Florida - first few days full of surprises!

I had a lot of preconceived ideas about Florida......I thought it would be flat, with crime-ridden sprawling cities lit up by almost constant lightning. I couldn't have been more wrong. While some aspects were true - some of the cities are pretty big, others wildly over the top, flashy and pretentious - Florida also has wild, desolate places full of amazing wildlife, tropical beaches to die for, and a unique, very enviable lifestyle.

I spent my first few days with my former Internet now very real friend Dee and her husband just north of Tampa and, as well as exploring, here was an opportunity to at last give full reign to my art store addiction - visiting as many as possible with the patient Dee bearing up admirably watching the shopping cart get higher and higher.

First trip to Michael's!

Another opportunity to eat from a huge range of different cuisines, massive breakfasts and supermarkets I could live in.....Dee and Jim live in a charming, very peaceful house by a lake - so I was constantly rushing back and forth with the binoculars "Oh look, there's a sandhill crane", or a hawk eyeing me from a nearby perch, or pine warblers, or herons, osprey, stunning red cardinals and much much more. I think you get the idea. My hosts were patient with me, were great company and I miss them still.

NUMBER ONE GREAT DAY was the day they took me to see the manatees. I had heard of these weird, lumbering sea creatures, said to be the origin of the mermaid myth, though any creature less like a mermaid would be hard to conjure. The weather was cool, so they were gathered at the outlet to a large power plant on Tampa Bay. Hundreds of them. They also seem to be the origin of the term 'to hang out', for that is just what they do. They kind of hang suspended in the water, going with the flow - what a great life! I was enthralled and captivated, a great day, rounded off by a visit to a strawberry parlour in the middle of acres of strawberries, and a restaurant serving food from the South buffet-style. I was reluctant to move on, but my itinerary called and so I had to head south......











I loved the Spanish Moss. Draped like Mrs Haversham's wedding dress over seemingly willing trees, the trees became sun-dappled, secretive and mysterious, like peering through net curtains.

Gentle Days In and Rough Days Out

Well, my first English course this academic year is done and dusted, Christmas is come and gone and here we all are in the limbo of January. It's pouring with rain most of the time, a few gales of the howling variety like distant wolves, and two frustrated cats who can't go outside and instead release their pent up energies by having a protracted and vicious war with the bathroom mat.......I am happy to be in a peaceful and sheltered place, though suffering from that incurable 'less is more' syndrome - the more time I have, the less I seem to do, that is. But I've enjoyed spending hours talking to dear friends in the US and in India on Skype, addling my mind on Facebook and the like, doing all sorts of online art and journalling courses and best of all, I have learnt to hook up my iPad to the TV, stream from the main computer and watch Game of Thrones and other delights on the big screen. What joy!

I've had some ups and downs. I can't be alone in that at this time of year, our thoughts naturally turn to those we have lost, and moments of reflection are followed by sadness and some tears. But somehow we manage to jerk back into reality and cope and live our own lives to the absolute full, even if that's a day moving from one inane task to the other. I've managed to keep up with my journalling, finish another Buddha and start quite a few things so I am happy.

Second Buddha finished

Bought a book of Graffiti Stencils - love them!

Christmas was spent in my beloved Silveira with Lynn and John. It was cold and wet outside but we were so warm and cosy indoors with crackling log fires giving us all a rosy glow (or was that the Baileys?) and making sure we kept up all the traditions. We managed to procure parsnips, crackers and Christmas pudding so we could do it all in style and then repeat it the next day but having a pyjama day! I discovered my best friend Lynn has a fantastic singing voice, strong and sweet and full of emotion. She sang to us on Christmas Day evening and tears glistened in all our eyes.

Why I love Christmas!

Yoko and Slash add the cute factor

Still beautiful in Silveira

A Sardinian warbler nibbles the last pomegranate

Serendipity - a unique positioning of magazine, tin and the rest make for a brilliant shot!

So, not very much to report but I am going to Florida on 21st January so I hope to have more to blog about soon. I am going to stay a few days with a girlfriend I made online through our love of art and journals! We have talked on Skype and have discovered that neither of us is a monster alien or possible serial killer. Then I am going to take off alone in a car and do what I do best - explore. Through the Everglades and down to Key West. A few days in Art Deco Miami! I just can't wait!

Play with landscape .....

Just play

Another example from a Jane Davies lesson

Didn't like painting flowers until I realised there were some on my bed!

I have also decided to take a more serious course - and become a Creativity Coach....I will have lots more to say about this later on. It starts soon........watch this space!

Getting going.....home and away

Whilst planning and dreaming of my next holiday - YES, I am going to Florida in the New Year ...hooray, on the road again!!! - I have done quite a few courses recently in my quest to acquire better technique. I know they won't necessarily make me more creative or talented (I wish!) but I do find that they stimulate ideas and give you practice in a very positive learning environment. They get me going...

 My favourite workshops are those of Jane Davies, especially the ones on Composition. She has a wonderfully straightforward, practical way of explaining both her theory and practice, reflecting a vast amount of preparation which she must have done previously. I love her work, too, but don't wish to copy it, and she ensures this by demonstrating a process and then setting guidelines for our subsequent follow up which are flexible and which allow for all of us as individuals to use our own ideas and inspiration . Much more importantly, she gives a kind but meaningful critique with constructive criticism - much better than the gushing sycophancy often found on other courses! This particular course is very similar in any case to what I like doing, so it really appeals. Here are my first attempts from Lesson Two - a fairly basic technique of abstract landscape composition but with some interesting collage elements, too.

As I said, this gets me going. Once in the zone, I can't seem to stop until weariness takes over, and the thought of having to work the next day. I then did a couple of colour studies in my large sketchbook, where I gather ideas for paintings.....

A productive day is a happy day......

Indian Summer 2

Out birding with my good friend Binoy. We cruise for hours along the backwater canals....

Now replete, I am still thinking that it is almost impossible to get across the real experience of being in India, as there is so much more happening than just a visual feast. You have to feel the soft, balmy breezes lightly brushing your skin in the cool of dawn, sway along with the rustling palm fronds to a gentle rhythm, dodging the odd coconut dropping like a brick from high up in the tree make a huge plopping splash in the water, as straight as an Olympic diver. Drift out onto the water hyacinth-filled lapping lake to hear the distant chanting from the Hindu temples interrupted by the raucous laughter of iridescent turquoise kingfishers. Feel the intense midday sun from which there is no escape except a refreshing shower. Best of all is a special feeling I only get when I am there - that this is spiritually where I feel internally most at peace, where I feel spirituality in the very air, surrounded and protected by soft, gentle people who seem to take everything in their stride with an enviable dignity that invites immediate respect, yet with a sense of humour as free as a child's. Somehow here I can accept with more grace the cycle of life, the loss of loved ones and our own inevitable fate. Watch the colours of sunset as they turn from yellows into oranges and burnt golds, into the reds onward through the spectrum through deep magenta until, about half an hour after sunset, the sky has turned into a deep violet and the water steely indigo. Some photos and some journals - hopefully they speak louder than words.......

Dawn is misty, still and cool, though the birds are already awake and the fishermen already on the water

From yellow through orange and red.......

...........and into violet and purple

One of my more noisy neighbours - a
ring-necked parakeet

The forest glows emerald green, yellow and lime after the deluge

 

I got to experience the monsoon rain. It starts quite gently, as a few refreshing droplets, but quickly escalates into a downpour like no other, like buckets of water being emptied from above. This is accompanied by a deafening pouring noise, then swiftly made worse by the simultaneous pourings and drummings from numerous roofs and gutters, forming instant lakes and marooning me in my bungalow within minutes. But it's still warm and it's not at all uncomfortable. Then, the clouds clear and the forest seems to glow in its greenness - colours are vivid and luxuriant, the air fresher and cleaner. Parrots squawk with delight overhead as they feast on the last of the year's mangoes high on the tops os the trees, whilst bright green barbets utter shrill shrieks which penetrate the undergrowth. Everything here in Kerala is about bright, lurid colour, from the ladies' saris, to the temples and colours of people's houses and the heaps of bright in-your-face powders found in the market place so I am in neon heaven!

When it rains, it pours...............

Two of my favourite bamboo trees on the farm.....

Most people know of my encounter with this chap......

Finally just a couple more typical pages from my journals.....

The yellow trumpet bushes are in full bloom just by my bungalow

The tiniest cows in the world - Vechoor cows -  the head came out a bit large! I can vouch for the yummy home made yogurt they provide me with every breakfast...plus a little treasure which Anya gave me with love and I will always keep....

Catching up with myself

Blogging is hard. I am full of admiration for those folks who manage to do it so regularly and don't let life get in the way at all. I have always been a girl, rather like the moon, with phases....ranging from intense activity to complete apathy with all sorts in between......you can guess what my last phase was as I haven't posted since May! I do find that if I am worried or tense about something, I find it really hard to write and post - I wonder if other people have the same problem. Anyway, here I am back with renewed promises to do this more regularly and to find the courage to publish my work alongside others who are clearly better at it than me!!! I have won a few battles with the Inner Critic, but I haven't won the war yet....but I am trying.

I loved my visit to Santiago de Compostello - a delightful easy-to-explore city, brilliantly preserved but full of life - you really feel the past in every nook and cranny.

Where have the last few months gone?  The usual helter-skelter of travels, plus looking after my home when I rent out to holiday-makers and now I have started teaching again. It was flattering at 65 to be asked back to my old job teaching English at the Psychology Faculty in Porto - nothing too heavy, two ten-week courses a year. I'm loving it, have lots of interesting students and not a moment of regret. Still not in a position to start planning my next world travels, but things are more optimistic, and I am really hopeful that things will turn out well. First stop will be Florida in January, staying with a new friend, then I will drive off and do what I love. Exploring. Just me and a car plus maps, travel journal, camera and guide books. Plus a bird identification book and binoculars. This is all I need to feel totally fulfilled, and I can't wait to hit the road again.

        For (the few) who do like to see some of my art and my journalling, I have been able to complete some pages and some pictures....I also have to fight of my worst enemies of all - LAZINESS, SLOTH and a tendency to ALWAYS find some way of DISTRACTING myself from what I really want to be doing. I would so love to know what the cure is - there are no medicines for this in the local pharmacy!

....and a few recent pages from my journals.....

I used the following idea later for a painting - I dream constantly of the South West USA.........

...and a tribute to the wonderful Isabel as well as my return to teaching after four years!