Tag Archives: Garden

Some success to announce :-)

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This is the centre-spread of my Junk Journal, (half way there now!) on the left hand page are just some of my doodles and on the right hand side a lovely quote by Kathy Kinney an American actress and comedian and co-host of https://queenofyourownlife.com/. I love the quote.

I know you must be getting bored with the length of time it is taking me to complete my garden project (I am!), BUT progress has finally been made. I’ve done all the heavy building work now, it was exhausting! Although the new greenhouse is the same size as the one that was removed i.e 6ft x 6ft, the base is slightly smaller than the original. So in order to get it to fit without destroying the whole thing I had to dig it all out and line the inside of the box with more blocks and then I put some PVC board on the top of the wall to stop the rain getting in and to secure the greenhouse in place. I have now tidied up a bit and I have constructed the new greenhouse. The instructions said it was a ‘2 man’ job but I managed to complete it, with a little bit of help from Claudine, by myself. The instructions, which consisted of only diagrams, were very difficult to decipher. I got a few things wrong and had to go back and redo them. T was unwell for for much of the time I spent on this work, so I was not able to do it as fast as I would have liked, nevertheless I’ve done what I was able to at my own pace and now the construction is complete.

The truth is I am far too old to be doing this kind of stuff and I have had to take lots of breaks. I think I have done things in the right way. Let’s hope so anyway. During the build it all looked a bit fragile, but now the roof is on it’s all held in place and actually feels quite sturdy.



After the incredible heatwaves we have had this summer the forecast for winter it lots of wind, rain and storms so I am hoping the greenhouse survives long enough for us to grow some food next year.

There is actually still quite a lot to do before the spring. I need to seal it with external quality silicone, repair and replace some of the mosaic work, sort out the central walkway and then deconstruct and rebuild the steps to make it easier for T to get in and out. But, apart from the silicone sealing which I hope to get done this weekend, everything else will have to wait until I return from my trip to France in September.

I am so excited about my French adventure and having some quality ‘me time’. I will be away from home for a total of 12 days, 4 days of which will be at the art retreat and a few days with my brother and his wife Mu in Paris. I am really hoping that this whole adventure will re-spark my creativity, because I’ve been missing it for a long time now.

For the next two weeks I will be in ‘packing chaos’! Just how much stuff to I actually need for a 12 day trip? Inevitably I am bound to take more than is necessary (I always do), but I need to remember I’m the one who will have to carry it all on my own.

There is no other news from this end apart from the fact that we are still having very hot weather atm. I’ve never known it to be so consistently hot and sunny for so long. Sitting out on the decking in the evenings feels very tropical at the moment. I can’t remember the last time it rained. The garden is looking very thirsty right now and on top of that we have a hose pipe ban in our area! We can use watering cans, but they are heavy to carry around the garden so the plants are only getting minimal water. I’ve just checked the forecast and there ‘might’ be a little bit of rain next week.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer, look after yourselves.
Big love from me AJ

It’s Hot, hot,hot

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This is spread 5 of my completed Junk Journal. I have attributed the quote on the right hand page to David Shillinglaw, because that’s who I first heard say those words, but I think it might have been said by someone else first. There are two images above and if you use the < and > buttons you can read what’s on the back of the Cherry insert and the full quote on the rh page.

I am all ready now (apart from packing) for my trip to France for the Art Retreat with David Shillinglaw in early September. It’s all paid for and I have an itinerary and tickets for all the travel.

I have a whole range of emotions about this ranging from excitement about being able to spend a few days in a lovely environment with a brilliant artist and to be able to learn from him. I am also quite terrified of traveling in France on my own, as a non French speaking person. I’ll be OK if nothing goes wrong. My Itinerary is all worked out and as long as the trains run as scheduled and I can find the correct platforms and trains I’ll be able to get there with no problems. BUT if anything goes wrong I’ll become confused and will have to rely on the help of (hopefully English speaking) strangers. Even though I am scared of doing this on my own I think it’s important that I face my fears and just get on with it. I am also concerned about T. Will he be all right while I am away for 12 days (in total)? I keep telling myself that we are both grown ups so all should be fine.

During the art retreat we will all be making and binding a new sketch book for ourselves including any art we produce during the Retreat. I will show you that after I return. Anyway here is a picture of the cover of a new book I have made for myself just for the journey, I like to collect ephemera when I travel so hopefully it will be full of that by the time I get home.

There has been a little bit of progress on my big garden project. After a few days of, what we thought was, a heat wave, the weather changed and then it was too cold for me to work comfortably in the garden (I am only a fair weather gardener). So that delayed things for a while, but I did get a little bit done.

Now we are REALLY in a heatwave with temperatures in the high 30s throughout the UK. A lot of people are struggling to cope with the heat, but I quite like it. The good thing is it probably won’t last very long – we have very changeable weather in the UK and it seems most people are never satisfied with whatever weather we get.The high temperatures, it remind me of Tobago where we have had several happy holidays, plus I am retired so there’s nothing pressing I have to do (Apart from the garden project)! And the golden rule for a hot climate is to take things slow and easy. I learnt that from my Tobagian friends.

Days later now and we are still in the heat wave! I continue to make SLOW progress with the big garden project. I’ve got three more blocks to lay, but I have to go an get another bag of sand before I can do that. If I had paid a professional to do the work it would have been done weeks and weeks ago, but I’m proud of myself for persevering. Maybe this coming week the block work will be complete. I live in hope! Then I have to get something (I’m thinking of PVC board) to top the wall and then FINALLY we will be able to start constructing the new greenhouse. The instructions say it’s possible to do it with 2 people in a single day, but I suspect it will take us much longer. When you are over 70 everything takes longer than anticipated. Just got to be patient! Today I am having to take another rest day because my body it telling me I need to rest so I have to obey. I didn’t wake up until gone 11am today! I just hope the weather holds out for a few more days.

So that’s my current news. I’ll be back with (hopefully) news that I completed the project.

Take good care of yourselves
Big love from AJ

Where have I been?

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Hello friends, it’s been a while again!  I hope your year is going well.  I am doing well health wise.  I’ve been working on two big projects this year and both are now nearing completion so maybe now I’ll be able to get back into blogging again.  We’ll see, my track record so far has not been too good has it?

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When I finished my cancer treatment back in 2015 I was given the mask I had to wear when I was having radiotherapy:

The face maskI wanted to do something creative with it, but I had lots of ideas  and I didn’t want to do just one thing, so in the end I used the mask as a form to create a series of papier mache ‘warrior masks’. Each one fixed onto a canvas.

All the time in my head I had the title ‘Radiant Warriors’.  I felt it complimented the journal of Warrior Women I made when I was having chemotherapy.

Definition of Radiant: adjective 1. happy, glowing, ecstatic, joyful,  gay, delighted, beaming, joyous, blissful, rapturous

2. bright, brilliant, shining, glorious, beaming, glowing, sparkling, sunny, glittering, gleaming, luminous, resplendent, incandescent, lustrous, effulgent

The image at the top of the page is the first mask I made.  I can’t begin to tell you just how disappointed I was with how it turned out, which is nothing like I imagined it would.  I’ve made 11 masks so far and none of them have turned out how I planned.  It stressed me out a fair bit that I couldn’t reproduce the images I had  in my head, but in the end I realised the masks turn out exactly as they are meant to be – full of imperfections and faults, just like me.  To be a warrior means you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to keep trying.

As well as mask making I also wanted to see what my journal pages would look like if I reproduced them big.  Ideally I would like to see them massive like on a wall on the side of a building, but as I don’t have a wall 30″ x 22″size paper was the biggest I could go:

This is the first page I did in my Warrior Women Journal when I was first diagnosed with cancer. It’s made of collage, painting and penwork, it measures 15″ by 9″.

All is Good

And here is the large size painting it measures 30″ by 22″:

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Now that I’ve finished the Radiant Warrior project I feel like I can move on from the Cancer thing. It’s such a relief.  Not everyone makes it though do they?  Earlier this month a very brave young woman who put up a couragous, positive and inspiring fight lost her battle with cancer.  It really hurts when this happens.

Rest in Peace beautiful Sam xxx

The other project I’ve been working on is the garden project I started back in November, to build some raised beds for T’s vegetable garden.  This is what it looked like before I started. Just look at all those weeds on the paths!!!

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KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

And here is a video of the finished raised beds.

In other news we had a holiday in Malaga city in Spain at the beginning of May, it’s a lovely place and we soaked up loads of art and culture.  I might blog about that later.

That’s all for now, I hope you are all doing well and are happy and I hope to see you again soon.

Big love

AJ xxx

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