apricotfox

News!

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:43:00 +0000

Been a long time since I blogged....the rain washed away my energy! Now the sun is out...hurrah!

Tomorrow the painting shown above , 'Queenie' ,will go off to the Town Mill Galleries as part of the '60 artists celebrate 60 years' show. Opning party on Friday 25th , 6-8pm. Come along!

The BG has his first gig on June 3rd with the band he joined a few weeks ago. He will be at the Real Devon Rocks festival at the Phoenix, Exeter. Earplugs...!

My father's notes are with a helpful retired GP...he reckons some are missing...well, of course!

Update

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:37:00 +0000

Apologies for the blogging silence.
Suffice it to say that we STILL have not got the notes out of the hospital so cannot begin the complaints procedure. This despite a meeting with the consultant three weeks ago at which he assured us that he would expedite ( lose) the notes as he knew where they were.....yes...sitting on HIS secretary's desk. Now the hospital claim that their systems have crashed and they can't do anything until they are fixed. Yet the notes are all in HARD COPY. Do I smell a rat? You bet? So when people express a fondness and sympathy for the NHS, I feel rage raising in my gorge and tears in my eyes as I picture my father, smiling his familiar ironic smile after mouthing 'I have no choice now...' after being forced to decide that being switched off was the only option left to him.

My father.Text for Parish Magazine.

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:20:00 +0000

Devastated is the only way to describe how we feel about the untimely and tragic death of our father, David Knight.
I do not want to detail here the combination of factors which led to him deciding to have his life support withdrawn, but to those
who
have said or thought that it was a shame he felt unable to keep fighting I would say that there was no braver or nobler man...or
anyone less selfish than our dear, dear Father.
What a gaping hole he leaves! We know how dear he is to so many of you in this parish and beyond. The children of clergy learn early
in life that others will feel they have almost as strong a claim on the time and energies of a clergyman (and his wife). Sometimes
this sharing is hard to do and resented, but sometimes it brings great comfort and that fund of love and support availed to both Dad
and Mum has, we know, brought them much joy. So thank you.
Hilary, Jeremy, Philippa, Adrian, Fiona and I ( and our children) feel blessed to have had such a remarkable man as a father. He was
not the easiest of parents in the early years...imagine the strain of raising all those children( Mum loved babies!) on a salary so
small that you could barely spot it on the pay slip; but he had mellowed amazingly and had, in many ways, come out of Mum's shadow
in
the past eleven months. We all felt excited about how much there was still to be enjoyed with him...places to be explored,books to
be
read, food and wine to be savoured, memories to be made...All cruelly denied us now.
Dad was a man of great humanity and intellect. He read 'The New Scientist' every week and selected the more interesting articles to
share with his eldest grandson, Henry, whom he ardently hoped would follow him to his old college, Clare, Cambridge. He was a very
active alumnus and his time there and his stint in the RAF were probably amongst the happiest times of his life. He also had a great
sense of humour and adored The Goons and Hancock. His rich appreciation of life from food to philately made him very good company. I
sometimes think that a biography 'Too Much on my Plate...a life told through food'...would have worked rather well! From the
rationing
of the Post-war era and the frugal fare of an impoverished Vicar with six kids, to those endless cups of tea ( which he loathed!)
and
cake from parishoners and the indulgent treats he allowed himself latterly without Mum to police his intake...there would be a lot
of
insightful material to hang on these menus.
Our one consolation is that he is now re-united with Mum. He could hear her quite distinctly in those last days.
In sure and certain hope. God be with you all.
Anthea ( firstborn).
P.S.He would probably have taken a red pen to much of this, questioning the grammar and hating my use of ellipsis. Sorry, Dad!)

My father

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:25:00 +0000

Just over a month ago, the BG and I took my father on a jaunt to his beloved Cambridge. Now he lies in intensive care, struck down by encephalitis. I won't , at this stage, detail the catalogue of mis-diagnoses and appalling assumptions about age and dementia experienced in the first few days in hospital ( dumped in an orthopaedic ward). Suffice it to say, that for the last two weeks, we have seriously doubted that he would survive. The seizures provoked by the virus have been long-lasting and savage. He spent many days in an induced coma. Repeated attempts to wake him to assess his neurological state were abandoned in despair. It seemed that the machines were keeping the shell of this highly intelligent man 'alive'.
But today marked a turning point...sustainable , we pray...Even though he has had three minor fits in the last 24 hrs, he seems to be back. He can't speak...constrained by the tracheostomy...and we cannot always lip read everything he furiously mouths to us when we sit with him, holding his hand...but he is clearly there and clearly aware that we are there, too. We are not yet sure what functionality, physical and mental, will have been permanently burnt out by the virus, but he's battling on. 'A bit scary', he 'said', to me, this morning. Extraordinary.

Read The SLOG blog .

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:54:00 +0000

If you don't already! On the blog roll....

Cambridge trip

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:22:00 +0000

My father has not given up the fight to secure the BG for his alma mater and this year,recognising the scientific bent of the BG's mind,I acted against my own interests and booked a visit to the home of Fenland Poly. Sadly, my father's campaign was hampered by the holiday closure of pretty much all of the colleges and the science museums. There were three treats for us....well,four if you count the joys of Heffers,which even my Pa acknowledges to be inferior to Blackwells. Treat 1: the Fitzwilliam Museum. Glorious building,very fine Vermeer exhibition plus delightful mini exhib on graphite. Treat 2 was the permission to wander through two of Magdalen's quads. I always feel a powerful yearning for the academic life when in Oxford. The sight of an aged staircase and a lofty casement window makes me want to be back in a college room,slaving over an essay.I experienced the same emotions here. I think the BG feels something,too. I hope he manages to get in when the time comes.
Treat 3 (probably the highlight): Kettles Yard....not the Bridget Riley exhibition...those nausea-inducing patterns and revolting germolene pinks do nothing positive for me...no,the house itself with its fabulous collection of 20th century art..especially St Ives school plus Brancusi and Gaudier-Brzeska sculptures. Visitors are encouraged to sit on any of the many chairs in any of the many rooms to contemplate the work. I am not crazy about Alfred Wallis (several of his in the upstairs rooms), but I do love Ben Nicholson and was thrilled to discover a new name....well,new to me,anyway: William Congdon. An amazon trawl revealed that he is too obscure at the moment for any books/monographs to be affordable,sadly. We were also able to spend a very pleasant half hour browsing the extensive collection of art books bequeathed by the house's owners. Delightful.
All in all, a lovely sojourn in the flatlands.

I HATE PASSWORDS and LOGIN IDs!!!

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:51:00 +0000

OK! I know it's for my own good, but can't these companies help at all? John Lewis sent me stupid scraps of tracing paper with barely legible codes and passwords on and I have , of course, burnt them/forgotten them and now I have to jump through a bazillion hoops to get access to my account. What is more, I find some of those 'special private question' thingies REALLY annoying! I must have made a typo on one answer because now the machine argues with me about what my first job was and I find myself shouting at it: 'I know what my first sodding job was! It's my sodding life you are arguing over'. The BG says I must calm down. He says that rather a lot at the moment and it instantly makes me want to blow a gasket....

'Share' Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 21:18:00 +0000

Review

`The book's got a rattling rhythm that makes it fun to read aloud, it's funny and the pictures are lovely. Highly recommended!' --Armadillo Magazine

`Children with younger siblings will find this story very easy to relate to and it makes a great starting point for a discussion about their experiences of having to share.' --Nursery Education Plus

'Parents will recognise the familiar dynamics of sibling rivalry in this sweet and endearing picture book. The cheeky siblings are gorgeously drawn, and of course discover that sharing can be fun after all.' --Fiona Noble, The Bookseller

'A heartwarming picture book (with) delightful illustrations. There's just the right balance between naughty humour, sibling rivalry and affection.' --Daily Mail

'Simple and eye-catching, and funny too.' --Thebookbag.co.uk

'Share is a gentle poem told gently and humourously through bright, bold and colourful illustrations. Great (for) the emergent reader.' --Early Years Educator

'A very sweet tale of siblings and sharing, with a suitably snuggle-up ending.' --Families Magazine South West

'Masterful and funny and the final few pages are a natural celebration of family togetherness.' --Teach Nursery

New home needed URGENTLY!

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:02:00 +0000

She had been contemplating a life-size painting of a stag for some time -in her part of the world, deer are a regular feature in the rolling landscape of West Dorset and East Devon. When the news of the demise of the Exmoor Emperor broke, Christine knew immediately that she HAD to paint him.

She had to wait for the custom made canvas but ever since it arrived, she has been working frenetically to capture the creature’s majesty and presence. The painting owes nothing to the Landseer legacy. It has a raw energy which will stop the viewer in his tracks. Indeed, the viewer should feel themselves to be in the stag’s presence, held by his imperious gaze.

This is a trophy painting , satisfying the spirit of the hunter.

Now the Emperor needs a home. Christine is moving her studio back to her house and The Emperor simply won’t fit! Photo cannot do it justice..loads of glorious painterly texture.

Lovely review on Amazon

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:18:00 +0000

Pig Nuts and Peacocks", a collection of poems by Anthea Simmons, arrived safe and sound in my letterbox some days ago. The poems number 24 in all, arranged according to a tacit seasonal cycle (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter), on a wide variety of natural topics. These include hens (her little Eiffel towers), foxes (they deserve and get four super poems; she likes them best, even if the hens and peacocks are catching up), peacocks, herons, trout, rabbits, pigs (she likes them quite a lot), geraniums, the moon, the four seasons, bracken, mud (two on that one!), owls, mares, and trees. Into the bargain, there are exquisite drawings by the poetess. Printed on high quality 70 lb white paper with a handmade paper cover.

So an excellent deal for your ducats.

Now for some impressions:

It is wonderful. The collection is worlds away from any hint of A Dorset Lass, grumbling about the land of lost content. Instead, it is brimming with little catapults of colour, that ping one into a state of good humour and love of nature. Ex-Batts made me laugh, as did Pig Roast. But the ones about foxes are best of all. Especially Fox Attack:

"The fox observes from the bracken
Into which he, too, has vanished
Like the hen.
No men today.
No tractor.
No chainsaw.

Patience rewarded."

One just sees Him pause at each of the three full stops, thinking, full of cunning and craft and guile and calculation and intelligence. Before drawing his deadly conclusion. And the lovely line that follows, catching his litheness and coat perfectly:

"He scans the fields once more
Then stretches his frame long and low
Into the landscape
Which Autumn has made his friend."

And I liked Tree Planting too, with its echo of Stevie Smith, having had the experience of putting in 400 trees in Normandy, and whacking the spade into the unsuspected cement winter underlay.

Anyway, the poems are so enjoyable. I cannot begin to convey what you must read first-hand to appreciate. A natural lyricism of wide-ranging sentiment.

In fact, they almost made me forget the beautiful drawings! Equally delightful. Absurd of me!

The audio version is eagerly awaited. Poems of this quality read aloud are too good to miss. If a pig were reviewing, he'd say they were just pure apples! Foxes, however, are already travelling first-class to Dorset to obtain signed copies.

Definitive explanation of debt crisis!

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:27:00 +0000

Helga is the proprietor of a bar.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Helga's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Helga's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA" "Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics.

Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga.

Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Helga's bar.

Now do you understand?

My shelf of shame

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:37:00 +0000

A tweeter has a great blog page today...his literary wall of shame. I decided to fess up to mine:
1. Moby Dick Never appealed somehow. Felt sick just thinking of the sea.
2.Poetry by Browning/Tennyson/Byron Can't stand the period/clothes/drugs.
3.Henry James' s 'The Portrait if a Lady' . too dense, too wordy! Too lazy....
4.Only ever read 'Wuthering Heights'. Never got round to the other Brontes.
5.Have only read 'Dombey and Son'/Christmas Carol and 'Bleak House' ...never fancied Great Expectations ( convicts? Yuck!) or Oliver Twist ( beggars? Ooh double yuck)
6. Cannot read the execrable Rushdie..tried, threw up. Actually, that qualifies me for a reward not shame!
7. Have not read 'War and Peace' or 'Anna Karenina'....or, for that matter, 'The Idiot' or 'The Brothers Karamazov' or 'And Quietly Flows the Don' yet I have all of these and more on my shelves..lazy poser!
8.Swallows and Amazons....or Kipling...no inclination. Hate camping/jungles.
I think that will do....for now!

the Adorable Adam...AKA Country Man

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:56:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfE9YIaxMTE

The divine Dylan

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:49:00 +0000

http://youtu.be/UbgfjgAWv_U

two lives separated by one letter:

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:15:00 +0000

A Life in Ds

Delivered

Developed

Delightful

Delighted

Deserving

Determined

Distracted

Derailed

Delinquent

Debauched

Despondent

Defiant

Determined

Domestic

Devoted

Deceived

Divorced

Dejected

Desk-bound

Depressed

Demoted

Dismissed

Despairing

Dipsomaniac

Demented

Decrepit

Drugged

Dead

A Life in Es

Expected

Embryonic

Extracted

Expanded

Entertained

Entertaining

Educated

Examined

Exceptional

Encouraged

Experimented

Explored

Employed

Espoused

Euphoric

Experienced

Established

Elevated

Exalted

Exploited

Escaped

Expatriate

Eccentric

Extravagant

Epicurean

Exhausted

Exculpated

Expired

Eulogised

Exhumed???

Extract from PNP to tempt...

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:38:00 +0000

Pig Roast

Oh, a pig in the sun is a glorious thing!

A humped pumice rock soaking up heat

Snuffling up sunbeams

Tasting the shimmer

Slumping , ecstatic,

On the hard-baked mud.

His ears ,both parasols and fans,

Shielding his eyes,

Wafting air across his blithe face.

All he craves now is that his handmaid turns on the hose

To baste his sun-baked hide

And he will stretch his bristly bulk

Longer than any spit

And grunt contentment.

Pig Nuts and Peacocks

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 12:37:00 +0000

If you would like to buy a copy of this beautifully-produced collection in its unusual format ( 10.5 x 8.5 inches), glorious handmade paper cover, embossed with one of my illustrations and illustrated throughout, please contact me : info@antheasimmons.com
£20 plus £2 p and p. Limited, numbered edition. Signed as you wish!

New Babies

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 16:56:00 +0000

Universities forced into social engineering

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:37:00 +0000

'Today' made my blood boil...as it so often does. How the hell are the top universities supposed to give places to the 'disadvantaged' if the buggers a) don't apply and b) don't have the right grades/subjects? AND C if the chippy bastard lefty teachers put them off aiming high in the frst place? I cite again the ex head researchung why bright girls from crap schools in Manchester don't apply to Oxbridge. 1) Because their teachers did not go there and just said 'Huh! They would never take YOU'....meaning ' They didn't take me so why should you go...' and 2) if they DID go they said ..SAID, I MEAN REALLY SAID..that they would be accused of having betrayed their class and they would no longer be able to go home.
Until you can change this inverse snobbery AND improve teaching so that schools are not failing bright pupils..who, by the way, do not qualify for special needs but are largely left to fend for themselves while lessons are addressed at the lowest common denominator...Oh, and expunge the view that to be scholarly is to be a nob...you will NOT change the applicant profile. And WHY should children educated privately THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN be penalised with their results subject to a 'privilege handicap'? It's MAD, IT'S BIGOTED AND IT'S WRONG! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Sneaky....

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:31:00 +0000

I hate car hire companies....and I hate that mad dash to the airport with no petrol station en route....But what I REALLY hate is when the bill comes through for the refuelling and Avis, in this case, have apparently managed to get more fuel into the micro car than would be used by a Bentley. I saw red and queried the bill. My rental agreement said that the fuel would be charged at 2 euros a litre...plus VAT. The bill said 120 euros plus VAT...60 litres into a qtr full Micra...yeah, right! They then said that was because it was charged at 3 euros a litre and that that was the rate stated. Just been on to them again...and now they have agreed to refund the difference...a whopping 40 euros. What a scam!

The way you speak IS important...

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:13:00 +0000

Sensible guy and one of his young black protegees on Radio 4 this am...explaining that youngsters who will speak only the language of rap/street are disadvantaging themselves socially and economically. He teaches them that the ability to communicate clearly is the most powerful weapon in society's arsenal...better than any knife, gun or rap record, for that matter... This followed on neatly from David Starkey's comments on rap/black culture as a cause of exclusion and alienation. Sensible stuff.

David Starkey and other stuff.

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:28:00 +0000

I felt sorry for David Starkey. He had some very good points to make.That whole stylised American Gangsta rap thing with the bling and the patois is deliberately alienating. The kids who adopt it do so to set themselves outside conventional society, to exclude others ...to be exclusive. And we can't criticise it or even discuss it...otherwise we are racist. Why is it OK to make what are, effectiviely, 'racist/classist' remarks if you are black or a chav?

Truly extraordinary speech by fearless West Indian woman in face of Hack...

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:06:00 +0000

Misc...again!

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:48:00 +0000

My neighbour's alpacas being shorn/or having just been shorn! Funny critters....giant bunnies!
Painting done en plein air yesterday on friend Christine's deck...fab views and, yes, a palm tree!. Quite a big painting. Think I'll take it into the gallery tmrw...

Poor chicklets. Munched.

noreply@blogger.com (apricotfox) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:53:00 +0000

My sweet little babies, a boy and a girl, got munched last night. A weasel, in all probability...same dreadful noises as the time we had the weasel visitation last year. Very sad. They were nearly a month old and VERY sweet. I did take the precaution of not naming them, but the sadness is only marginally mitigated...
This picture in because it's happy...not because Caramac had anything to do with the munching. I need Mr P to do his weasel stabbing thing, now!