family traumas involving texts , differences of opinions and hopefully a final resolution ..... all enough to take my mind off the tiny bits of paper ....( Have you ever tried sending animated texts in a hurry to get across your point when you have just got a new touch screen phone ? hey , my advice , don't bother ! Somewhat fortuitously Nat and I were as one , and she was able to do my Rapid Fire Texting for me on this occasion .

The plan was to walk the dog at 7 30 on the beach ( much against her wishes , I hasten to add , she prefering to laze these cold mornings until 11 at least , breakfasting at 8 , quick whizz down the yard if insisted upon , then back onto the bed if she can swing it ) , up to the secure unit to see the young woman ( private work ) at 9 30 , then back to paper making by 11 .

Thwarted on paper making front now will have to postpone till tomorrow but also Jess the Junior Birman has been on and off the pot all night so a trip to the vet appears to be indicated . Poor Lamb she seems to have a urinary tract infection . Jumps into a litter tray , sits for minutes blinking and squeezing , jumps off , having clearly produced nil , hops straight back on and tries again , or five minutes later disappears off upstairs and tries her luck up there .
As I fell asleep last night D reported she was sitting on the tray in the bathroom and when I went in there myself at six am she was parked up on the facilities in the upper Hall looking rather sad and tired . ( You would, wouldnt you ?)
I'm pleased to say she was fast asleep on the warm water bed at ten thirty when I got back from my visit this morning so she has had some relief but she was soon back in situ on the lav so the vets it is I think .
She even tried her best to squeeze a few drops onto the dogs bed but to no avail .

So with paper making off for today , is this the day I do Draft One yet again ? Or shall I wait till I get back from the vets and see how the day is panning out ?
Lets just see what the papers have to say ?

Almost surfing ?

Apologies if you've seen this before . Its just amazing that real people do this right in front of our eyes right near our house ! And in the Winter , in freezing cold conditions .

I think they should be blogged about every day .

Grommit is missing his Boy

.. who has gone back to Liverpool ...

Too much information .

I sense we have overslept .

The dog and I , and a cat at the far corner are all heavily staking our respective claims to stay that way , but the area of the water bed in D's vicinity is heaving and listing and there is an " atmosphere " to it .

" Shall I bring you your coffee in bed " he says , pointedly .
" Ooh that would be nice " I say cheerily and probably irritatingly .

Twenty seven minutes later the coffee arrives , with a low carb snack and an announcement :
The dog has wee'd twice during the night , indoors , despite being taken out on at least one occasion during said night . Poor lamb she must have some kind of infection .
I want to say , Too much information when I am having my coffee but recognise this is not a good response when in order it was Nat who wanted the dog , then me , then D , a fair way behind . And he has both got up during the night ( twice ? ) and dealt with aforementioned problems .
Furthermore , in estimated numbers , he has perhaps dealt with three hundred and fifteen so called "settling in incontinence" problems to my forty-three and Nat's one ( ie wiping up with washing powder and cloths and special spray from Pets at Home .)

The car is iced over . My nose threatens to fall off .
I decide that once my visit to the bookshop and coffee shop to select Origami book , dog walk at the beach ( brrr! ) , a day keeping warm and catching up with the papers would be in order .
The dog agrees.

One of the "Little Bloggers"

Being one of the "Little Bloggers " ie not one of the Big Bloggers who are well known and get hundreds of hits a day and as many comments , I am happy with my small but select band of followers , loyal and true , shunning the limelight some of you but just as important nontheless . You know who you are . I was completely thrilled though this morning to receive e mail pictures as follows from Steve from Petaluma CA , who said my bloggings about my " sheep" had reminded him of his sheep . What do you think ?

He then added :

"These are by the gates going into what used to be a chicken ranch that now has sheep on the grounds and artists in the old coops. Our town (Petaluma CA) was/is famous for chickens. There is even an old movie about it "The Egg & I"Anyway, thought you might like them."

I can't begin to tell you how excited I was .

It was kind of how I felt last week when Wide Lawns ( how I love her blog, and I think of her as one of the Proper Big Bloggers ! ) left a Happy New Year message on my blog . Its kind of how I feel every time every single one of you leaves a message saying anything on the blog .

But this one kind of had that added element of synchronicity attached in that years ago when I was little and off school with flu , my mother gave me an old dusty copy of a book called "The Egg and I " by Betty McDonald and I read it through one week when I was nt well and so wasnt at school . And then we got hold of "the Plague and I " and then there was one about cooking and they were juts great books . Then recently my friend Michaela rediscovered them and we began ordering them really cheaply from ebay or Amazon and I think I may even have blogged about it at the time . They arrived and looked like they were going to fall to pieces but they cost about ten pence and smellt of dust and disease I think I read them when I had pneumonia or some such . And thanked my lucky stars I wasn't in a TB hospital , although I suppose there were days when not knowing my ribs were broken and wondering why it was so painful to cough that I wondered if TB was any the more painful . But that was a long time ago .

My friend Michaela who is not a Blogger cannot imagine how or why a man who lives on a ranch in Petaluma comes to be reading the blog of a cat minding woman in the northeast of England but that I am unable to answer .

That is part of the great inexplicable mystery of the blogging world .

This New Year thing again

I look out of my bedroom window in my dream state at 6 am and there is my first all black cocker spaniel , Josie , sitting on the back lawn on a rug . She looks about a year old , glossy and with long healthy ears , her back to me . I can see her quite clearly but with her back turned she cannot see me . It is Summer and the sunlight is against me so I have to squint against the sun . I tell D she is there and I want to go down to see her . I set off on a long journey but on the way I am distracted by a neighbour and I never make it to her . This is ok . She seemed happy enough there and was not alone though I did not know the woman who was with her .
I wake and we have all overslept .

Felt wierd .... had I somehow escaped a near death or something ?
I pick up The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy , presented to me by Chaela on the occasion of my recent landmark birthday . I have just started to read it but it is hard to out down . I wish I had read it before we went to the Carolinas .

My spirits were high making more paper this morning , dark reds in two shades and some pale yellow brown . Trying to work out how to thin the pulp for a lighter texture . I have an idea for some cards for two friends , one of whom left the area recently . It will include a map of the area and a heart .

My first card , made at the weekend , had arrived at its destination today , and a text arrived from J thanking me . This makes me smile . Somehow I had not thought of someone actually receiving the card .

Out of the blue the news that a colleague has died during the night , completely unexpectedly . The blood seems to drain from my fingers as I try to take in the news . A loud bang from the kitchen . Pearl has pushed the blender to the floor and there is pale coloured pulp everywhere .

I feel lucky to be alive and well and in good spirits as I make my paper and think my thoughts .

Is there something about this year ?
Are all years like this , in essence , but we forget ?

I wish I was here . Cafe Royal . Newcastle upon Tyne . Anytime soon . Tomorrow maybe ? Its possible . Not sure about the ricotta muffins though , are they strictly low carb ?

Glitched ?

It can become too easy to feel glitched , that the year is somehow fey , that bad things are on their way .

So , rather than tell you about the death of my colleague's mother this morning , I will say instead that it was easier than I thought to get myself back in gear for the DayJob . That the day passed in a flash , and that another workmate's dog survived when she thought he was dying of kidney failure .
That I'm still so pleased with my silly card making .
That I loved this clock above .
That for reasons completely unknown to me I suddenly have a rush of new people reading my blog . How amazing would it be if they left comments ?

That Alice was left home alone for a spell this afternoon and didn't have her teeth round the dates , or the cherry liquers , or my ankle boots . In fact , she lay asleep just like she does when she is not alone , flat on that back of hers with her legs pointing to the ceiling and her teeth showing .

The Christmas tree is down , dismantled , and because it was such a lovely specimen , is now planted in the garden , experimentally .

Hand Made Cards ...a half made sheep

One of my hand made papers happens ( quite by chance ) to resemble a sheep .
I decide that this will become my first handmade card . All I will have to do once the card is folded and glued and pressed and the semi-sheep added ( I make it sound so simple ) is draw on a face and legs and add my signature to the back and ....
I show it to D who has hung around the art shop whilst I perused the supplies and sniffed out glues .
Yes , he agrees , it looks like a sheep . Will you trim it so it looks more like a sheep .
No I say firmly , recalling my conversation with Liz about the greyhounds we made and how they simply present the shape , the hint , the echo of greyhounds.
"It is an impressionistic sheep . "

Oh says D
Right then .

He continues folding the laundry whilst I try to establish how the glue pot works . Finally he shows me how to break the seal .

I may add a caption , I say later
Oh he says .
Like This is a sheep .

I go back to my cards . He is making me nervous . I still have to draw the sheep's head and legs after all .

Ten minutes later , a cotton wool ball saves me the bother . There is always an answer .

Is there something doomed about this year ?

My sister reports that their friend and neighbour's greyhound , who has just given birth to a litter of puppies , has died very suddenly the night before last . When we were visiting on New Year's Eve we called to see her and revelled in the snub nosed babies and their soft coated mother and now she is no more . M is hopefully managing to feed them and it seems they are old enough to take milk from a bowl .

I could of course be detailing crises in the bigger wider world . Israel .

My cats are all unsettled .

Paper Making

Paper Making : the perfect antidote to yesterday .
New Year has properly been celebrated and I have the front sheets ( still drying on the radiators ) transported from Liz's for several birthday cards ( upcoming in January ) . The photographs show various stages of the process . The books collected by Liz over the years . The original liquidiser I forgot I had donated to Liz for the purpose which was a birthday present to me from my mother some thirty six years ago . Liz and I first made paper together after she took a course before she went to live in Fiji and before she had her children . She has recently returned from a holiday there and today I am wearing a necklace made with tiny shells brought from Fiji presented to me by Liz on the occasion of my recent landmark birthday . One of the pictures shows Liz cutting out a tiny greyhound shape for the wire mesh stencil I used to make paper sheets . Being Art , we decided it was of no consequence if at the end the shape was only vaguely greyhound like , giving the echo or sense of a skinny dog . Currently there are about seven such skinnies drying in grey , a darker grey and pink . We shall see.
having spent much of our time finding such a dog on the internet , cutting out in paper then in wire mesh , I then stated , " a cat would have been simpler and easier to recognise "
"yes" said Liz , thoughtfully ..... but we moved on .

As we work , or play , Liz 's boys are in and out and I am envious of how home based they are . N is much less at home . Much less in evidence and apparently much less still interested in doing family things . J greets me when I arrive and helps me make coffee as Liz is involved in a phone call with a German friend . It transpires that prompting has forerun this greeting and coffee making but nonetheless I am impressed with his social skills and warmth . I would expect no less though from the child of this family , whose parents are so welcoming and enthusiastic for life and friendships .
Liz is delighted to have the opportunity to share her many creative talents and the afternoon passes with much reminiscing about past events , friends , situations and such like .

For anyone interested in papermaking the process is not complicated .
We use offcuts from a local picture framing shop , who gave Liz the border card / paper / mount . This is soaked overnight in water , then liquidised. Once pulped it is divided into smaller amounts , and coloured either by the addition of a paper napkin , or some herbs such as parsley to add texture and colour . The colours and textures can be liquidised in uniformly , or added in flecks to add more interest .
The pulp is then placed into a flat tray and scooped out on a flat piece of wire mesh or mesh cut into a shape eg the tiny greyhound . Liz made winter trees .
This is then laid onto newspaper and the water squeezed out using a sponge , then the mesh peeled off . The paper sheet then dries on a radiator or flat on a table . In my case they are all transported home in sheets of newspaper .
I can't wait to see the final result . ....Coloured threads are also great for making letters to spell names !

So , after all this , today is after all the new New Year , and a great one too .

Have a great one all of you !

Today is the new New Year ....

Kitty Means Business

Today is the new New Year Ok ?

Yesterday was a bit of a disaster day on most fronts so I hatched a cunning plan at midnight to start again today . I have a tiny fear that starting the new year on a bad note might , just might be a bad omen . Mind you speaking to , or emailing or texting a few friends I see that others seem to have fared no better . Maybe we all need to start again .

It started with a very unsettled night . The cats were fine . They sleep anywhere and don't seem to mind who is in the house or what family occasions are happening . Kitty , to be fair has been taking issue with D , coming down to the kitchen for sparring matches and head butting sessions ( her head and his legs ) , pushing him and nipping and generally making herself unpleasant but then she is a tortie so thats kind of expected .

But Alice ( rescue greyhound ) has been something else these last days . Picking up on Tenstion Undercurrents or what ? She has paced and roamed , refused to settle and refused to anything .

So at 3 am , 4 am , and goodness knows what else am she was up and off the bed , back on , trailing about the upper floor , into the bathroom , troughing cat food , needing to void cat food ( trip to back yard , too scared to go out to void in dark , back to bed , out to front where there is light .... none of this facilitated by me I should add . I had had a Vodka . Say no more . )

And then finally , Jennie had to shower at six and leave soon after for her shift as a midwife some miles away . Alice sits bolt upright in our room . The bed lurches ( water beds are delightfully warm in winter , but when the greyhound moves , we are all at sea. And after a vodka ..) She sniffs the air. She looks at D . She looks at me . All present and correct . So who is in the shower ? I find this intensely annoying for some reason . Alice , for God's sake I mutter in my head . We have a room full of teenagers next door at any one time . It could be one of them in the shower ? Give it a rest why don' t you ? Alice can hear nothing from my lips but she is hurt none the less , and draws her head towards her chest to fix me with that face , that infinitely sad , anxious face . In seconds the nose is pointed again at the ceiling , and she is trailing foxes or whatever is haunting her .

J leaves and I fall asleep again .

At eight the phone rings .

Unknown to me J has fallen on the stairs and sprained her ankle badly and is now in Accident and Emergency at the hospital where she works , unable to work and unable to drive home . This notwithstanding the fact that the previous evening she fell on ice on her own steps and her other ankle had swollen outrageously . Now she has a matching pair .

D leaves to help her home . Alice finally falls asleep , comatose by this time . D brings me coffee before he leaves and I read for a while . Bliss . For me .

D returns at lunch time and we drive into Northumberland to Belsay Hall , imagining walking through the gardens in the sunshine . Alas they are closed . Of course . New Year's Day .

We pull onto the approach road and stop the car to let Alice have a run on the deserted road ...... back into the car five minutes later .

Dead .

The car is dead .

An hour later we are following the AA van in pursuit of a new battery .

Today is the new New Year .

I am going Paper Making with Liz.

Wish me luck .