I want to tell you about my experience of the state of gastropub art, not the pictures on the wall, though that is now in my head and will have to wait to another day, but the creative splashes that get beamed out of their busy kitchens. I have seen the cheese plate transform via wooden platter to a slate based selected, some come adorned with fruit, celery and the chef’s own local berry chutney and others leave the cheese to speak for itself. Slate was initially a novelty of which I had some suspicion, mostly hygiene, knowing its soft and porous nature made me wonder was the slate one step beyond the boundaries that should define a serving dish. Seems though that slate must have undergone extreme H&S scrutiny as now this grey/blue medium is taking the gastropub table by storm. There’s not a meal that can’t be housed on it fossil rich surface. Some come in traditional white bowls but perch precariously on the riven tile making anxious young waitresses. Surely the slate is not meant to be a comic interlude in your evening meal but when Sofaman’s traditional Fisn’n'Chips washed up on the table at The Crown in East Rudham we were reduced to giggles and momentarily a hearty belly laugh, mildly alarmed the waiter fled. This was art meets food gone mad, why would you do it? F&C looks cannot be improved upon if presented on a large gleaming white plate, and what’s the square of local newsprint about? Sofaman soldiered on; taste not impaired by presentation but wondering further why crushed peas, I fear the chef too worn by creative hemisphere activity had not the strength to mush them. I am looking forward to further slate and art encounters throughout the week, and possibly finding next week that this phenomenon has spread to the continent.

Its raining, therefore I am on holiday. The skies are flat, extending into the distance and merging sleepily with the pale grey trees that lie on the roads edge as it winds it watery way over to Welney. I have to go out, I always go out, out is the new in, out is where there are people to draw, buildings to ponder and eventually draw in frustration, this is not an architects mind. The dialogue I strike up with myself in the pursuit of architectural understanding is comforting, it wraps me in phases ‘well its an artists approach’, ‘colour thats the theme’… I allow digression from the ultimate goal as I actually don’t know what the goal is. Possibly some otherworldly Platonic perfection, unachievable, inhuman, and soul-distroyingly fruitless. So here it is, my acceptance of imperfection, if it were a building it would have its faults, cracks in the plaster, damp patches, un-tufted rugs, blown light bulbs, draughty doors and novelty shelving. That is my contract.

Prickwillow lies east of Ely, formed around a water pumping station and the River Lark. The land in this area falls about 2 inches a year and some houses stand proud of the surrounding area, the Fenland solution is to build more steps up to your front door, the schools and vicarage and houses are built on piles. Two steam pumping engines and two oil engines are in the village and two in Burnt Fen; the average discharge is 150 tons per minute into the river Lark. The community is rich with artists, writers and architects, a place of quiet and creativity.

I parked the car down by the river in Ely and set out my watercolours and pencils on the bench, my water in a Volvic plastic bottle. The boat that sits decaying in the Babylon boathouse reminds me of Ernest Hemmingway’s boat that sits in dry dock in Cuba, it is a romantic image of past-times, of adventure and of hope. The surface is an expanse of rust with flecks of blue remembered paint. The waterlilies have surrounded it and the yellow heads lie around the bow rising and falling in the wake of passing cruisers.

There may be a hidden message about Education and Support but frankly this sign is crap.

The Orchard at Grantchester lies beside The Old Vicarage one time idyllic home to Rupert Brooke who immortalised both the house and The Orchard in one of his best know poems ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’ which ends with these most quoted lines

‘Stands the church clock at ten-to-three                                                                                                           And is there honey still for tea?’

I much prefer the lines earlier on in the poem where Brooke describes uncharitably his neighbouring villagers

‘For Cambridge people rarely smile,
Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;
And Royston men in the far South
Are black and fierce and strange of mouth;
At Over they fling oaths at one,
And worse than oaths at Trumpington,
And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,
And there’s none in Harston under thirty,
And folks in Shelford and those parts
Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,
And Barton men make Cockney rhymes,
And Coton’s full of nameless crimes,
And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.’

Brooke also wrote The Soldier, for me he best poem, his death in 1915 was made all the more poignant by its speculative prediction.

IF I should die, think only this of me:
    That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
    In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
    Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
    Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
    A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
        Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
    And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
        In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This morning I sat in The Orchard and sketched the chairs and trees and my cup of coffee, it was quiet and warm, Bullfinches and Blackbirds came and sat with me, not for my company but for my carrot cake obviously. It is lovely to draw in The Orchard this time of year as it is empty save for a few walkers passing through or whispering ladies out sipping earl grey or wholesome country sorts thickly wrapped in Barbour coats and up-to-their-knees in green wellies. If you sit far enough into the trees, hidden from the tearooms up against the hedge you can loose yourself in the moment and be taken back to 1909 and a time when Brooke and fellow students would sit under the bee rich blossom of the apple trees. 

Wednesday – I had planned to be round at Phils to help apply a third coat of white paint in the spare room at around 8.30am but a farcical episode of chase the mouse around the kitchen, under a cupboard, out into the utility room and then back under the cupboard turned into an aerobic session of nothing less than 30 minutes. I cornered the furry criminal under the cupboard at one point, grabbed his exposed tail in my hand [whilst wearing bike gloves] and tipped the cupboard back to make him visible to our cat. I thought this was a fine plan, pity the cat is myopic and entirely missed the mouse as it slipped from my grasp, ran between his legs, burst through the door [which was incidentally closed!] and disappeared into the rubble under the bench in the utility room. The mice out here in Fodder Fen are fighters, I guess the little cheeser deserves the cats biscuits, the cat certainly doesn’t.

Leaving Tom and Jerry behind I made my way over to Phils and between us we whizzed round the room in no time, though it still requires another coat to cover the air-fix green paint with which the previous owner had lovingly vandalised the walls.

One cinnamon bun and a glass of grapefruit juice later I was off into town for a swim, I considered this swim to be relaxation, a gentle session of quiet contemplation. I could not have been further from the truth, the pool was infested, people lounging on the plastic benches, gossiping in the Jaccuzzi, sweating in the steam rooms and bobbing about playfully in the water. I have previously explained that for me swimming is swimming – NOT bobbing about. I clambered through the splash fest and headed over to lane 5 on the far side, there was space enough for a conservative stroke without the horror of touching a fellow waterling. I swam happily for about 20 minutes, back and to until a couple of long trunk clad, thick jawed, pasty fleshed, testosterone soaked boys flopped aimlessly into my lane. Pool etiquette tossed out of the water they plundered their hormonal path through my lane, into the next and back again. I thought of that mouse and felt it’ll be easier to out do these children than any Fenland rodent. I continued to swim, sometimes at them but always on course, I kept to my space and they tried to swim under me but I swam under them as well and at one point I met trunk boy about 4 foot under and held my nerve and breath, he bobbed up, startled and slightly confused. It worked, they waded out of the pool, having failed to swim the full length underwater when I could do it easily, they just didn’t prepare well. All I have to do now is out prepare the mouse and it’ll be 2/0 to me.

I took myself to a local cafe [not Costa] for lunch with the express purpose of drawing the food, Tomato flan and mixed salad. A woman at the next table frowned as I settled, food in front of me, but sketchbook in hand. Once I had mapped out the basic drawing I was free to eat and colour at the same time. I prefer to paint with a highly limited palette, I find it easier to control.

I drove back to our village and parked up on the High Street, the village hall [above] is rather pretty but easy to overlook as it is in the shadow of the church and the overly grand rectory. The yellow Burwell brick is gentle and warm and in contrast a lilac shadow is really pleasing.

Back home the cat is fast asleep and there is a distinct air of smugness surrounding him, might he have found a remnant of youth in his old bones and trashed the mouse. Tread carefully for fear of the mouse bean or any other Ripperesk entrails.

 

Tuesday – virtuous behaviour flew out the window today, I skipped swimming in preference for sketching, but I guess skipping burns some calories. I headed for the East [?] face of the Cathedral and rested my back into a niche in the medieval wall, tucked away from passers by I could see clearly a great expanse of warm ochre walls and subtle lilac shadows. Splendid, all its mist draped towers and pinnacles melted away into the sky and the main tower was lost in the palest of grey tones. I sketched the basic outline in HB pencil, I never carry a rubber and usually draw in ink but such a large and complex structure is a bit scary and I used pencil as I was a little nervous. I then scribbled over the pencil with a water fast drawing pen, and I do mean scribbled, I kept Quentin Blake in mind whilst allowing the pen to skirt across the papers surface. Making sense of this mass is beyond me, I have to content myself with a manic cartoon, a line of thought and I let myself get overly excited about the repetitive details in the arches and on the pinnacles. I added the colour after removing the pencil and limited the colours to the minimum, yellow, grey blue and deep red.

I walked back through the gardens of The Almonary and into the Market Place to watch the Fire Brigade performing Pancake Day races, and to decide where I might settle for a little light refreshment. Who would have guessed – Costa, a skinny Latte and an almond biscotti, an exceptional marriage. I sat at the back of the bar and sketched a small group of women and their satanic offspring. The woman in the middle looked like a greek statue, her hair tied back like Hera in Jason and the Argonauts [not the new one, but the fantastic Ray Harryhausen version]. An elderly couple came and sat close to me and the guy starred hard, I think he might have been beaming me messages… I thought I should pack up and move on.

The rest of the day was taken up with domestic chores – bliss.

This is the first entry in a while and I apologise for being so lacking in inspiration but I have been busy getting started on Flickr under the name ‘makingmarks’ and recently twittering on @ Facebook [a vehicle for loosing time]. I decided that I would return to AltPlot and keep a daily record of how I wasted the daylight hours during my week off work.

Monday- I woke to the sound of my own voice asking Sofaman to turn the light off, he obliged and apologised for waking me, I fell back to sleep for about an hour curled up with the cat. When I eventually surfaced my first thought was what am I going to draw today. A good start. Though I didn’t have an answer to the question. So… cat fed, bag filled with pens, sketchbooks and paints I headed off into town, it was drizzling but I wasn’t bothered by this as I was going swimming first, sketching is a reward for my moderately enthusiastic efforts in the pool. As is often the case I was disturbed by the posse of pensioners floating aimlessly about the pool but I steadied my tensions and swam under any drifting octogenarians that were floundering, which never seems to please them as I guess they would much rather collide face on as is their right.

Costa was my first stop once I had been to the art shop and bought myself a new pen and had a frosty exchange over an non-functioning water brush, eventually the assistant realised this mad 40 something was likely to discuss the issue of receipt retention for hours without hesitation, deviation or… well actually with a lot of repetition, he relented and gave me a replacement – well guessed.

Two new pens later and a short queue I was seated in the window of Costa with a skinny primo cappucino [pffff!] and a chocolate twist I starred at the lack of passing faces. Then I decided, in retrospect, somewhat foolishly to attempt to sketch a half completed, scaffold clad building, this took sometime and although I have posted it to Flickr I am not certain the sketch explains itself well enough to enable readers to see the content. I sketched some faces as light relief.

Walking down to the river I looked at the beautiful buildings that line the streets, some twist in pain with age and their outlines wander like a pencil line waiting to be repeated, the wood frames surface through the long Tudor bricks as the humped backs of a shoal of fish swimming from one house to another. Grand houses sit by tiny centuries old cottages, and the front doors whisper gossip as you pass by. A woman locks her door with a key that fills her hand and requires her to use a shoulder jerk to turn it in the lock. On the river the black swan stops and turns her heads to me, an the Canadian Geese scream like banshees at a passing boat.

Sometime later I am sitting in another window looking out and drawing The Buttermarket, three men have gathered for a cup of tea and a chat, they lean in on each other in a Shakespearian huddle, sheltering from the cool wind and holding tight to their cups. I look away for a moment and when I turn back they are gone so  I fill in background details on the passage through to the Market Place.