The promise of sitting outside under sunny blue skies and the need for a sunshade suddenly translated into real time in the first week of July.
Although I do long for a stretch of warm and clement weather, I flop over like a rag doll when the barometer climbs above 26 degrees. My brain overheats and I am no good for anything. I couldn’t live happily in a country that was both very hot and humid, as I am without energy, drive, curiosity … a sort of stupor paralyses me, sweat drips constantly down my face. Bill Bryson (one of my favourite writers) calls this ‘perspiration incontinence’. I wish I had thought of this phrase – it’s just so perfect.
John loves the heat but feels the cold. He has ancestors from Mesopotamia, mine are Nordic.
Having said that, it was great to be able to enjoy sitting out in the garden, surrounded by flowers. There seem to have been fewer insects this year. Even though wasps can be tiresome, I missed them buzzing around with their beady eyes, visiting my lunch, sipping at my glass of cider, like old ladies fussing. And they do, rapier like, kill many garden pests. I expect some old ladies have done the same with hat pins …
Last year, we had scores of ladybirds on the hibiscus. I have only seen two to date, and they are peely wally orange rather than carmine red. But it’s good to see a huge variety of bees on the blue thistles, which have spread to twice the size this year. A gardening friend has dug hers up as an invasive species – but the bees love them, so they have a stay of execution here.
Saturday lunchtime …
Sunny weather for Barnes fair 2013
Exotica opposite Barnes pond
Exploring a small path on the Common
Moorhen scouting around Barnes Pond …
Island – Barnes Pond – summer 2013
Summer afternoon – Barnes Pond
OUT AND ABOUT
I always go to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. This year it was middling. Last year was better. But it keeps me ‘au fait’ with the lie of the land. Although a lot of people complain about it, I think it’s good to have a mix of styles and talent. And you are free to decide for yourself what you like – without knowing who did what, until you check the listings for the artist, price etc. I always look forward to finding a ‘gem’! One was a print by Susie Perring called ‘Ripple Effect’, which is still one of my favourite buys ever. It gives me a splash of energy every time I look at it. Thank you, Susie.
A painterly pigeon cooling down at the RA …
Relaxing outside the RA …
Bowling along Piccadilly …
A favourite actor outside Hatchards bookshop on Piccadilly …
This is the second time I have seen Bill Nighy close at hand. If I see him a third time, I shall pluck up courage and say ‘hello’ !
Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden – heatwave August 2013
The BP Portrait Award exhibition was excellent this year but I didn’t agree at all with the judges’ verdict. Visitors are allowed to vote for their favourite portrait online at the gallery. The one I liked best was a self portrait by Daniela Astoni. It came second with the visitor vote. I liked the one that came first too but it had a slightly travel advertising quality about it, whereas the second and third (also a favourite of mine but not to put on the wall) were, to my mind, more painterly. I was glad to see that all the paintings collected at least one vote from the visitors. John liked Daniela Astoni’s self portrait very much too, so I ended up buying a print of it, which they sold in the National Portrait Gallery shop.
I went to see the Vermeer + Music exhibition at The National Gallery. This concentrated on his ‘musical’ paintings – ‘A Young Woman seated at the Virginals’, ‘The Music Lesson’, ‘Guitar Player’, ‘Woman with a Lute’. The Academy of Ancient Music sent a small orchestra, who played seventeenth century music in one of the rooms. It was evocative of the time Vermeer painted and maybe of how he felt about the women who played these instruments. There are stories behind these paintings.
Although ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’ (Vermeer’s most popular painting today), wasn’t in the exhibition, she came to mind as I wandered round. I very much enjoyed the historical novel of the same name, written by Tracy Chevalier in 1999, which was made into an excellent film, starring Colin Firth as Vermeer, Scarlett Johansson as the girl, Griet, and Cillian Murphy as Pieter, the amorous butcher’s boy. I am drawn to Griet’s simplicity and the mystery of her gaze, which one can’t help but think is unrequited love for the painter. That one glowing pearl earring is symbolic too – she is forever holding a candle for a love she cannot have. I noticed some pearl necklaces in the shop on the way out. Somehow, they seemed to have that special glow too and I was tempted to buy one. I wear it a lot.
Vermeer always reminds me of one of his contemporaries, Carel Fabritius, who worked in Rembrandt’s studio for two years and later moved to Delft. Vermeer knew Fabritius and was influenced by him. Sadly, Fabritius was killed aged only thirty-two. If he had lived he may very well have had his name alongside those Dutch painters we celebrate today. But there was a huge explosion of the Delft gunpowder magazine, which destroyed a quarter of the city along with Fabritius and his workshop.
Very few of his paintings survived. The ones I know and love are ‘A View of Delft’, where he experiments with perspective, a self portrait done in the year of his death and ‘The Goldfinch’. This last painting is often mentioned for its simplicity and clarity and, for me, the transitory nature of beauty and life. It holds my breath, just like ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring’. I was interested to see that Donna Tartt’s new book is called ‘The Goldfinch’ and a picture of the bird is on the jacket. She must have been drawn to this painting too.
As I left the gallery, I noticed the strutting Gallic cock on its plinth, fixing Nelson with a beady eye in Trafalgar Square.
Le coq bleu français observe Nelson aux yeux en boutons de bottines … Sacré bleu!
BIT OF A MELTDOWN
Can I really be longing for rainclouds? I am so hot I want to be a nudist. Lots of the neighbours are on holiday. My brain is addled and I begin to see flying saucers down by the summerhouse.
Addled brain gazing at the sky
Just a very small glass of wine …
The overheated brain
Brainclouding – I see a flying saucer at the bottom of the garden …
Aaargh! Flying saucer coming closer …
I felt the aliens were watching me intently. Will I be spirited away? Oh dear, I am too hot to panic. Later, I went inside and read ‘The Humans’ by Matt Haig – again! Much recommended.
END