AOJ’s Fun Monday

http://aojthelurchers.blogspot.com/2008/08/fun-monday-photographs.html

is hosting a Fun Monday ~ I’ve never taken part in one properly before, but it gives me an opportunity to share a very special photo of Loyko (Sergey Erdenko) & my then 4-yr old daughter which evokes so many memories for me. I have this man, his cousin, band & family to thank for where & who I am now. Trio Loyko gave me the courage to sing in public 16 years after an RTA took my music from me. They gave me back myself & basically my life instead of an existence.

The picture was taken after the last UK concert of Trio Loyko as they were then & shows Sergey & Annon before he carried her around for ages talking to his fans & telling everyone that the blondie sleeping in his arms was his daughter. You can’t see his jet blaxck hair in the picture! Annon’s blood father regarded her as an inconvenience & ignored us at concerts he was involved in. The full acceptance & love she was shown by this man sustained her in what happened next in her young life.

 

Nature’s Painting

When Annon & I walked down to the Traveller Site on Tuesday evening to make arrangements for our remaining dogs whilst we are away, we saw a rainbow in the sky & for once it wasn’t raining by us:

rainbow from the Laghile road

Even with the things going on around the smallholding (Lurchers were collected on Thursday, whilst we were out) rainbows always seem a symbol of hope ~ vibrant colour in a grey world ~ & they always give me a lift

 

More Dogs & a Meeting with a Writer

Arawn-the-Hunter. This is Arawn, called for the Welsh god of the Underworld & leader of the Midnight Hunt. The Hounds of Hell used in the Midnight Hunt were black as is Ari. Really, he’s a loving gentle dog.

Twilight ~ Annon’s Spaniel with a new “hat”.

We were in town this day & wandered into a charity second hand bookshop for no good reason. I got talking to the lady running it on this occasion & found out that she is a published author. Curious I asked if the shop had any of her books & she found 1 that had been published the day before the publishing house went bust & she drove around in a van collecting as many of her books as she could. I have an autographed book by a woman who was a horse-dealer & farmer before turning author, copy editor & brains behind the only second hand bookshop I’ve ever come across that sells books purposely to raise money for charity. Marjorie Quarton is a fascinating person with such an enthusiasm for what she does & a willingness to share. Who knew that I’d meet an author in a charity shop in a side street in a rural Irish town?

 

Dog Photos, OK there’s a Cat in there, too

You’ve seen Stockings, Banditto & Mindy & Tigger appears on the dog page, so here are some of my other dogs:

Copy Dog? Bridie & Midnight in my room

How many Dogs?

Pireni & Scrappycat in Annon’s unrenovated room.

I may post some more photos of the pups & other dogs tomorrow

 

Miracle Needed

I took in the Porno Puppy & then she was abandonned, but now she’s cost me my beloved Lurchers.  Full story can be found here:

http://dikkipenior-killiker.blogspot.com/2008/06/good-deed-gone-bad.html

My “boyfriend” dog knows that something is hopelessly wrong & all the separation anxiety inherent in Staffordshire Bull Terriers (the ONLY Staffy trait he has) is coming to the fore.  I have 2 depressed boys & a girly who couldn’t care less ~ just like her mum before her.  It’s rubbing off on our other dogs who are lying around listless & keep trying to follow me everywhere. The boys were my link with their wonderful father, even though they didn’t have his black-brindled coat & I was hoping to use them as stud dogs after a few people asked about using Tig before he was stolen.

I’ve had a Lurcher household since 2004, now the closest thing to a Lurcher I will soon have is my Bedlington.  I will always argue that Beddies are Lurchers as that is how the breed came about ~ Whippets crossed with local rough coat terriers, but then taken over as a breed in their own right ~ rather like the kennel club wants to do with Lurchers now.  I may post some photos later

 

Llyw’s Cowl

A change from art ~ 1 of the strange things from my knitting

I made a scarf for my mother & then remembered that she hates anything tight around her neck, so it went to my elder daughter, bem. I knitted it along its length using 2 different colours of yarn:

Scarf.

When Llyw came to stay at Christesmas & New Year, he saw the scarf & decided that he wanted one, but he wanted it twice as wide, just as long & for the long sides to be sewn together to make a long sausage. Usually, I would knit such things in a circle, but I had no circular, sock or sweater sets of needles to do so & knitting it sideways gave extra stretch for him to pull it over his head as I used what I call a “cobweb stitch” to knit it. He was lucky in that had I several balls of the same yarn used to make the original scarf in blue.

Once I’d finished the wrist warmers I was making for the boys for their stockings, I could settle down & work on his idea. I finished it the day he was returning to England ~ brilliant timing!

Llyw’s Cowl unsewn guarded by Pireni & Bridie.

I finished the knitting the evening before he left & then sat up in bed sewing half the long seam, finishing the sewing in the morning after he’d tried it on.

Cowl after sewing showing the length

Putting on the Cowl

Like most of the pictures of my son, you can’t see his face! That’s snow on the window ~ we had several periods of snow this year.

ON!

I was so pleased that he’d managed to get it over his head.

Not quite the intended wearing style, but Annon likes this picture of her brother!

Cowl as a Cowl.

Llyw’s Cowl was a great success if hard work. Of course I failed to record number of stitches & rows, but did use 9mm needles ~ so I remembered something

 

Header pictures

No post yesterday as we had a power cut, probably due to the rains that fell all day.

I thought I’d say something about the pictures used in my header ~ they’re all by me & use coloured pencil, pen & ink or encaustic. The 2 pictures that occur at the ends are designs for an embroidery. They are, in fact, 4 pictures showing traditional Gypsy themes or symbols & one day will be embroidered on a 6′ long red silk waist sash. I drew these pictures whilst on a part-time course at college to get my BTec in Forest School Skills when I had waiting time. On the left hand side there is a Reading Vardo at the top (mine is a Bow-Top) & a fiddle & bow, neckerchief, & knife in the lower picture. On the right at the top is the picture that I think of as Marzhenzha or Smelka. Marzhenzha is a Russian Gypsy song that tells of a Gypsy maid in love with dancing & not the swain that dresses in his finest to try to woo her. Smelka is the family’s name of 1 of the most famous contemporary Russian Gypsy dancers; it is also the title of a piece of music written to celebrate her by 1 of her relatives & a friend of mine. It also celebrates the wild freedom I get from the dancing which is where my name comes from. (My mother was a dancer & my younger daughter is continuing the tradition). The bottom picture is the centre design & is the fire ~ the heart of every camp, not just the Gypsy camp.

Inside of these designs in coloured pencil are 2 of the Stations: 1 from the 1999 set (the right hand 1) & 1 from the 2007-8 version. These are drawn using pen & ink & as most of my arty-crafty stuff is still buried in a 20′ container my poor parents received a frantic email asking for help in acquiring dip pen & nibs & black ink ~ things that was I unable to source in this area ~ so I could fulfill my commission.

On the left side next to the Station is a card I drew/painted for my “hen-lady” ~ my wonderful source of henniness that I found & who befriended me just as we were both leaving Othery. I used encaustic for it, but mainly drew using a heated stylus instead of the more usual iron to soften & apply the wax.

On the right hand side is my latest offering ~ a special picture for a very special lady. I’m a member of the Walker Tracker community online & have met some interesting people on this site. We have a frienfdly rivalry going concerning how far we walk each day. I sent Christesmas cards to some of my friends there, but hadn’t got Debby’s address. She said that she’d love a card, no matter how long it took to reach her. Debby was diagnosed with breast cancer & had to travel routinely from her Norwegian island to the mainland for treatment. As Christesmas had been & gone I wanted to do a Debby card, but needed to finish my commission first, so that pushed it further away from Christesmas. The idea came suddenly & I had to draw it there & then or I’d be plagued until it was drawn. The pencil sketch was made months before the inking started & once again had I to source inks. I just bought whatever colours I could find as soon as I spotted them lurking in shops. Paul who commissioned the Stations brought me over a marvellous present of drawing inks when he came over to Ireland to collect the pictures. I’d asked him for a bottle of yellow ink & received a set. Throughout her treatment, Debby kept walking, often putting me to shame with what she was doing. Her treatment is over & successful, now there’s no stopping her. She truly is an inspiration to the rest of us.

The central picture was made using encaustic wax & an iron. The initial swirling shapes suggested the detail ~ waves with horses forming out of them. The original of this picture went to a friend in Greece..

 

Stations of the Cross 1999, VI, Last Station

XIV ~ Jesus is laid in the Sepulchre

For Easter of 1999 I was asked to do an extra picture, not recorded anywhere, of the empty crosses standing above the empty tomb.

Each Good Friday my childer would turn up in the Churchyard with secateurs, trowels & gloves to clear a small area under 1 of the yews. They were supervised by 1 of the Sunday School teachers & joined by a couple of the other village childer. Together they recreated the sepulchure with stones found around the tree & 3 crosses were put on a slight rise above the tomb. There was a stone closing off the tomb which I would move away before dawn on Easter Sunday when I placed the grave cloths therein. After that I’d walk to Burrow Mump to await the Sunrise, usually being the first up the hill. When Vicar Gill was alive, the congregation of Othery often joined that of Burrowbridge on the Mump for a sunrise service, followed by a porridge breakfast in the Vicarage. Annon, bem & Llyw joined me for a few years, then my companion was Tigger after he joined our family & he & I would leave before the service & walk for hours.

Here in Ireland, I have the Mass Rock field close by my house where masses were held in the Troubled Times, but I don’t need to walk far to reach it, nor climb a hill & it faces Westish not into the sunrise. The first Easter here, Tig & I climbed Culcan, the hill at the foot of my lane to await the sunrise. Since then the dogs & I have headed up the mountain behind us to watch & there has been no visible sunrise on Easter Sunday since I’ve been here, just the daysky lightening. The top of Mother Mountain has been taken over by forestry which means that we can’t access it from the borreen behind our house. Forestry has also been planted in the Lacken behind us ~ such a shame as it would be ideal for my horses ~ there’s a water cistern there which is always full. That land once belonged to this house & 1 day I’d like it to be a part of this holding once again ~ maybe in 25 years when the trees are clear-felled & the land left barren…

 

Stations of the Cross 1999, V, Stations 11 - 13

Nearly finished…

XI ~ Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

XII ~ Jesus Dies on the Cross

XIII ~ Jesus is taken down from the Cross

 

Stations of the Cross 1999 IV, Stations 8 - 10

Back to the second 7 Stations in the set after the dogs yesterday:

VIII ~ Jesus speaks to the Women of Jerusalem

IX ~ Jesus Falls the Third Time

X ~ Jesus is Stripped of His Garments