Painting Wales...

I'm catching up with myself now. Only two more weeks of gypsy living, then we're into our lovely new wooden shed in the field in Somerset. Ian tried it out yesterday with his cousin James, and boy does the insulation do the trick. Just a little heat from an electric heater and it stayed warm for most of the next day. Now I'm looking forward to it!

Thought I'd update you on our wonderful painting class in Wales - with our wonderful and talented teacher Rob Ijbema (flattery gets you everywhere). I am still excited about it. It is great to be learning how to use colour, create light and use the brush with oils.

First we create a peachy-coloured wash to cover the white board (we do this the night before so it's got time to dry), then start by marking on a grid - lightly so it's easy to cover up.

Then paint in the dark areas of the picture. The composition is guided by the grid - never place your focal point in the middle, but on one of the lower intersections of the grid. In this picture the main focus is the stream which leads your eye gently across the painting. The horizon does well on the top line of the grid - about one third of the way down the board.

Here is the view we were painting. In terms of tone (lights and darks) you really need to convey a far distance, middle distance and foreground. Each gets successively lighter the further away you get due to the effects of the earths atmosphere. If you squint your eyes when looking at a view you can see it. Blue is a receding colour, and red comes forward.

And here is Rob. We are just using three colours and white to start with - alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and lemon yellow. A bit of cadmium red is added now and again. Rob paints with a lot of washes - paint mixed with white spirit, rather than layering it on thickly. And he paints in one sitting - 'wet on wet'.

This is my finished attempt...... (I have a lot to learn). Any criticisms gratefully accepted.

And last weeks picture of a frosty February morning.... (I like this one a bit better)
And week 1.......

Measuring up for a coffin, and leaving Wales...

Having made a small effort at starting 'Christmas', I am allowing myself the reward of writing a blog-post. This whole weekend we have been covered in big fat white powdery christmas snow.

We found a Christmas cake had been delivered overnight to our garden table:-

It can also be quite neighbourly. Our very-welsh neighbour Brynmor keeps clearing our drive - and we clear the pavement so we don't feel guilty that he's done it again. It was interesting to see Ian measuring up for a coffin.......not his I hasten to add, but our landlord is also a funeral director. He does about 2 funerals a week whatever the weather but so many of the local population live up long tracks and lanes they are inaccessible to anything but 4 wheel drive. Hence the measuring of Ians truck. I think he was secretly disappointed he couldn't help out, but the prospect of a coffin sticking out the back of a pick-up didn't seem quite right. A long-wheelbase landrover was found to do the job instead.

Needless to say Ashfield is frozen up - no volunteers, no staff and no work. We cleared the polytunnels of snow this morning to stop the plastic ripping and made sure the heating is still on for the pipes and wet floors. It is truly winter at Ashfield in every sense. It's not a good time of year for a horticultural project anyway, and a lot of the renovation work is still in progress so there are limits on what events can be planned. Ian feels he has contributed all he can at this stage, and with our house project in Somerset getting underway, our time should be spent elsewhere. So it's back to packing and trying to plan the next step day by day. We return to Somerset sometime in Jan or Feb instead of staying till June.

How do we feel about leaving? Well....it's mixed. I could happily live here if it wasn't for having a life elsewhere. Yesterday we were invited for tea by a lovely family from our church, so I feel a little sad at interrupting new friendships before they've hardly begun. Ashfield itself has so much potential - I loved the Apple Day and working in a community group, and the vision for an Art Room will have to be laid down for the time being. On the flip side, we can't wait to get our house going at Pengotton and reconnect a bit with Taunton life. Perhaps we could bring something of Ashfield back with us?

A new week...

Back at Ashfield today. Temperatures are still below zero, but the boiler there is fixed - and the place needs sorting. We called in one night to check on it and to our dismay found water gushing out all over the floor through the whole building. So Ian's job today will be moving desks and taking up carpets. I'm so glad that didn't happen at home.

My jobs today are drawing plans for a neighbours barn conversion, putting up posters for the oil painting course, and cleaning the church (i'm on the rota). Our church is great - it's a little Assemblies of God in Llandrindod called New Life. They are so warm and friendly and have made a very big difference to how we feel about being here. They are also great worshippers and reach out to the community including those struggling with things like drugs and alcohol. It's a very comfortable place to be, and we are grateful to God for leading us here through contacts in Taunton and Llandod.

Enough procrastinating. It's time to stop distracting myself with other activities and sit down with those plans....

Oil painting at Ashfield...

So what's happening over at Ashfield? In the cold weather the boiler has broken so everything seems to have closed down. No one can work in the offices or in the polytunnels. Greenland has hit.

I've been making a small contribution in the background over the last week though.

Rob Ijbema will be teaching oil painting in the new year and here's the poster... I've just got to get it printed and laminated and put it up on all the notice boards and in shops and the library. I've got no idea how

many people will book - it's possible we'll get loads but we just have to wait and see. Then we'll have to get the room ready and send out all the info to participants....

The other thing i've been doing is some artwork and a leaflet for Ian's Springbox idea. This is a christmas gift idea where you buy a garden box for a friend - and all the plug plants and seeds are delivered in the spring ready to plant. All you need for a complete vegetable or wild flower garden. So first we have to sell the boxes... then we have to grow the plants... I keep seeing this vision of Alan Sugar shaking his head and asking "so why exactly did you offer to post the boxes for £5 when it's actually going to cost £7.50?" Good point. I SO couldn't go on the Apprentice. I don't think we'll post the boxes at all - delivery only.

A Polytunnel called Tom

Just so we can't be accused of all play and no work I've put a few photos of Ashfield to show what's been happening here this week. We've had 9 people on site today so there's been a bit of a buzz with everyone putting their hand to the plough. It feels great - I love working with other people outdoors. And the best bit is - you start a job and someone else finishes it! I'm all in favour of community gardening.

We also met with Rob Ijbema, a 'proper' artist who paints in oils - and I am very excited that he has agreed to come and teach a course for us in the new year. My job - advertising. Easy Craft Workshops Take 2. Can't wait. Have a look at his work here:- http://paintingwalesdiary.blogspot.com/

Ian at his desk (and Barney at his)

This is 'Tom', one of the 4 polytunnels on site. We cleared the old aubergines, beans, chillis etc out of Tom, re-composted, repaired the paths and planted onions and winter salad leaves. All very satisfying and 'dig for victory'. It's amazing to plant things when the temperature is already dropping to freezing here.

Pippa, Roz, Jan and myself cleared brambles from a ditch and made a huge bonfire...

Ray and Terry have been stripping out the inside of the house. It will be divided into two flats and let out to raise some revenue for the project. There is a certain deja-vue walking round the house at the moment. Even the bright yellow walls..... (must have been trendy in the 80's). It's strange that both ends of our life have semi-derelict houses and lots of mud to contend with, but hopefully both will improve in the next year.

Ian, Tom and Brian are repairing the potting shed roof...

And lastly, the beautiful sky on my cycle ride home today...

Normality regained (albeit temporarily)

We have just returned from our latest foray into the social life of Llandrindod - a visit to the Horticultural Society talk on 'Alpine Art'. You might wonder why, and it was a spur of the moment reckless decision and a need to 'get out' that led us to this middle-class, middle-aged (well quite old really) group to hear what we thought was an artist talking about his paintings of the Alps.... the clue was of course in the word 'Horticultural' if we'd bothered to notice.

Two and a half hours later, the imagined paintings were a thing of the past. Well-versed in the art of growing alpine plants in dry patches in the garden or lumps of tufa rock, and bemused by fritillaria gibosa or galanthus plicatus, we stumbled into the bar of the Metropole Hotel for a coffee to bring us back to life and normality. Normality is what we found - young people in ordinary clothes drinking ordinary drinks like anywhere in Taunton (well some places in Taunton anyway). Not a woolly jumper, beard, pair of socks'n'crocs, knit-your-own, make-do-and-mend, organic permaculture biodynamic sustainable felt hat in sight. Aaaah - the sound of Ian breathing again.

Our life in Wales is such an eclectic mix of people, groups and things that we don't normally do. Every morning when I wake up I have to think 'which house am I sleeping in', or 'which part of my life am I in today?'. It's a great experience but a little surreal. I'm pleased to say I am now a fully-fledged Ashfield Volunteer. Today was clearing a polytunnel ready for planting with onions and other winter veg. For some reason the tunnel is called 'Tom'. I'm not sure why. Just more of the alternative reality we now live in.

Apple juicing

Sunday - the tenth of the tenth of the tenth - was Apple Day. At least it was here in Wales. The Llandrindod Transition Town group decided to hold an Apple Day event at Ashfield. There is a high degree of 'working-together-ness' here in Llandod between like-minded groups. It makes things possible instead of Very Hard Work.

First pick your apples....

...smash them to bits with a large wooden stick in a bucket (or you can chop them and put them through a 'scratter' if you happen to have one)... here's Ian doing some whilst networking at the same time...

...then put the pulp into an apple press. A proper one can cost in the hundreds...

...so most people make their own - with a car jack or giant screw fixed inside a wooden or steel framework and something to collect the juice as it's squeezed out. Ours was a wonderful contraption involving a stainless steel pan with holes drilled in it, a plastic tray, two wooden chopping boards, a few nuts and bolts to hold it together.....

...and a dustpan to act as a spout! The juice comes trickling out as the jack or screw gradually turn to compress the pulp.

Feed the remaining squeezed-out pulp to the pigs...

... add a teaspoon of ascorbic acid per bucket of juice, and pour into bottles. When you get home, pasteurise the juice by placing the bottles, caps off, into a large pan, and simmer at 70 degrees for 20 minutes. Replace the caps and leave to cool. This process kills off any yeasts that would cause the juice to ferment, so it should still be good in a years time!

We really enjoyed the Apple Day. It's the first time I've seen Ashfield buzzing with people - volunteers, trustees, visitors, local people - working together and enjoying the sense of making something without spending an arm and a leg.

The warmth of the day, the children watching the apple lady make apple spaghetti, and the sound of the blues guitar in the background - settled like magic in my heart. I have finally understood what Ashfield and community gardening is all about, and I don't want to leave it.

Cheers!

Pork scratching

The newest arrivals at Ashfield (apologies for poor editing):-

FOOD!

Todays blog is a case of getting something off my chest. So it's less pictures and more writing - if you get to the bottom you can claim your prize of a jar of best apple chutney!

We are thinking a lot about food at the moment - not just the "mmm i could scoff a whole chocolate cake" type of thing - but more "is there an alternative to eating the highly processed, mass produced, crazily transported food we have been consuming for years?". This has not been something that interested me particularly - and to be honest I have glazed over whenever Ian has been enthusiastically proclaiming the end of oil and cheap food. I quite like not having to write a shopping list and just dreamily wander around Sainsburys picking the same things off the well-stocked shelves week after week, to make the same meals give or take a few variations. I haven't been the sort of cook to study recipe books, check ingredients or even watch Jamie Oliver on telly - I have found it all BORING. I have been LAZY.

Is this slowly coming to an end? With Ian doing his Nuffield report on the big question of how food will be produced for a growing population in the face of climate change and decreasing oil reserves, I am brought face to face with this thorny issue on a daily basis. I even woke up in the middle of the night worrying about how I would save seed from runner beans if i ever needed to .... ok I know that's a bit tragic but your mind does strange things in the middle of the night.... I need to get out more.

Anyway I have learnt a few things from all this and I thought I would list them out to get it out of my head (so i can sleep again):-

1. Oil has only been around for at most 150 years and the price of food commodities now directly follows the price of oil in the world markets.

2. Oil is integral to the production of food - 46% of food is grown with nitrogen fertiliser which is oil-based - not to mention plastic packaging, heating, cooling, and transporting it around the world. It is estimated that 2 pints of crude oil is used in total to produce one roast beef dinner (yuk).

3. Way too much land is used to grow crops for biofuels

4. Way too much land is used to grow beef - it takes 15,000 litres of water and 8kg of wheat to produce ONE KILO of beef!

5. In the ratio of energy in to energy out, organic mixed cropping methods are 25 times more efficient than current farming methods.

6. Water is an issue in the developing world like India - we import lettuces from India which are watered from deep ground water wells. New deeper wells are being dug every year as ground water is running out. We are literally importing their water into Britain (in lettuces), taking it out of an eco-system that desperately needs to keep it.

7. It is estimated that for our country to be self-sufficient we need to either grow two-thirds more than we do at the moment - or eat 40% less. I think we'd all be a lot healthier if we did.

The only conclusion i can come to is that we need to eat local, organic and vegetarian - as much as is realistically possible. Sounds a bit boring doesn't it? I like growing things though - and I like eating cake - and I like cooking delicious meals for my guests (as long as i don't have to read a recipe book!). It's a big change and we're not emotionally ready to do it - let alone agriculturally ready. Life is too busy for most people to grow their own food - and gardens are too small. I guess that's why allotments are in hot demand.

I have also come across different goals - like trying to eat at least one food every day that we have grown, gathered or hunted (!). Today we ate tomatoes and aubergines from Ashfield (that counts). But we also ate farmed salmon from Scotland, rice from who-knows-where, broccoli, pepper and onions from? I find you have to think about each individual food item - where it came from, how it was grown, how far it was transported, is it organic, is it made from GMO's and on and on. And that's before even thinking about Fair Trade issues and supermarket domination. It's a VERY BIG SUBJECT.

On that last subject, we are having a gap year from the big supermarkets. It's been a challenge to buy all the bits and pieces I would normally buy in Sainsbury's - lightbulbs, matches, shoe polish, etc etc - and Llandrindod Wells isn't exactly the centre of the universe for shops!! It's been good using the Coop though - we've allowed ourselves that luxury because we've got to eat something apart from apple chutney and tomato soup and they have the best Fair Trade record. It also makes me feel like I'm kind-of on holiday here in Wales, so that's definitely got to be good.