Arty Farty Days

01 Feb 2024 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve always thought of myself as a bit creative and I’ve dabbled with all kinds of arty projects in my time. My dad went to art college in his youth and he taught me the basics of sketching and painting when I was a little girl. But something must have gone a bit awry when I started secondary school. According to my first art teacher, lovingly called Granny Grierson, my pieces of art were nearly always ruined once I was let loose with a paintbrush. In my school reports she used the term “doesn’t know when to stop” quite a few times.

Haunted by these words I have tended to avoid the slapping on of paint, with the exception of wall painting about the house. But I’m no quitter and 45 years after those school reports I decided to bite the bullet and give creative painting another go.

My first attempt at re-joining the scary world of paint and brushes was at a Brush Party event. These happen all over the UK at various venues such as pubs, restaurants and adventure parks. My sister in law, Sharon, and I found ourselves one evening just before Christmas at Puxton Park learning how to paint “Ice Ice Angus”. Armed with a blank canvas, brushes, blobs of paint, an apron and a Christmas hat, we followed step by step instructions to produce a pretty good painting to take home. I’m really quite proud of my Angus and he is now stationed on the toilet wall looking down on folk sitting on the throne.

Well after the success of the Brush party there was no stopping me and I was keen to use my new found talents again. My next chance to shine was at a creative printmaking workshop at Flourish Glenavon farm that lies between Bristol and Bath. In a designated part of the farm shop, 4 members of the BMT drinking club gathered to help fellow member George participate in her birthday present. We were trusted with very sharp scalpels to cut out stencils and after creating various hues from the blobs of primary colours, we rolled this way and that until we were happy with the end result on the paper. It took a great deal of resolve to know when to stop adding another layer of paint or another decorative stencil, but with those words from my old school report ringing in my ears I resisted the urge and stepped away from the roller. I was so pleased with the end result that I kicked a David Hockney print out of it’s frame to give my print it’s new home.

I highly recommend both of these activities, they are a really good way to learn new skills to produce a something very decent to take home. The best part is spending time with friends and family in a shared creative experience.

https://www.slowsunday.co.uk/collections/workshops https://brushparty.co.uk/

In the footsteps of gladiators

23 Jan 2024 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in UK Roman Amphitheatre Quest Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

As I have already alluded to with many posts in this blog, I am an classical history nut. I love nothing better than wandering ancient ruins and learning about the history. I was having a bit of a mooch around a well known search engine and discovered that there are 10 Roman amphitheatres in the UK according to Heritage Daily.com. Armed with my list, I did my research and made plans to visit each arena, last week I completed my quest.

But before I write about the sites I visited I thought I’d just say a few words about the amphitheatres I didn’t travel to. I live in Bristol in the Southwest so I needed to weigh up if the journey was going to be worth it, to that end I checked out the photos taken and posted by previous visitors.

In Chichester, it’s roman name Noriomagus Reginartum, there is nothing but a field with a gentle bank that outlines where the arena once stood.

Near Margate in Richborough, known in Roman Britain as Rutlipiae or Portus Ritupis, is also essentially a field but this time with a hollow marking the spot where the amphitheatre once was.

Much as I love a good day out, I figured it was a long way to travel to see a field when I had no other reason to visit, so I was content to look at the photos and read a bit more about them online.

My quest began by happenstance well before it was a conscious decision to do so. In January 2018 while on a family get together at my cousin Amelia’s house in Reading, we went on a bracing walk after Sunday lunch and had a wander around the amphitheatre at Silchester. It was built around 60 to 85 ACE when the town was called Callera Atrebatum and was one of the earliest arenas built in Roman Britain. It stood just outside the city walls of a large Roman town with the usual street grid format over 40 hectares. Although I have always been interested in ancient history I never really fully appreciated this look around which is reflected in the rubbish photos I took!

The next theatre that I visited by chance was at Cirencester. My mum and I had been on a lovely day out to Bourton on the Water and on the drive home I didn’t realise that I would be driving past the site. The arena was on my hit list but I hadn’t planned on checking it out on that day. I saw the sign for it and took my chance to cross another arena off the list. Built in the early 2nd century ACE it was one of the largest amphitheatres in Roman Britain. The city was known as Cornium and had a population of over 10000 inhabitants. The remains are massive earthworks but you can clearly see the size of the arena and imagine how it would have looked in it’s former glory.

Next stop Dorchester, London and Chester aka Durnovaria, Londinium and Deva Victrix….

I went to London and I saw ……

30 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in London trips Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I love my trips to London and there are several posts on this blog to support this. My last two visits to the Big Smoke involved two music legends and my two sons.

Back in August I met son number one, Scott, at Paddington station and we made our way to Sotheby’s to see the exhibition of Freddie Mercury’s possessions “A world of his own”. Fans and buyers could visit to view the items for a couple of weeks before the auctions arranged and managed by Mary Austin, Freddie’s lifelong friend whom he described as his common law wife and was his closest confidant. During that time there were 140,000 visitors from all around the world and the auctions raised £40 million, a large proportion of that amount was donated to charity.

Freddie collected a lot of fabulous stuff in his short life and 14061 lots were lovingly arranged over three floors and each room had vases full of beautiful lilies to fill the air with the most amazing fragrance. Everything was in temptingly close touching distance and while no-one was looking I managed a little pinch on the bottom of the sleeve of a jacket Freddie wore on a visit to Japan. When I mentioned it to Scott, he shot me a look that said “if we get chucked out of here because of you, I’m going to kill you”! It reminded me of the time myself and both my lads went to Destination Star Trek and I was trying to get a sneaky photo of William Shatner instead of paying the extortionate fee to do so. I was told a couple of times to stop and move along, which I ignored and my youngest son, Jake, felt the need to drag me away hissing “you’re gonna get us chucked out”.

So with that in mind I decided to try and behave myself on my next trip to London with Jake to see the Elvis Exhibition. It was a wonderful collection of memorabilia from Graceland, lots of amazing personal items belonging to Elvis, stage outfits, documents, vehicles, instruments and his every day clothes in all their 1970’s glory. This time there was no chance of touching anything as it was all safely protected behind glass.

It was a relatively small exhibition so before we headed home we made our way to St. John’s wood and after a yummy lunch at the Drunch café we wandered to the Abbey road studio. We really didn’t have time to do the studio tour, so we visited the shop and tried to get a “walking across the zebra” photo without pissing off too many motorists!

I am so lucky to have shared interests with my lads, it makes my days out to London really special.