Post office blues

I do unfortunately depend on the nearest post office. And now there is only one in town.

It wasn't always like this: there used to be a little one near the swimming pool. It was inconvenient for me to go here so I never did, till one day an elderly lady knocked on my door and said that they collect signatures against the proposed closure of the little post office. Of course I signed and also decided that next time I will go here - thinking that having one more regular customer will probably help. It happened that next time I had quite a lot of parcels with me, including horrible pictures and curtains which the previous owners left in the house. I've sold them on Ebay for 5 quid + postage, then being clumsy as I am I broke the glass and had to pay 5 quid to a framer for its replacement (I am a great business woman, I know!) I also had a large life drawing I've sold for about the same price to America. It was done on thick card so at first I send it as it was at my regular post office. It came back (to my enormous surprise) with note that it's too large for the Airmail. Now I've been sending paintings and drawings of this size for years and never had a problem with that. I went to the main post office and they (a bit unfriendly for my taste) told me that the rule always was here... Surprise again. And its my fault that because I pay the postage online. I managed to roll the drawing and was ready to pay the postage price for it again.

So I entered a small post office smiling to the lady who was behind the counter and putting my numerous parcels in front of her. And then I've seen an evil flame in her eyes. Apparently the reason was that I bought half of my postage online. I've been doing this for a long time - since living in Long Eaton where extremely nice people at that post office never told me there was any issue with this. I repeat the people were really wonderful and helpful at that place but... unlike in Wales I had a number of parcels which were never received by their recipients.

The lady with evil eyes was refusing to accept my parcels because she didn't like the idea of online stamps which people print at home. She thought the post offices are closing because of this (forgetting that the people still HAVE to handle their parcels and letters to post office workers). I don't drive and I just walked to that little place, tired, loaded like a mule with my profitless load - and specially to help her... If she told me "could you please buy you stamps from me next time?" I would certainly said "yes"! Instead she brought me to the brink of bursting into tears by her angry words in front of silent but curious queue. I bet they haven't been on the side of a strange lady with foreign accent and a horrid word "Ebay" almost written across her forehead. Ebay keeps of mounting hidden fees and treating low-profit sellers like unwanted dogs - and then you also get this looks at the post office. Yes, I know I could just take things to a charity shop, but 1) I have this crazy hope that something we've got but don't need may actually turn to be valuable for somebody else (it actually happened twice with books); 2) kids love to get some pocket money after their old book or toy is sold (they were unlucky with that since Ebay introduced its "free postage" rule), and 3) lot of our stuff is too unusual if not weird for a little town charity shop to handle. Finally the post office lady agreed to take parcels and they all (to my disbelieve) arrived to their destinations OK. Yes, I can't stand hostility and I know its bad to be so sensitive to it. But that's the way I am...

I never came back to that little post office. I even wanted to file a complain because I'm sure it was illegal to refuse posting things on that ground. But then few months later, walking to the pool I've seen that post office have been closed for good and I couldn't refuse an evil smile...

Now we only got one post office in the town. They have a strange practise here: a large shopping trolley is put in the middle and, after stamps have been put on parcels, they are thrown across the room to that trolley, including ones with red tape all over and large letters saying "FRAGILE" on them. Recently the glass on one of my paintings I've sent by post was broken and I wonder if this was what did it. But what can I do? Putting things in large boxes, going to another town or using alternative postal service would increase the cost of postage a lot, and with my artwork not being too expensive it will just put an end on selling it.

I do mostly sell artwork unframed to avoid high postage cost and broken glass but there is another danger - parcels get bended. Once even a thick framing mount, which I though will protect the drawing sufficiently, got bend in half. Few years ago I've accidentally got from my framer a couple of pieces of white corrugated plastic: lightweight and easy to cut with scissors yet very difficult to bend. I've been told this is what state agents use for their "for sale" boards. If anybody reading this post know how to buy this (but not in industrial quantities) - I would really appreciate.

Meanwhile I'm stuck with my only post office. As far as I know any alternative postal services are only suitable for businesses with high volumes of mail and SOME profit (maybe I'm wrong?) I can't really argue with my post office staff for fear - perhaps irrational - that my parcels will be damaged on purpose when I don't look. Add to this also that I'm horrible at doing things neat and tidy - like good package should be, I'm slow, and I have little accidents with tape and scissors all the time. At home we haven't got a special table to do packing so I just kneel on the hard floor for an hour 2-3 times a week to get the job done.

Yet I am actually glad that I am where I am. I don't have to seat in office all the day and I am home when kids are back from school. My artworks find their owners and I get lots of happy emails from people. I've even found a first exhibition venue after two years in Newtown, so a couple of my narrative figurative paintings should be at the Hafren Theatr at the moment. Perhaps I should think more about exhibitions (but memories of having to carry by myself about 30 framed artworks to 3 personal shows I had in East Midlands still a bit scary). Anyway it is really great to be a "free artist" and I am sure in any occupation there are difficulties you have to learn to overcome - blame to the imperfection of the world!

Godless Gloom

I think atheism leads to depression and then even to a possible suicide. At least for people who think, who are honest to themselves and who perceive the world in therms of good and evil. But in atheism there is no good neither evil... One can flex his understanding of what's right and what's wrong depending on who's benefit he is acting: an individual, a race, species, whole life on Earth, etc. It also doesn't help that our honest atheist knows that his experience - hard learned during lifetime - and all the fruits of his labour eventually will disappear. There is no anchor in space or time.

I can feel this gloom in many ethical-oriented yet atheistic or agnostic sci-fi stories. All these horrible Prime Directives, "I can't help because it affect the future"and so on. It almost makes me scream: "do what you heart tells you, only God really knows the future!"

I won't say that religion can't make one depressed. For example if one comes to be religious because of strong feeling of good and evil but latterly may reach a point when he is not sure if God shares his ethics, if God is really good on his terms (I'm thinking about people suffering on Earth or eternal suffering in hell in which many believe). But at least there is some hope.

Art Calendars for 2010

Distant Lands Fine Art Calendar by Linandara

My Russia by A.CookMy Russia by A.Cook (calendar) Print: £12.49 This is 14-month calendar for 2010 illustrated with my own paintings and drawings dedicated to landscapes, people and buildings of my native Russia. Contains British and US holidays. If you would like other / custom holidays please let me know before buying and I'll create additional version for you. I hope you'll enjoy my calendar!

Distant Lands by A.CookDistant Lands by A.Cook (calendar) Print: £12.49 Welcome to the Distant Lands! Nineteen of my artworks (mostly seasonal landscapes) are included in this 2010 14-month calendar. It has British & Christian holidays (could be changed - just send me a message). I hope you'll enjoy it!

Fantasy Lands by A.CookFantasy Lands by A.Cook (calendar) Print: £12.49 This it 14 months 2010 calendar illustrated with my fantasy artwork. It contain British & US holidays (this could be changed - just send me a message). I hope you will enjoy it.

• Calendar Print

  £3.50

• Alexandra Cook's Art Calendar

  £17.00

Dream House

Etsy site is having maintenance at the moment so they put this video for people to watch:


That's probably the closest thing I've ever seen to my imaginary dream house. Being a child I have been daydreaming about 3-4 families of friends living self-sufficiently in a very close tied community (but it looked a bit more Siberian, less Californian!). Even now, when my daughter got Sims3 game and I sometime play it, I desperately try to build a homestead like this. What if I found some like-minded people and we could build something like that near Aberythwyth?... Enough day dreaming, back to work!

Pelargonium Sanctuary

Is it just me, or somebody else feels sad looking at perennial flowers being dumped at the end of summer by numerous gardeners? Even hardy ones. Recently I found (on brambles-covered land locally known as "dump") a couple of perfectly healthy Pelargonium/ geranium plants and rescued them. I bring my geraniums indoors in winter to save from the frost and because I think the are SO beautiful against the background of fresh falling snow outdoors.

(the pretty photo is not mine - I've got similar ones somewhere, but they are a bit difficult to find at the moment).

Nepal Cinquefoil Flower in Watercolor, Pen & Pencil

A recent artwork:

A bright outdoor painting done in my garden in August. Featuring a single scarlet flower of Potentilla nepalensis, common name: Nepal Cinquefoil. Done on white card with watercolour, gouache, pencils, pen and pigment ink. Unframed (so you can find a frame which will suit your home the best). The size of artwork is approximately 9 x 12 inches (23 x 30 cm).

I love these bright little flowers, they look very natural among grey flat pieces of rock in my organic hilltop garden. They also associate (for me) with the Scarlet Flower from the Russian version of "The Beauty and the Beast".

For sale here.

Wild Food in September: Himalayan Balsam and Cherry Laurel fruit

Both invasive (but beautiful) plants are abundant by the river where I live (Wales). Cherry trees have plenty of fruit, and the balsam has flowers and seeds on different stages of ripening at the same time. After reading the articles here and there, I collected some wild food (under surprised glances from some locals) and made cherry laurel and Himalayan balm petals jam (I added to it a little bit of orange juice and plenty of brown sugar). I had to do quite a lot of skimming. Now I am very happy with the jam, its dark (apart from little bits of chopped pink petals) and doesn't taste too sweet, in fact it reminds me of true cherry jam cooked with pits (mine one was without pits). We don't eat much jam at all, so I made just a little, mostly to use later as a middle layer in cakes. As for Balsam seeds I found them very tasty, sort of nut-like, but they don't need shelling. I hope to collect more before the winter. Happy foraging!

Crime and Punishment

I hear around me lots of angry voices about al-Meghari early release (e.g. look here:Lockerbie Bomber Treated Like a Hero)
Just want to write down few thoughts.

Sadly, whatever you do to this person (IF he committed the crime indeed) won't return the victims from the dead. They don't need any revenge. I do not really believe in Government's compassion (sorry) so I realise that its just a political game. But I also think that compassion can't be inappropriate.

People call for more punishment and I hear them (without realising this) begging for some medieval torture. Imprisonment is a mild torture too, but we need it, first - to show the criminal and everybody else that what he's done, we think, IS a crime, and second, to prevent the criminal from re-offending and endangering more lives. Eight years in prison and terminal illness did that.

Also in any case we never can be sure for 100 per cent if we caught the right person (that's one reason why death penalty is evil). The only possible punishment may be imposed by the persons own conscience.

Absolute justice (from a human hand) is impossible. If somebody killed many people we can't kill him back many times. We only can help him realise what he has done and prevent him from doing this again. And if God would punish us for all our crimes: committed, dreamed or only possible in future... Who would be left?

And also there is another thought: have all mass-murderers been punished "properly"? What about Colonel Paul Tibbets who killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima? "Tibbets expressed no regret regarding the decision to drop the bomb. In a 1975 interview he said: "I sleep clearly every night." You say he followed the orders? The same they say about that Libyan, I'm sure. And what about former terrorists from Northern Ireland?

I think the only way to battle evil is to live with love and compassion. Any anger, calls for revenge, torture and executions only make things worse (here I agree with "Surprised by Hope" by Tom Wright which I am reading at the moment).

Back from Russia

Just to let everybody know that we are back from our summer holidays and getting used again to life in rainy and windy Wales.

In Moscow

I'm back online after my holidays in a holiday village in Russia. Having the Internet & Cable TV is nice but its nothing comparing fresh air, starry skies and freedom of the countriside...

Crisis @ school

I've received a couple of letters from my kids' school:
"We have been fortunate for a number of years to be able to subsidise the instrumental tuition from the school budget. However this year the Governing body has to make significant cuts in the budget which means that as from September we will no longer be able to do this...."

My daughter is learning to play violin & recorder and my son does guitar. That's triple the cost. I really don't know if they will be able to continue doing this... I'm trying to hope for the best of course. By the way, its interesting to me that given a very big choice of music from various genres, my daughter definitely prefers Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, John Williams & Enio Morricone. She falls to sleep listening to them plus traditional lullabies.

Web

If you have a page at Yahoo Geocities (my first ever one was there) it will be useful to know that they are closing down after the summer. Also Auctiva stops free image hosting for Ebay...

I've started with Live Journal - there are many interesting communities and blogs all under the same roof - which is a very good idea. For the moment I just duplicate there everything from Blogger and read lots of posts about natural living and philosophy.

Royal Air Force Cosford Air Show

Thats were we've been last Sunday. More photos in my photo album. We were surprised to see such a sea of cars. I think some people with tickets haven't been allowed to drive in because there already were too many cars. Plus traffic jams on the way.

Although I felt some envy to the car people with big umbrellas, chairs, blankets, tents, comfortable seats on top of their motocaravans, big baskets with lunches - which we obviously couldn't had - I was saying to myself that unlike them we won't have problem leaving the show in the evening. Hm... We haven't been even allowed to the platform at the time when our train was leaving - because of the crowd of passengers. So we ended up coming home very late... You just can't win! At least the weather was fine - if you don't mind heat and sunshine (I do mind:).

Unfairness

It often happens to me that if I have a burning question the answer comes from outside world. Few days ago I've got involved in an unpleasant discussion on the net. There was a place where people were answering a simple question "Do you belong to the Orthodox Church?" Then out of the blue three persons appeared saying again and again that all Orthodox Christians are layers, pretenders (unlike me clever agnostic), infantiles, never have any religious experience (unlike me clever Buddhist), dream about world domination and generally some sad and ugly creature, not proper human being (unlike me rude student). When I told them that you can't say this kind of things about a very large amount of people (simply because it's impossible to prove) they accused me of enforcing Western political correctness. Me and the other people tried to reason but we were overpowered by these people who seemingly had nothing else to do rather that denying millions of people their beliefs. So I was wondering: If something like this happens in future should I pay any attention? I get very upset at unfairness so I wonder if it is worth to get involved?

And here comes Dr. Laura blog:
"I just don’t like life’s unfair qualities, and I have generally stood up to them no matter what."
"we both still maintained the bulk of our differing opinions. We did, however, agree on one point of ethics, morals, and values: you defend who or what is being attacked unfairly, and consequently, we both defended responsible free speech."
"And I’m left wondering if you’ll stand up for others (or values, morals, ethics and principles) when most others around you will turn their gaze away."
Good for you, Dr. Laura!

Another point of that discussion was that its unreasonable to be good to people. Funny that the lady who was the biggest advocate of this keeps of giving life organising advices online without realising that it is spending time and energy for the sake of others - that is, being good to other people!

Also I've been thinking that they teach how not to offend in schools now. It good, as long as kids will understand that sometime if they have to do or to say something important they will offend others - who disagree (plus sometime our absolutely innocent actions can offend people with different system of views). I think its very important also to teach the children DO NOT GET offended and upset easily but defend their opinion calmly and reasonable. I have feeling the kids to much used to run to the teacher at a slight sight of any disagreement now.

Derbyshire

An oil pastel over acrylic artwork has been sold. The place is Draycott in Derbyshire, not far from where we used to live.

Floods, Romans & Celebrations

Life was busy by local standards in Newtown during last two days. Yesterday there was a celebration at the train station with lively accordion music, mayor coming, children waving flags, Welsh cakes for everybody, etc. Lots of useful information on traveling by trains. I wish they were also running on Sunday mornings!
A week or two ago all the station windows were broken by vandals - twice. Fortunately, I've heard, they've got caught by security cameras.

Today I've seen the first proper thunderstorm in Britain (after more than 5 years living here). Real loud thunder and many bright flashes. There also was pea-sized hail turning everything white for a short while and flash flooding . Lots of fire engines all over the town and people walking trough the water. Brave people at the post office were still open when water reached their doors.

Oh, yes, and Tesco started building their supermarket and apparently they found a Roman road!

Journalists say

Few days ago, when we were watching morning news with kids, there was a story reported twice: Male penguins raise adopted chick

The reporters seems to forget that animals also sometime eat their youngsters, don't mind incest and don't care for their old ones. Some of human beings do the same. Should we put animal behaviour as an example to human race?

Another thing about journalists that often if there is a tragedy, they follow grieving relatives and keep on filming them again and again. We normally switch to another channel. It is just wrong.

Late spring holidays

Twins in stereo.
We have been to Norfolk again. The weather was good, I even managed to swim in the North Sea for about 30 seconds... My son had spent about half of hour in the water and was very happy.

We were lucky to had about a week of hot and sunny weather here in Wales.

I've done some outdoor sketching and gardening including planting jasmine (which I always wanted to have) and sorting my seeds. I had a very nice American-styled quilted pillow cover which has got too old, so I attached 12 net pockets to it with letters for different months. So I'll never forget to plant something in time. Also useful for dentists appointment cards, newspaper cuttings about upcoming events, etc.

We also visited Iron Bridge world heritage town, the site of former industrial hell. "The world's first cast iron bridge was built over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale in 1779". I thought it would be bigger when I first seen it in the booklets...

Only bad experience was seeing a puppy being run over by a car, which reminded me again how hard is cats and dogs life in towns: either they suffer being locked up or they get killed. Well, I've also encountered online a couple people who honestly though that being kind is a waste of effort and time - that's another bad experience I wish I could forget.

Anyway, I hope to visit my mother and grandmother plus many friends in Russia from mid-July to late August.

Pen and pencil people

Two of my imaginary characters (their portraits, sorry!) sold recently:














I like imagining people and some of their environment and then let viewers continuing the story in their minds.

Three thoughts about religion

I feel upset when somebody says that only people from his religion will be saved, the other will go to hell for ever. I always imagine a young girl from the "X" country who is kind and helpful but dies say at 15 without any chance to find out about the "Y" religion. That would be a complete waste of a human soul, and I think a human soul is the best thing in the Creation. If God is really kind he will find the ways of saving everybody.

Another thought came from my socionic forum where people were discussing how different types perceive God depending on their mind "operating system". For some, He is an absolute Order, for others - emotional Love, the Law, an ultimate Force, ultimate Comfort, ultimate Mystery or sacrificial Love as a relationship to the Creation, etc. Its like that even among the people going to the same Church an individual would understand better one aspect of God, but not another.

And the third though is about what I call "religious uniform". No, its great when people wear traditional clothes during Church services and ceremonies or if they are priests or monks. But it feels quite different when (I think) some people wear their outfits for the sake of being recognized in their everyday life. Here in Newtown there are many ladies and girls who always wear little symbolical scarves and skirts. I don't know who they are. My kids used to be friends to some of the kids form these families and on few occasions they tried to invite their schoolmates to our home. The parents always objected. For me its just feels like they silently say "We are so pure. You will spoil our children". These people always seems to talk to each other. And I wonder, if two people simultaneously ask for help, would they rather run to the one of their own kind? Is this "uniform" a tool to divide human beings and treat them differently? I am sorry if this attitude offend any of the readers but its just how it feels.

Expenses

Lots of noise (far too much) about MP expenses at the moment. Of course it's wrong to claim porno movies as business expenses which should be paid by taxpayers. But just imagine an average person who has been told at work that he can claim anything and nobody will find out... How many would resist? (I dont just mean the movies :)

Freedom

Today when me and kids went to school, other kids told us that a little girl, the sister of one of the pupils, just has been hit by a landrower. A week or two ago there was this story on the news:

"Boy killed as car mounts pavementAn 11-year-old boy has died after a car mounted a pavement and crashed into a group of pedestrians in Bristol. The female driver of the white Ford Focus left the scene of the incident in Eastfield Road, Westbury-on-Trym, leaving the boy trapped underneath. A man was treated for minor injuries, while three other children at the scene were not injured."

I'm sure there are lots of stories like this, with the double horror of families loosing their loved ones and somebody accidentally becoming a murderer. Kids do behave silly and even experienced driver can loose the control sometime.

Perhaps not so tragic but still very worrying once was my ride along a small countryside road when an artists gave me a lift to a workshop. All the road was covered by killed rabbits, hedgehogs and foxes. I didn't really felt like admiring "scenic road".

I should admit, I do often dream how great it would be if I could afford a car and we all could go to exiting places and never fly again. A good friend of mine once told me that she was really happy that she had started driving: it gives such freedom! Yes, but at what price?

Solanum muricatum

A very interesting & useful plant database:

http://www.pfaf.org/index.php

Planted Solanum muricatum (bought from Lidl) today. Sound too good to be true - perennial tomato which tastes like melon, an Ancient American crop plant. I hope it will survive!

I'm doing my gardening in an non-intrusive manner, encouraging useful plants which appear by themselves and with the ones I plant, I'm not forcing them to grow in my garden if they don't want to. Certainly no pesticides or non-organic fertilizers. My biggest problems are slugs and snails plus the fact that the compost bags in most shops are too heavy to carry without a car.

Replying to e-mails: tip of the day :)

When I reply to a non-urgent (and usually a non-business) email I always wait some time, a day or two. Because if I reply strait away the person on the other end might fell obliged to reply quickly too, even if he or she likes to think a bit before writing. Just to give people some breathing space.

Toxic fumes

If you smell something, it means there are some particles or droplets in the air. We inhale them.

Its good that smoking doesn't regarded as harmless anymore. Yet its difficult to avoid the second hand smoke. Very often here in Newtown, when I'm at the playground with my kids, I can see a mother and a father with a pram coming, sitting on the bench and... starting smoking. Or it rains cats and dogs, we are waiting at a tiny bus shelter and suddenly a person next to us is starting smoking... Its not so much the government to blame but the people who doesn't care if they cause discomfort (headaches, coughs, etc) or even are harming others health.

And its not just cigarette smoke. I remember starting to have a terrible headache several times when somebody next to me obviously used lost of synthetic perfume in public transport or gym. Its probably just as harmful. And all this room-fresheners, tumble-dryer additives etc.

Anyway, its such a joy to create an unique smell with natural essential oils instead of buying something with ingredients totally unknown to you. And there are plenty of books with recipes for this in libraries.

Commenting 2

Continuing previous post (why I don't like commenting on other people's blogs): if you praise somebody for being good after reading a post, that person may feel that she (or he) did presented herself as being good, which, as she knows, is far from true. Which may make her feel guilty. Or (if you, say, praise her work) she might think you are just being polite or try to cheer her up...

Anyway, I often feel I write my thoughts in English in the manner of that "Russian Professor Vooshka" from the Carry On Behind (1975) movie. Probably quite often the meaning is not what I really meant. And somebody has a great laugh reading all this nonsense... No comments, please! :) (just joking)

Commenting

I don't do much of it. Possibly, because I really have to know a person or at least see her or him live to post an adequate comment, which will convey an adequate reaction.

A little advice to fellow bloggers: never post a comment like "I don't want to know about this" to somebody you do not really know in real life. Nobody forces you to read blogs or comment on them. And for some people its really hard and scary to write anything personal. The comment like that will really hurt.

Fans and Fanatics

I sometime can like or dislike something (e.g. an opinion) very strongly. But I CAN'T imagine myself being one of the people who think that if a human being doesn't share all their important beliefs, tastes and opinions he or she is always a bad person, evil, empty space, hell bound, enemy, doesn't deserve listening. My heart just can't accept this. In fact, its normally looking for ways to redeem people. And thanks goodness for that!

Monsters on the beach

We've been to Norfolk during this Easter holidays. We spent most time walking along beautiful beaches and building sandcastles with kids. Everything was perfect, except dogs. And the noisy vehicles shown on the picture (forgot the name). Several times a day a real monstrosity (e.g. Rottweiler or German sheep dog) would run to us scarring everybody to death. Then in a few minutes relaxed owners would appear and we would be lucky if they say something like "he won't bite". No apologies for the fright, spoiled clothes and ruined sandcastles. I've actually seen (in the past) some dog owners who enjoyed scarring people with they "pets". Anyway, I think all dogs should either be on a lead or wear a muzzle when out of their owners garden. Even at home, there are stories of small children being killed by family dogs appearing on the news all the time. They are animals and predators, after all. And that horrible mess they live on the streets and in the parks... No, its not that I hate the dogs, not at all, its just would be so much better if some owners been more responsible. Sometimes you can see notices "no dogs on this beach" but it seems that lots of people do not really care.

Also we discovered a beach walk of horrifying beauty between villages of Mundesley and Overstrand (don't attempt it in high tide or you will drown and keep as far away as possible from the collapsing cliffs). The scale of sea erosion is astonishing (a destroyed narrow-gage railway on the picture), and freshly exposed colorful cliffs remained us the Grand Canyon and Painted Desert. I'm wondering, if anybody cared to slow the erosion down, maybe the solution would be to plant lots of native bushes like sea-buckthorn, blackberries and wild roses. They also produce edible fruit although I've never seen anybody picking it in the UK, which is a great pity. Sea-buckthorn fruit is stuffed with vitamins and also makes a great cordial and a liqueur. People grow it in the gardens and sell the berries in the markets in Russia.

MBTI / Socionic Type Names

I've been using MBTI type names in this blog for a while as they are more familiar in the West but now I've learned that there is some controversy to which one corresponds to which in Socionics. Well I'll be using the latter system now, e.g. EII, ESE, etc. Sorry for the confusion.

Lady Nebula

One of my Hubble-inspired pictures has been sold. Its a fun idea, to see shapes in Nebulae, like some people do in clouds, so I'll try to do more of this in future.

Happy Easter!

Best type of society (for me)

would be a scatter of small independent settlements amongst beautiful and not very dangerous wild nature where people are free to choose to which "village" they are going to belong. Like some happy little colonies on other planets with wise, peaceful and independent-minded inhabitants who use all past human experience and modern technology to live in harmony with their environment. Not an anarchy, but rather some sort of post-industrial society, very individualistic and without any bureaucracy. The trouble is, I can't imagine (at least not in our times) any state allowing self-governing people to chose by themselves different laws to obey (like in the movie "The Village").

Little Shops

Its a pain to see many little shops closing down. We counted something like 17 last time in the center of Shrewsbury. Yet, I think, one of the reasons for this is their working hours.

Many mothers and fathers, like me, are probably doing their shopping just after taking the kids to school or just before picking them up. Yet lots of little shops are still closed in the morning. There are some without clearly indicated working hours on the window, and ones where the shopkeeper is almost always late... There is a very nice little gift shop in Newtown, Vanilla Rose, but its tricky to get inside. Few days ago I went here in the afternoon and there was a sticker saying on the door "back at 3". I did some shopping (looking for some presents for my relatives), went back... and found the same piece of paper saying now "back at 3.15". I couldn't wait any more and bought everything in another shop... Most shops do close early, even more true to say this about the market stalls - they owners already have packed half of their staff when I go shopping in the afternoon.

Also most of this little places don't accept card payments. Because of this lots of shoppers will be very careful not to pick up too much items. Its good for buyers but not so good for shop owners.

Anyway, I think last few decades have seen too many people buying things they don't really needed (like new clothes when old ones were still wearable, or new furniture when old one still was in one piece... yes!). It was unnatural. And I feel it is unrealistic to expect this to carry on forever. So, unfortunately, some shops (and factories) have to go for good.

Shopping trolly

It would certainly increase the number of people shopping without using their cars if we were allowed to take standard BIG shopping trolleys strait to the doors of our homes.

School curriculum

I think there are three important things which should be taught in school from the earliest age possible but they are not (as far as I know): first aid, survival and self defence. Hopefully kids would never need to use them but if they do it would help save lives.

Trouble writing

Recently I keep having feeling that all people around expect me to be somebody else. No, rather that I expect people to expect me being somebody else. Couldn't write much here because of this too. I don't want to write what's already expected from me and I don't want to disappoint anybody by writing things they would think as being out of my character and their interests. Plus my uncle died recently and kids had a long virus infection (which is fortunately already over) so I didn't really feel writing much. And since Google Reader started to misbehave itself I wasn't reading much blogs for which I feel guilty too. Anyway, despite all that plus wind and rain, daylight is longer, winter is over and hopefully there will be something nice to write next time... Post tenebras lux...

Think, girl

A recently sold sketch:

New shop

I've joined CafePress today:
http://www.cafepress.com/linandara

I've also had an idea for Delta Quadra group on Last.FM:
http://www.last.fm/group/Delta+Quadra+-+Socionics




INTPs got their own group, so why not?




Anyway, I'm also working on a very strange painting (in digital sketching stage at the moment), incomporating my love for music and some socionic ideas. My husband already christened is Abbagonewrong... Sounds sort of Welsh... (my preliminary name is Shadow Walkers)




Also I've found some funny socionics-inspired art:

http://www.iztkanirukami.ru/cats/socion01.html

Music

I've found out on Last.fm that apparently my "mainstreaminess" equals zero (great news) and this is the list of the most common tags from the music I listen to.

Etsy & Ebay update

Few more things in Etsy shop:
Spring in the West Park, Long Eaton

Three green apples - a retouched still life print

Folk Festival - framed acrylic painting

Little Lady - Rag Doll in Medieval Style

Monstresse 63 Unusual Rag Doll

A Set of 3 Dark Brown Canvas Bookmarks

Also it is now free to put items under one pound on Ebay.uk. Helps with spring cleaning...

Word Clouds

I had some fun with http://www.wordle.net/

This is the essense of this blog:









And this is from my art page:

Probably the last snow of this winter

Just on the hilltops.

Last Sunday some very kind people from Romania gave me a lift to the nearest Orthodox Church where I met some very nice and interesting people.

And I've found another INFJ blog:
http://harrietmwelch.com/
I still have problems with Google Reader, I guess I bookmarked too many blogs, so they keep disappearing or changing folders...

plus another find - the Beatles songs turned into Gregorian chants...

Sold and selling

A little miniature with a red apple has been sold on Etsy and two more artworks are listed for sale: a ginkgo alley in Alexandria, VA and Camomile and Tansy.

Outdoor season started

The spring is in the air. Yesterday I've managed to make an ACEO sketch of the Newtown bridge:

Up our street

Its a pretty small cul-de-sac. When we just moved in I thought "great, kids can learn to ride they new bikes here". Naive me. There was a car passing every five minutes or so. I watched in great surprise how (in the middle of the day) people were constantly driving in and out going somewhere. And that's in a town where EVERYTHING is in walking distance...

If its cool or rainy we have to wait long time before crossing every street on the way to school because all other kids are driven by their parents. Once we had a lift on the way back and it took us longer than walking because of traffic jams.

Also on the way to school we have to walk under a railway bridge. Its a VERY narrow path between protruding stones of the wall and a busy road, plus a crowd of kids walking in both directions, some of them even trying to ride their bikes. I actually seen TWICE kids falling down on the road in front of cars (fortunately the drivers managed to stop in time). When a big bus or lorry is on the road you really feel like being sandwiched.



Countryside is beautiful. But I (being brought up free range in Russia) feel SO trapped, like never before. There is nowhere you can walk. OK, two designated footpaths. The rest is forbidden. I wish I could climb every hill with my easel but... "keep out, private property". There is an ancient moat, the rest of a hill fort, we tried to visit last weekend. Its all (a national heritage?) completely blocked by its "owners". If you want to see something in the Mid Wales you just have to drive.

Even trains don't stop (as they used to) in the mountains on the way to the seaside. All old stations are turned into houses. There is no local buses on Sunday and trains start running after lunchtime on that day. Once, desperately trying to get to my church, I checked National Express website, found that there is a bus suitable for me and went to the bus station. Guess what the driver said to me. "Sorry, I'm not allowed to take local passengers. Use your local buses"...

I hope this will change. I also think that (sadly) people won't change the way of their life willingly.

Gloomy picture

Plenty of this on TV now. People loosing jobs, sitting at home, desperate, playing computer games or getting angry. No positive advice to people like "try to learn new skills" or "try to turn a hobby into a new job" (for stories like this look on Etsy ), "try to move to the countryside and learn self sufficiency". Its just like somebody wants people be gloomy and desperate...

Rollo May "The Discovery of Being"

Few words from this book:

... a crisis is exactly what is required to shock people out of unaware dependence upon external dogma and to force them to unravel layers of pretense to reveal naked truth about themselves which, however unpleasant, will at least be solid...

(citation from Nietzsche)... the spirit grows, strength is restored by wounding...

... one must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him...

About loneliness, isolation and alienation in our society:
... a vivid and gripping picture of a man, who is a stranger in his world, a stranger to other people whom he seeks on pretending to love; he moves about in a state of homelessness, vagueness, and haze as though he had no direct sense of connection with his world but were in a foreign country where he does not know the language and has no hope of learning it but is always doomed to wander in quiet despair, incommunicado, homeless and a stranger.

Moth drawing

Its was done with permanent ink pens and colour pencils quite a while ago. I love working in this media because I can achieve lots of details, texture, and its so easy to start and stop working when needed - no paints to squeeze out of tubes or brushes to wash afterwards.

Spurge-Hawk Moth on a piece of tree bark with some lichen

Hello again, Big Brother...

Its just as bad as during Soviet times. Political correctness, spin and citizens constantly spying on citizens. Day after day there is something on the news - neighbours being filmed secretly over the fence, so called "friends" reporting private conversations and so on. Yes, real criminals should be punished, but at what price?

I am actually a person who, unfortunately, could be easily offended by any word (but also fast to forgive & forget) so I just can't understand how any even slightly "politically incorrect" unintentional word is considered almost a crime nowadays. Somebody always will be offended by one thing or another. But its presumably OK to hate your neighbours, spy on them and report them. And to have one-sided national news coverage on many occasions - that's not politically incorrect. And to deny showing a charity appeal because the poor kids have a particular country's army to blame for their suffering... So contradictory.

"Oh, Hello!" - just waiving to the next door camera pointing directly at our kitchen window. And this is probably one of the most low-crime places on Earth...

Arches

Yet another artwork in oil pastel:

Stefan Morrell - Dream Cities

Just a link to an artist site:

http://stefan-morrell.com/

Very moody dreamy cities. I wouldn't want to live here but certainly love to visit...

Car industry

So much is said on the news that it's so unfortunately that people don't buy many cars any more. The car industry suffers and that's so bad. Well why nobody tells that perhaps people were buying too many cars before? Several per family - used mostly just to get to local school or shops. They say its so sad that the borrowing stopped. It seems to me that the global economy IS in this mess because of overborrowing and overspending...

Strange doll

Unusual Handsewn Rag Doll

by Linandara

Spring Comes Early Every Year in acrylic

I've put another fantasy painting for sale on Ebay:

Trees with pink blossom, petals floating in the air, the sky above is golden yellow. Two women in unusual clothes are talking, one is sitting in the cart. The horse is waiting. Open to your interpretation.

Zoo Principe

Its almost everywhere now. Any party, committee, members of staff, artists on exhibition, every kind of people has to be represented everywhere. "We haven't got enough women firefighters" - we hear on the news. And there should be a person from every race or ethnicity or ability for every group. Why? To tick the box? If there would be real equality nobody would ask which type of person you are, the only important thing would be if you can do you job well. Having "Women in Art" museums and exhibition is not an acknowledgement but patronising.

Dragging crowds of woman into army, police, government, etc. is plain stupid. There are less of us here because we don't generally want to be here. Men, I'm sorry, can't breastfeed of get pregnant whatever governments are trying to tell us. And if all women are gone firefighting, who's going to take care of kids and homes? Also you may be happy when governments tell that women can go to the army now. Well, don't give them a finger or they eat the whole hand: in a generation or two it will happen that all women have to go to the army.

Andrey Chulovskiy - organ recital

We visited a very nice organ concert in the village of Kerry last Saturday. This is this Russian composer's web site:

http://www.chulovskiy.com/

I am impressed: few years ago I've heard some modern organ music and frankly it sounded like a tummy rumbling but Andrey Chulovskiy seems to master writing modern music for traditional organ.

Only one complain (yes, I just can't go without them :) - this village is in walking distance from Newtown, but we had to take a taxi: its a busy road without any sidewalk space again!

Empty Eyes

I used to take part in many artists fairs, markets, carnivals, open days and so on. I'm sort of glad I'm not doing it anymore. The sight of people continuously passing by with their empty eyes and tight lips was heartbreaking. No, there were some friendly and interested looks, but still... Maybe many sought the art was a waste of time altogether. Maybe they really hated my style, maybe they felt sorry they didn't do anything creative in their life. I shouldn't judge them too harsh as I probably often have the same gaze passing by other artists demonstrating their work... I'd hide my feelings even if I really like what I see. It's cold, cold world...

Once I've been sitting from 9 am till 5 pm next to a model fairground exhibition with loud repetitive silly music going on and on and on. I though I'll get mad. Yet now, being in isolation of my home for quite a while, I feel I miss seeing live humans. So I made a wallpaper for Windows with several dozens faces I like starring at - family, friends, artists of all sorts, etc. At least it's something!

Funny kids

They are SO funny...
"What's your Barbie caring in that container? - Antimatter."
"Why are you so angry? - She has stepped on my Alexandria Library and broke it!"

Poor doggy

Kids were watching children's channel CBBC yesterday:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gnskf

The program was about designing an outfit for a dog... And the winner proposed to put MP3 player and loudspeakers onto it. And NOBODY mentioned that it probably would damage dogs hearing as its much more sensitive than ours and generally may make the pet very uncomfortable (and I'm not even a dog lover or animal rights activist to notice that!). So the moral was: 1)Its fine to have you music on loudly on the street; 2) it doesn't matter that a pet is alive, its just a cool gadget... And that's taxpayer-sponsored channel for you...

Balley Dancer

An artwork sold recently.

Merry Christmas

For everybody celebrating it tomorrow!

Rude mothers

In Newtown I sometime see mothers taking kids to the Primary school swearing loudly among other parents and kids. I guess its supposed to be OK. Maybe its something wrong with me, but when I hear a person swearing I just feel like they cover themselves in horrible dirt and also are trying to spread it on others around them. I've heard in some places of the world you could be fined for swearing in public. Lucky them!

Today me, my kids and their friend were walking back from school when a couple of 11-13 year old boys started swearing at my kids' friend who walked first and then at all of us. Its third time on the same spot! (awesome view of the valley BTW) The kids from our hill of the High School age must be from those families where they start teaching kids "manners" at Nursery! Curiously, every time this verbal harassment had happened I was caring my kids guitar or violin. Maybe the local children just are feeling jealous because they parents didn't bother with they music lessons busy drinking & spending on themselves (sorry for harsh words)?

Anyway, that's not very important. It Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve! And we had snow in Newtown these holidays, hurray! Its only a centimeter but its been here for a couple of days (!) and the landscape looks really great, wintry, although its so slippery to go up and down the steep hills! And the snow sounds so great crunching under the feet - just like I remember it from my childhood.

Christmas Eve

Here is a mixed media artwork of mine I did (and sold) a couple of years ago filling opposed to commercialization and secularization of Christmas.

Merry Christmas

for everybody who celebrates it tomorrow!

Decorating...

One of the angels my mother gave to us (photo from few years ago)

Latest sales

Two recently sold artworks:

St Michael church in Breaston, Derbyshire in pastel (gone to Switzerland)


and Approaching Storm in acrylic.

Santa Run in Newtown - some photos

Here are some photos from Newtown Santa run on Dec 14th. Quite busy at the moment trying to tidy the house before the guests coming...

Just a quick remark. Lots of parents were very unhappy that this year the kids had to start running with adults in the same crowd.

Santa Run in Newtown

On Sunday my daughter took part in this annual event.
http://www.newtown-santa-run-2008.co.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/newtown/pages/08santarun_photos6.shtml?11
She did very well although because of bad organization and confusion we can't really say how well. Our Mayor and local MP Lembit Öpik were engaging in boring personal show off. But we still had good fun and are very proud of our little girl. Photos, videos and more story (hopefully) to follow.

DR. LAURA C. SCHLESSINGER's blog

Here it is:
http://www.drlaurablog.com

I can't say I agree with everything she writes but I certainly appreciate how this modern very conservative American "Mary Poppins" tells mothers to return home and take care of it. And I've seen her name in some MBTI description of ESTJ! (double benefit for me in reading her blog then). Anyway, she doesn't like people spending too much time on the Net, so I better go and do something real :)

School blues

I had a happy childhood. Of course I hated or laughed at all that communist staff but I was so lucky with teachers at school and plenty of friends. I hope my kids will remember their school years with happiness and warmth too.

I started school at eight and this didn't stop me (or any of my friends in Russia) from getting to universities and colleges we liked. I've been shocked when at the time my kids were something like 3.5 or 4.5 a nearby school head teacher knocked on our door and said its time for my little ones to go to their Nursery (just for a couple of hours first). As I didn't have any friends in this country, nobody for my kids to play with, and I wanted to do more art at home, I decided, OK, lets do it. It wasn't easy for my son to fit in at first. Once when he didn't want to get inside after a play time, a teacher grabbed and pulled him and he, scarred, baited her in the arm. Needless to say we received a very angry letter from school, got really terrified and had to apologise.

We and kids started to have colds continuously. And little ones started getting head lice. My husband and me we haven't had them at schools - full stop. My mother-in-law didn't had this problem in Britain, same my mother in Russia. Even in my grandmother times, during famine and incredible poverty of 1920s on the boundary of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia, they didn't had much of this head lice issue. So why its so bad in modern British and Welsh schools? Well it either 1) parents don't care for the welfare of their kids so much now; or 2) headlice got more resistant to treatment; or 3) kids are starting school too early when they can't understand that they shouldn't touch each other heads; or 4) they encouraged to sit on the floor rather than at desks as we did, and that helps little insects spread; or combination of these.

In Russia kids haven't been allowed to walk (almost everybody walked, of course) in school wearing outdoor shoes. You had to have a pair of clean ones to change. NOT HERE. All that dogs, birds, rabbits, cats droppings on the way end up in the classroom... Where everybody sits on the floor. Brrr...

There is a VERY STRANGE attitude to sweets in school. They are encouraged! Its your birthday - bring sweets for everybody, you have been good at studying - get a sweet. School parties of course only have sweets and cakes to eat. No surprise, the life expectancy is falling.

When we decided to move to Wales, people were saying how better the schools there are. We were delighted to here about it. What a disappointment! Our children had been doing joint writing for about a year, but here they have been FORBIDDEN to do this. Only typing (I can't TYPE letters at all!). They had started a foreign language (French) but now have to forget about this because they are learning a little bit of Welsh (why not have both?). They also had to go back to reading very simple books again. At least now they have a free swimming lesson a week (but my daughter said they DON'T HAVE P.E. IN WINTER). My husband can't forget his football at school in any weather, and I quite enjoyed skiing for 2 hours a week through winter wonderland in the park next to the school (the park is long gone under some apartment blocks in Moscow, but that's another story). So they start early but they exercise less... Here is a good recipe for childhood obesity. Plus school meals. In England kids actually had some organic food for their dinners. Not here - and that's for the same price. And some form of potatoes almost every day.

Two more things make me really sad: encouragement of football and pop / rock music culture. When I was at school we were told to strive for the best. If its music, it should be quality music. We don't listen to much pop or rock at home. It's not OUR culture. Now my kids are preparing for their Christmas concert and they have to pretend TO BE ROCK OR POP STARS. Something called X-factor? I have no slightest idea what it is (I only know X-files :). In England we had to choose if we want to send the kids to school discos or not. Here in Wales they are hold in SCHOOL TIME. And foolball. We don't watch sport. All we see is drunken and swearing supporters we have to share trains with. Why our kids should be pushed towards that?

Sorry for some bitterness. Of course there are lots of positive things. Religious education has been good so far (I haven't had any in my time). Kids had interesting trips to farms and theaters. There are quite a lot of male teachers (unlike when I was at school), and most teachers looks like clever and friendly people. And there are affordable music lessons for everyone. I sort of admire home education enthusiasts but I wouldn't be able to do this. At least not alone. Anyway, hopefully, everything will be for the best.

Star Wars ACEO

Four more images are ready for my ACEO commission.

About the drawing on the bottom right - "It is impossible!" was the first phrase I ever learned in English.

Bullies harm themselves

If somebody deliberately tries to offend you, this person puts a burden on his or her conscience and has to live with it for the rest of the life or do something with it (eventually). Not YOU! You walk free. Just try to look at it as a page from a novel you read. And no hard feelings. Just another lesson.

It is obvious the body can't function well without physical exercise or hard work. Same is the soul. It needs its lessons and exercises too, to grow stronger and better...

Violence will undermine any good course. Look at the rebellious Greeks. Maybe they have a bad government. It doesn't matter now. People starting violence are always wrong, in my opinion. If you like democracy, you vote for somebody else. Or peacefully propose another solution... If you throw stones at police cars, don't expect them throw chocolate bars back at you. And this (like protests in Thailand) will damage your country's economy in bad times thous making everybody's life even worse. So, it's very strange to hear about people violently protesting against job cuts or low salaries in such times...

Speaking of so called democracy, its looks like the poor people of tiny car-free island of Sark don't have any free choice to live their traditional way anymore: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/european-feudalism-finally-ends-as-sark-heads-for-democracy-1061281.html
Billionaire newspaper magnates got their way. Heaven is still the Kingdom, I hope...

Sticking cloves into oranges...

That's what my kids are busy doing now. Not just oranges, of course, but any citrus fruit I could find in town. I think its called "making pomanders". Smells really great. Some of them actually dry for ever like this.

Also on the picture: crepe paper garlands similar to ones my mother taught me to make back in Russia: cut two long stripes of differently colored crepe papers, put slightly narrower one on top and sew them together (better using sewing machine). Then cut the edges carefully with scissors every centimeter or so making sure you won't cut the thread. Fluff it a bit and its ready to be hang across the room. We used to do them from four corners to the lamp shade (making sure they won't get too hot to catch fire) and I had a real jungle for the New Year celebration.

There also some last year's paper chains kids made and the charity shop tinsel.

A great way to recycle numerous kids drawings (I do photographs of the good ones first) is to make paper snowflakes out of them and stick with blue tack on the windows. Its a double recycling, as the kids draw on the paper my husband used at work for printing on one side...

We bought a nice tall Noble Fir Christmas Tree form a local grower who kindly delivered it to our door. This kind of tree doesn't drop needles EVER.

Speaking of citrus fruit, almost every time I peel one, I put the peel in a potpourri bowl. Also you can try putting some of it in the hot oven or working microwave oven just for few minutes (make sure it won't burn) to release the aroma.

Another seasonal fun my kids found is listening to all kind of Christmas music on Last.fm and from my Russian, Ukrainian, European medieval, English, French, African and Philippine collection.

Broken Solar Panels

There is a house not far away from ours. Just one more of the simple 70s dwellings. It is the only one (as far as I know) having solar water heating system in the area. And it is BROKEN. I don't know what had happened but it looks like somebody had thrown a stone at it from the street, breaking this expensive piece of technology and the owners couldn't afford to (or just didn't wanted to) replace it. Some people don't forgive you for being different, be it an accent or solar panels...

Another sad thing, I've noticed quite a lot of desperate messaged from artists on the net like "this recession kills me", "I have to lower my prices for a time being" and so on... Well, somebody actually told me that people may invest in art during depression as its price ought to go up eventually. So, lets hope for the best!

Google Earth fun

My kids discovered a new game: they type a funny word and look (using Google Earth) if the place with this name exists on our planet. Lots of fun and it helps to learn a bit of geography, I hope!

Bag

She is sitting here in front of me but I can't see her eyes. I suspect they are triumphant. She's got the window seat by the table and she put her handbag on the seat next to her. Dark glasses surrounded by unhealthy looking folds of skin, headphones on and knitting something green. Must be in her fifties. And pitiful me trying to find seats for a family of four with two kids so we can have our lunch on the train. No chance here, dear! The bag stays. I see her muttering to herself something. Yes, she is triumphant. How on Earth do I expected to love people? Her, or that rebellious youth, empty eyes, feet on the seat, horrible telephone music as loud as the device can play. I don't know. Maybe if they told me about their life, they struggle, their hopes, I would.

I think I'm growing to be like that "bag" lady. She is like my mother, full of old scars. Hatred for old, hatred for young. Oh, dear... I really want to be better that this. But is it possible?

Christmas Turkey

Mrs Sad and Angry :) is back: I wanted to buy a turkey in the Iceland shop. But found out they all are "ready basted" with E numbers. Thank you very much, eat your E-E-E yourself! Why can't they have JUST TURKEY? They never have.

Also my browsers go mad when I'm trying to read other people's blogs in Google Reader - I guess its because I've subscribed to so many of them. I do enjoy reading you, people out there!

I'm into publishing my old poetry on a Russian poetry site at the moment and surprisingly, there are some people who even like it! Amazing...

Artist & Recession

A link with advises on running a business:

http://studioartdirect.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/art-of-the-recession-studio-art-direct-shares-how-to-market-your-art-businees-in-an-economic-downturn/

Thanks to http://sophieploeg.blogspot.com for posting this link!

Free speech myth

I don't think free speech exists. We hear from time to time, that it didn't existed in the Soviet Union, or it doesn't exist in modern China. Well it doesn't exist anywhere. Its just a pretense. Lets be honest. If you forbid saying anything offending - that is it. Any strong opinion on important matter can offend the opposite side. So governments, organizations, etc forbid some allegedly "bad" groups of people or individuals to speak on their own behalf. And what does that do? It turns them into martyrs for indecisive people. It shows to those who didn't make heir opinion yet - the government is afraid that if "baddies" speak, they will take over, that they may actually have Truth on their side. Its so easy to wave your sword at somebody who is not allowed to do so in our "civilized" society. For me its strange, how on Earth you can convince somebody what's right and what's wrong if you don't let other side publicly defend itself?

Of course no viable government will allow open propaganda against itself on the prime time TV. Its understandable. Of course children should be protected from unappropriated content. But why not have a web site (or a radio station) easily accessible for all adults where absolutely anything could be said, any opinion discussed, and where any crazy lunatic could explain his or her point of view (and being praised or remotely"beaten" for that). And then, we WOULD have freedom of speech.

Polish shop closed

We used to have a little Polish shop in Newtown. There was some publicity about it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/newtown/pages/jarekmydlak.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7162691.stm

Its looks like another charity shop is moving in now. Well, the Polish Corner used to have very good natural cordials and herbal teas, but, for my taste had too much junk food made by international manufacturers with Polish labels. Anyway, its a bit sad. That was the only ethnic food shop in town!

PS. And the only place in town accepting Western Union money transfers is stopping doing them from Friday. It really feels like being cut off from the rest of the world!

Last weekend

On Friday Christmas lights have been switched on in Newtown. Its one of the biggest events in the town but as usual you only can find out about it if you you talk to people: there wasn't any announcements on streets (no, sorry, there was one - outside the town, for car drivers). The official town's website

http://www.newtown.org.uk/news.php

haven't been updated since September the first (NEWS! its even worse for local school websites) and so on. Well we asked some men installing merry-go-round and ended up coming 2 hours yearly on freezing-cold night. BUT we managed to see the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle passing above as two very bright stars (soon after they separated).

Traditional light-switching speech by our mayor http://www.newtown.org.uk/index.htm (her "unique selling position" is being a single mom) was aimed against people trying to save electricity (she called them Scrooge). Well I think we have to have Christmas lights. But on Christmas EVE. The joy of Christmas is really spoiled by such an early start. There also is lot of controversy about switching 2/3 of street light in the Powys county. Some people think it will help criminals (not that there are many of them here, thank goodness for that!). I think its more difficult for thieves to use torches than for local residents as they (criminals) don't really want to be spotted.

Anyway we had a nice firework display and kids got two more lightsabers (I know I complained of too many toys at home, but it so difficult for me to say NO to kids).

On Saturday we visited Ten Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci and Mapping the Welsh Group at 60 exhibitions. For my daughter, who likes art generally, famous Leonardo's works didn't mean nearly as much as some of symbolist contemporary works from the second exhibition. I literally couldn't pull her away from them when we had to go.

We also seen wonderful mirage (distant mountains on the other side of the huge bay looked much closer, hovering over the sea) and sunset with myriads of starlings flying around the pier in Aberystwyth.

White Horse

This painting (size A4) is on the way to Germany now.

I'm working on a Martian landscape in acrylic and multiple ACEO commission at the moment. The work is progressing slowly as I'm more interested in few writing projects. I seems to oscillate between various creative activities and hardly can make myself do something which my heart doesn't want at the moment. I am often angry at myself for that but haven't find the cure yet.

Non-creative activities like cleaning & washing are always at the bottom of my list. I am a horrible housewife!

Greeting Cards

It bothers me, why on Earth people need to send or give greeting cards if they actually SEE the person they are sending them to at his or her Birthday, Anniversary or Christmas? And why people BUY cards with somebodies else message printed in them? It's difficult to find a blank card in shops here. Anyway, now so many people have computers, cameras and printers, why not to do something original, from a heart? Even if it's just a citation form a favorite poet, etc. Its all totally above me. I guess you have to be born in this culture to understand. Mind you, it starts to catch up in Russia too, unfortunately.

And why relatives and friends have to give kids mountains of toys on Birthdays and Christmas? I've seen so many times poor children crying for hours because of over excitement! And a piece of advice for toy-buyers: if there are more thanfour jigsaw puzzles for kids at home - they will get mixed up. Complex games will have irreplaceable pieces lost or broken. Expensive electronic toys will get unintentionally broken too. If you kids have too much toys it will became impossible to tidy them up properly neither for you nor for kids themselves (we are learning all this hard way). By the way, the best birthday present my daughter had for her eight birthday was a big Yamaha keyboard just for 34 pounds. It really helps her to learn to play good music. And my son does wonders with his K'nex construction kits. Also at eight they still don't mind if the toys are second hand - save your money and enviroment!

I like traditions, but only when they came from a heart and generally good for you...

A Christmas video I stumbled upon while surfing:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU&eurl=http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/

Newtown Hills

And a new addition to the Ebay shop:

The September certainly was a very productive this year - thanks to the good weather.

I did this from my garden, but moved some of my neighbours' houses and turned the hills into the mountains.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280289498708

"Dawn" in pen & ink and pencil

The latest addition to my Etsy shop. I've got a friend who does stunts for movies in Russia and she kindly sent me a reference photo for this artwork some time ago.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17845046

By the way Etsy does looks so much nicer for an artist than Ebay, but there is a small problem: nothing seems to sell so far...

Churches for sale and "karate kids" in Newtown

A sad picture from Newtown life: two of the nicest churches in town are empty and for sale - and they have been like this almost since we moved here a year ago. They are right in the centre of the town, near the bus and train stations. I think from time to time, that it would be great if an Orthodox community could buy one of them but I understand there is not much chance for that. I can't get to the nearest Orthodox church two towns away because there is no public transport on Sunday mornings (ironically, for religious reasons, I guess).

Another problem for a car-free person possesses (surprise!) kids sport club. They joined a local karate club last spring. Karate is very popular in Newtown and I thought its good healthy exercise plus a chance to learn to protect themselves if needed. No, wrong. Its all about the color of the belt. Every so often I'm given a form to fill and expected to pay 18 pounds per child for "grading" (strangely, that procedure haven't been explained to me when kids just joined). And for this continuous grading business (meaning belt changing) we have to travel to another town... On Sunday morning, of course! When I am trying to explain our situation to the trainers I usually meet one of these looks: cold, suspicious, judging, refusing to understand, separating me into "strange & alien" category. Oh, well... I seriously think about tennis club for kids now ...

Life without Google

I can't stop thinking: what if this crisis kills Internet? Or something else does? What we are going to do? By the way there is new Survivors TV series (remake) on BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/05_may/30/survivors.shtml

I don't know yet if its going to be any good but feels somehow possible now. What scares me the most its the loss of order, when everybody who is stronger takes what he or she wants. I just hope we never see it in real life!

Sea of souls

There so many voices muttering, sobbing, preaching, laughing. So much more real than in the censored news, polished and profit-oriented films or books. Fascinating. I wish I discovered all this blogging earlier. I know not all people are honest and not all tell the truth. Often we don't realize when we lie anyway. And fiction is literature too...

Skies no fire

We had an awesome sunset a couple of days ago:

I think there are some Mammatus (mammatocumulus) clouds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus_cloud

I am who I am

Once I met an artist who liked my works, bought at least two of them and on one occasion offered me a lift home from an exhibition. So he went inside ( it was our old home), he's seen kids screaming and running everywhere, worn out cheap furniture, books scattered around, wallpaper badly needed to be changed and so on. And he said something like "to sell art you have to be respectful" (or was that "presentable"). Anyway it sounded that I was not. It really hurt. Well, I think I don't really live my life to sell art only. Even to do art only. Maybe there are artists, who have a professionally designed gallery instead of the home, a polished blog where they show themselves always positive, happy, concentrated, top class, witty, kind, clever and respectful, but I'm not even going to try doing that. I am just a person. Don't judge me too harsh. I can have my ups and downs. Some of my artwork and writing is successful, some is horrible, but I'm not going to hide this fact. People can buy my paintings without caring much for who I am - that's absolutely fine too. But I'm not going to pretend to be something I am not. Probably, I am wrong. Probably I should never have any blogs or "about me" pages. Just pictures. Or better - no pictures at all. Just let them rot in the attic. Or even not making them in the first place - rather doing something useful. Anyway...

Farewell to two more pictures

That's it, time to pack them as they have been sold. Both are fantasy works in acrylic. The first one is Observation Point, the second is the Shinning World. It is always a bit sad to say farewell to artwork, but then I haven't got enough space to hung all my paintings anyway plus it would be really great if somebody else could enjoy them too. And I hope to buy a second hand violin for Christmas for my daughter with the money. I had a real barter recently when somebody from an organic shop bought a sketch of mine. So I exchanged it for a packet of tofu. Marvelous!


The idea for the first picture came from a photo of my friends and colleagues overlooking a submarine port in the Crimea. The second one was inspired by a photo of my great auntie (a ballet dancer) as a girl.

"Who Am I? 101 Ways of Seeing Yourself. An identikit of self-discovery" by Malcom Godwin

I've read this book in the spring just another attempt at self-digging. Here are some results. But, I wonder, is it really me?
Body: mesomorph (William Sheldon's system: a greater tolerance to extreme conditions, but insensitivity can be a trait. Oriented towards action) 441 of endomorph-mesomorph-ectomorph body-mind scale;
Face: rounded contours (jovial, gentle, gluttonous, indecisive, frank, slow); oval - mobile, impressionable, impulsive, changeable, versatile, non-persevering, credulous, prescient, intuitive; Siang Mien - jade - diamond - mystical, elegant , talented, durable, sharp, possessive, active, dutiful, caring, attractive
Hand: Earth - melancholic. Practical, honest, physically hard-working, espesially at tasks bringing the sunject close to earth, like pottery; stable, orderly, tenacious, unimaginative , sceptical, habitual, enjoys doing and making things and being physically productive, slow, generous, indulgent, enthusiastic, epicurian, physical. Can be stolid, insensitive, dull. Logical, very practical & pragmatic, orderly, habitual, hard-working and tenacious, stable. Can be unimaginative , over-sceptical and not very original. Palm(right hand - left hemisphere - analytical, logical, precise, time-sensitive; left hand - right hemisphere - emotional, creative, intuitive) clear & strait, steadfast love, devotion, great affection, sympathy and compassion; cautious, mentally capable, spirited, independent .
Chinese elements - fire (or water?) by description; Yin Metal by birth
Chinese medicine: the Alchemist - Metal - Returning to the Source - Discerning, purifying, distilling the essentials, defining, refining, concerned with aesthetics, beauty, virtue and morals . Enjoys the discipcline of order, ritual and ceremony. Letting go of Autumn, restraint, separation, elimination.
Vedas: Pitta (Fire + Earth) 142 - Vata (Air + Ether) 125 - Kapha (Earth + Water) 101
Humour (temperament): Melancholic - 13, Choleric - 8, Sanquine - 4, Phlegmatic - 2
Child (Rudolf Steiner) - same, maybe slightly more Choleric & Sanguine.
Gurdjieff Type No 2 - limbic system or emotional brain, the heart.
Brain hemisphere Right - 28; Left - 12 (non-verbal, visuo-spatial, simultaneous, spatial, analogic, holistic, intuitive, sensuous)
zodiac Sagittarius - fire - intuiting -mutable - active (fire brings myth and drama to experience, relating them to an inner world of its own which reflects, but is often removed from, reality. Adapts energy in order to explore, have a problem with sensuality. Vital and spontaneous and often live in a rich fantasy world more attuned to the theatre than the workplace. They need to experience life dramatically and significantly so their behaviours are exaggerated. Colorful figures, full of mythological splendour and heroism. Often self-centered and self-absorbed, but is also warm, psychic and lively. Problem coping with material world (drab & threatening). Optimistic, adventurous, extravagant, just, honest, stimulating, religious, boisterous, argumentative, impatient, fanatical, hot-headed, indulgent, tendency to preach, hides sadness).
Chinese animal boar, companion: sheep - gallant, gentle, lively, impulsive, chivalrous, courageous, generous, gregarious, sincere, thick-skinned, shallow, vulnerable, materialistic.
Feeling types: emotional, not joyful, not phobic, girl-child, life-explorer, Artemis (Jungian), animus Apollo, between indifference and compassion, introvert, stress level slightly higher than average, between optimistic and pessimistic, intuitive (p.61) and then somebody took that book from the library and I haven't seen it since...

Wolf charmer or "Mike with Wolves"

Two more drawings. First one (my favorite) has been sold, the second one I've just put on sale on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280287416104&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=018

Two attempts to illustrate the first scene from my book "The Return" in Russian. I am working on this series of illustrations first creating 3D models of my characters, props and landscape, then drawing everything "traditional" way, by hand.

Two still life photos with a story

I've found a couple of photos from few years ago. There were some trouble in Russia and I felt very upset, particularly because the media here in UK, instead of being just a little bit compassionate, was using this for anti-Russian political propaganda. And then a kind elderly lady next door just brought me the carnation flowers. She died soon after that. (Just mapping my life)

Think, girl!

A fragment from a sketch I did a couple of years ago

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=280287379969&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=018

Fighting additives

An interesting site about natural living:
http://www.imperfectlynatural.com/index.php
I've read Janey Lee Grace book "Imperfectly Natural Woman" last year and in some respect it was an eye-opener, especially about unnatural fragrances and other additives. Well I think most people still don't suspect that if you can smell something - there is some substance in the air and it may be very bad for you. Natural essential oils are easy available, I think lavender (for headache and just very nice smell), Olbas (oil mix for blocked noses) and tea tree (for scratches, etc) are must have in any household. But people still use artificial perfume dispensers to mask perfectly natural cooking smells... Instead you can either open the window, or peel an orange, or boil a bit of apple with cinnamon. I sometime put some mandarin peel in the microwave or hot oven (just for few minutes).

Few years ago I bought a little packet of child juice drink (you know, that square type, with a straw) and found out it was full of artificial colourings. Why??? There is no way a child could see what color is his drink inside the carton.

Another thing which bothers me is additives (colorings, flavourings, even perfume) in medicines. Why again??? I'm an adult person and can swallow any bitter pill if really needed. Even kids at eight can. As our funny doctor said: stick it into his baked beans...

Saying all that, I still have lots of problems trying to feed my family healthy food. I don't have a strong will, and even small amount of nagging, moaning, screaming or frowning makes me give up. My son often points to me how much factory made food is better than mine. All those E numbers which enhance the flavour plus I'm not a very good cook... Well yesterday improvisational "curry" sauce was a success and I even was asked to make more of it:

Take 2 chopped onions, 2 garlic cloves, some fresh ginger, a teaspoon of
oil, a little bit of lime, cranberry and orange juice, plus a lot of your
favorite dry curry spices (e.g. coriander seed, chili, cinnamon, allspice, curry
leaves, black pepper and so on) and put with enough water in a food processor.
Process until smooth then gently boil for 5-10 min, adding creamed
coconut. Could be added to meat or vegetables when they are almost
ready.

Sketching

I've managed to do a bit of sketching today (apart from shopping, bread- and yogurt-making and other cooking, taking kids to school and back). I was trying to capture what's left of golden leaves on silver birches, oaks and hazelnut trees.



Also I'm packing and sending away an acrylic painting I've sold recently. It features Thai houses and was based on a photo I took from a taxi window on Phuket Island many years ago.
(Sometime if I don't write down what I actually did today, I feel like time slipped through my fingers).

Current project (commision)

ACEO cards with movie themes. 4 done or almost done, nine to go.

Zazzle

I've found a new outlet for my art:
http://www.zazzle.com/linandara/gifts

Its a bit like Lulu but more fun: you can order a lots of items with custom pictures on them. Unfortunately I think they only ship in the USA.

Villages - Towns - Cities

White Horse Village - changing China:

I watched a bit of this programme yesterday

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5103100.stm

and was somehow surprised by a female presenter attitude. She pointed at a lady and said something like that this unfortunate one has to abandon the idea about going away to work in a factory, instead she is doomed to stay with her kids and work on a farm, and that's such a hard work. Well, we switched the TV off after that. I think almost any way to earn money is hard, one way or another. It may be the stress (separation from family and home) or unhealthy lifestyle instead of the hard physical work, but the hard bit is still here. Interestingly, I've heard there was some research showing that men's health is worse if they stay at home all the time, women's health is worse if they go away to work.



I haven't been to China but I see how in the Russian countryside the city folk dreams to live close to the nature, not just stay here on holidays, but most of the village and small town dwellers wants to move to the city, to give up their land, to fill up yet another huge ugly apartment block. There used to be quite a lot of tension and hostility on the buses, but now the better off people unfortunately mostly use their cars.



Once I was walking through a village, seen a nice old house and decide to take picture of it (no, its not that one). Immediately a very angry elderly lady popped out and started shouting at me. I was surprised - I would count it for a compliment if people started to take pictures of my house or garden. Anyway, she disappeared next year - probably moved to a town...



So, I'm bothered with question: Why people who live close to nature, see the beauty every day, have fresh air to breath and birds to listen to, are often so unhappy, jealous and hostile? Are they already so deeply affected by modern consumer culture watching TV and doing their shopping in towns and cities? In that angry lady's village, there are crowds of tourist and pilgrims passing by yet local folk don't even try to organise any farmers market which would be of a great success and helped them to stay afloat, I think. Its just looks like they don't want to be happy where they are. Even here, in Newtown (Wales) I recon my encounter with xenophobic hostile youngsters shows that there is a class of people why don't feel any inspiration from marvelous countryside around them, instead they think themselves being on some unfortunate margin of modern society.

PS. And the size of local gardens doesn't help either. All the fields around, but the ordinary person in Newtown is lucky to have enough land to hung the washing in the back garden! Not surprising there is not much connection to the land.

Citations from Tolkien

A few of my favorite paragraphs from Lord of the Rings by Tolkien:

"He deserves death" - "Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live
deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do
not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot
see all ends."

"What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he
had a chance!" - "Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not
to strike without need."

"Why was I chosen?" - "Such questions cannot be
answered, ... You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not
possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you
must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."

"Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. "Strider" I
am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his
heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet
we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear,
simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the
task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has
grown."

"Here is the Heart of Elvendom on earth", he said, "and here my heart
dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must
tread, you and I. Come with me!" And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the
hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man.

Music shop

I've promised to tell my Ebay subscribers about new music in my shop. Here is a real gem - if you have a key to open its box, that is, if you know Russian well:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280286445123

There is a big collection of songs by my favorite Russian singer, philologist, poet and songwriter

Mikhail Scherbakov

http://blackalpinist.com/scherbakov/English/index.html

http://blackalpinist.com/scherbakov/ (in Russian)

Here his poetry is translated to English:

http://blackalpinist.com/scherbakov/English/trans.html

Its very clever, deep, emotional, witty, thought-provoking. I can't say I love all his songs (the latest ones I don't understand very well) but lots of them always are on my playlist.

Together with Mr Krivoshejev & Mr Stepanov we suspect he is a INFJ too.

By the way, I'm not actually running a business selling music. I though in the past I would, but its too complicated regarding to taxes, customs, etc. So we just sell out (recycle) our (and our parents) CDs, tapes and LPs which we don't use any more as we went digital. Same applies to videos as we are switching to DVDs.

BP PORTRAIT AWARD 2008 in Wolverhampton

I've seen this exhibition recently
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART56726.html
http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves/exhibitions/003715.html
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/bp2008index.asp

Lots of good art - painterly, skill full and thought-full portraits. For example, Lliana by Krasimir Kolev, Amanda Smith at Vincent Avenue by Simon Davis, Kristy, 3rd Attempt by Geert Schless, Natalie by Jason Walker, Her Name Is Rio by Lucie Cookson, Blue Pool (Datuk Vinod Sekhar Family) by Paul Benney (kids favorite - swimming pool), Melanie by Jackie Anderson (my favorite - a lady in fog).

But two tendencies a bit upset me. First, quite a number of works looked just like good resolution professional photos blown up on canvas. (E.g. Untitled by Peiyuan Jiang - Young Artist Award; Metamorphosis by José Luis Corella Garcia (I actually like the picture), Meralby Joanna Yates). Whats a point of painting then? The eye sees differently to the camera lens anyway. The only case (in my opinion) when photorealistic style really works its when there is no way that you can actually take picture of the subject (if its from the past or from fantasy)

Secondly, there is that hint of admiration of ugliness, illness and injury in some works (like in Sunny Jim by Sue Burns, Hannah O'Brien by Robert O'Brien). I don't mean at all that only classically beautiful people should be painted. But I always thought that the good portrait artist should try to find inner beauty and kindness in any subject. Unless the artist wants to offend or humiliate somebody (including themselves).

Current situation & frugal against my own will

I've read an interesting article by Dmitry Orlov

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/47157

It compares the collapse of the USSR (which I sort of experienced) with present economic situation. Frankly, I've already started to gradually increase amount of tinned and dry food in my storage, buying seeds of edible plants and reducing spending even more.

During the Soviet Union Collapse I was young and naive, lived with my mother and spent most time just dreaming. So I mostly missed it and I don't feel sorry for that. Now I did criticize the consumer culture living in the USA and UK for the last eight years but I feel a bit upset I didn't participated. We never went on a cheap holiday to a popular destination, visiting kids' grandparents instead. We never had flown by a cheap airline (they don't have flights between the destinations we need!). We never had a car. We were buying mostly second hand clothes. We never had thrown away something we didn't need anymore but still useful. Instead we were trying to sell it in our Ebay shop - to earn few pounds. I've been to hairdressers maybe 3 or 4 times during this period because that would cost too much and personally I don't like being interrogated about my life during my haircut. We never borrowed any money apart from mortgage which was unfortunately unavoidable. We had to switch heating on in our house only when it was really needed - to save money. We haven't been buying perennial flowers in big boxes from a plant nursery just to throw them away next season as I've seen many people (and councils) do. I've been trying make my own compost as I couldn't afford to buy some (once it did went really wrong :-). We didn't went much to restaurants. I had nobody to chat for hours on the telephone, mobile or not. We haven't been replacing old things with new unless we really had to. I've missed all that and it looks like its gone for good now...

That's very good, somebody might say. Yes, but it wasn't entirely my choice of lifestyle! Well I think all this happened because I didn't went out to work but stayed at home with my kids and my paintings. That was my choice... although I'd still love to have a Landrover Defender or a motocaravan to visit beautiful and exotic places (Gypsy blood), to have nice organic clothes for the family and to start my own large orchard. Hope dies the last.

Another thing I wanted to say - thank you very much to everybody who sent me kind comments during last few days (sorry for my English by the way). Now that I know that somebody is actually reading what I write - I'm really scarred...

PS. There is a long list of labels (topics, subjects) on the left, so if you want to read say about oil pastels only you can do this. I also have a nasty habit of rewriting old posts or adding something to them - sorry

Meeting

I've stumbled upon an interesting photo from 2 or 3 years ago in my archive. Its from a medieval Robin Hood Pageant in Nottingham where different times and cultures meet. Not at all that I am advocating for this but I think people often forget that there was a tradition in Europe for women to cover their heads with scarfs and hats.

It was a nice day. I've sold a picture I did in my garden September (moving few hills and houses around). And yesterday I had a call from a repair shop saying my broken PDA has been fixed!

So, another trip to the city is imminent. Last week when we went here I was astonished how city life is strange to me now. And I spent most of my life in cities. Crowds, bad air, rubbish & graffiti... But the choice of things in shops is so much better. Just as well we can't carry much without a car! Anyway, I'm happy I can see so much sky and green hills from my porch now.

Autumn in Newtown

Here's another picture from my Newtown, Powys, Wales. I did it sitting by the river Hafren (Severn), in this September. The colours of fall are more muted in Britain than in Virginia, Vladivostok or Moscow, but it is still the most beautiful time of the year - in my opinion. The combination of golden brown leaves and emerald green grass is stunning.

The painting is available from Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17268017

Happy summer days

From few years ago...

Just to remind myself how incredible lucky I really am.

Anachronism

I'm an anachronist. Science moves forward, but the rest is not. All so called new ideas are just well forgotten old ones. Reading a diary or an article from long ago I can see that the problems bothering people didn't change. What they call "modern art" is often at least sixty years old...

That's why I'm interested in cultures living independently from time (I think this corresponds to fourth stage of ethnos development in L. Gumilev works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Gumilev or the spirit of fourth quadra in socionics http://www.wikisocion.org/en/index.php?title=Delta_Quadra), groups where children follow examples of parents, traditions are kept and so on.

Microsoft blues

"Windows Sidebar stopped working"... Not again! Who designs software so badly?

Why can't I see myself typing a password? I'll never have anybody trying to steal it at home. This should be optional.

Program windows popping on the screen all of the sudden without me pressing on them - that's not right too. I used to on several occasions accidentally close wrong window and lose my web page because of that. I wish Microsoft didn't had such a monopoly...

Xenophobic youngsters in Newtown

Right, me and my children were... I think its called "verbally abused" for two days in the row by a couple of local high school teenage girls. I almost didn't noticed them yesterday. As we were passing them by on the way home from school they were asking each others in unnatural loud voices "How to say f... in Polish". Not actually being Polish I just thought "what a sad life the local girls have" (me and my family, we don't swear and are trying to keep the kids away from this).

Today in the morning, when we just have leaved our entrance door, they unmistakably shouted at us something like "Polish scum" & f. word (a lot). As I started taking pictures of them, they got scarred and walked quickly away towards the Hope Church. I should admit it was the first time I actually almost went to report somebody to the police. As I citizen of this country I feel responsible. People shouldn't be abused based on their nationality, Polish or not (they probably heard me speaking Russian to my kids & I guess Poland is the only Eastern European country they know at their age of about 15-17 years). And I think, nobody should swear in public, especially with kids around. But I stopped just before the police doors. Lets give them another chance, I thought. They looked frighten enough when I pulled my camera from the handbag! But any other incident like this, and I'll do it. As an artist I've got a good visual memory (and my kids too), I know they live on Treowen and go to the Newtown High School. My children immediately told everything to their teachers & friends, so, its looks like incident will be known in town.

I had a bit of a shake because all that - always happens to me in similar situations - part of being an INFJ, I suppose. I'm so easily deeply offended but after that I get to such heights of inspirations and revelations, so, thank you, girls, for that!

Well, I should admit, growing up in a major capital city, I've been a bit xenophobic myself. Sadly, its seems to be natural for human beings. Its more understandable, if immigrants misbehave or form some sort of mafia. As far as I know, its not the case here. Maybe the condition the two girls live in or a family situation are really bad and they just jealous, maybe they have been brought up with hatred, without a slightest idea about moral and legal norms. Maybe they have been offended by somebody from Poland and now think all foreign-born people are evil. If by any chance you, girls, read this, please came forward and explain your point of view!

When we lived in the USA one of our American friends told me: "Don't move to Britain, they don't like Russians there, but we do"... I have been wearing this Russian scarf for 4 years in Virginia and DC. Then, about five years ago, we moved to Long Eaton near Nottingham. I went to a charity shop as usual. It was winter and quite chilly, so I had my scarf on. Exiting the shop I've been asked by two boys about 12 years old "what's the time". I told them and went forwards. Suddenly they started shooting me from their DIY blow guns, passing by Christmas shoppers looking at this with empty eyes. I absolutely froze and couldn't do anything. Well, I understood they had asked time to be absolutely sure that I had an accent. Maybe they even though I'm a Muslim, wearing scarf. Later at home my relatives instructed me that I had either get my telephone and (pretend) to call police, or take some photos of the offenders. So I am prepared now... :-) But I don't risk wearing scarfs on the streets of Britain any more... I also probably should be much more careful speaking my native language (or speaking at all!) : -( Mind you, if people want to hate, they will find a reason for this anyway.

PS. Just can't stop imagining. Years pass, times change, our rude girls are trying to earn some pennies in Poland and Polish teenagers mock them for not being local... Sorry. I'm just being taking myself too seriously. "Educated, sophisticated, but shouted at and hated by some absolute zeros just because I've got a wrong kind of an accent in this part of the word". I really should learn to get ride of my pride... Sorry...

A word about animal research

I watched a program yesterday on Newsnight Review
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/

I think the animal rights people should opt out of the National Health Service and stop using all medicines which were developed using tests on animals (and that should be marked on the packaging). That would be really honest. Scientists don't want to torture animals. They want to save human lives, that, in my opinion, is higher priority than animal welfare. Of course, torturing is bad. Even if kids are torturing a dolly it is bad because the crime is in the mind.

No good scientist would want to make animals suffer unnecessary. Do animals suffer? I think, C.S. Lewis wrote that if you can't understand "I am (suffering)" you can't really suffer, as humans do. Well, that's a point of view. I often think that cats and dogs are suffering living in cities and towns and really should be kept only at the countryside where they don't get run over by cars so often & don't stay in little dirty pens all the time, they have good natural supply of herbs & maybe allowed to hunt (they are hunters after all!), plus can run as much as they want.

Who is really an animal torturers, in my opinion, its creators of wild nature films & programs, who watch and film animals (especially little ones!) suffer and do nothing about this for the sake of "nice" picture. The duty of a human being is to help animals. Obviously we can't stop all the animals hurting each other. But I sometime think, maybe we were meant to. Maybe in an ideal evil-free world all animals would be happy, domesticated and vegetarian (or scavengers)?

Instead of sabotaging research and by this harming lives (both animal and human), the animal rights activists should sponsor the research to gradually reduce and eliminate animal's suffering. Full stop.

Reference photos

All my photos in this blog, my Russian blog, Picasa or Flikr are OK to use as an artist reference (for paintings, sketches, drawings). I'm not greedy (well not too greedy, I hope). I would love to see what you do with them but of course it's not mandatory. I normally take only low resolution pictures because they are good enough as reference for my artwork and I can take really a lot of them.

There is a good reference library at
http://www.wetcanvas.com/RefLib/
but you have to be a member (its free) to save images.

I can't remember where I took this. Must be in a castle in England.

Nice speech

I've been sent a link to a speech by Steve Jobs
http://vbox7.com/play:2226528b
Its in English but from a Bulgarian site. Very mood lifting. Main ideas: Nobody knows what future brings, follow your heart & intuition, but remember about death.

Goblet / Chalice fantasy art work

Here's one of my first oil pastels - few years old by now. I haven't got a place for it at home, so selling for a symbolical price at Etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17136882

I even thought of destroying it, but I just can't. I still like the picture even though I moved forward a lot since that. I did it dreaming of a light pastel & silver colored dining room in something like Cloud City's from Star Wars style. I don't know if we ever will have a room like this...

Fear of old age

I should admit, I really fear becoming old one day. Lonely granny in front of TV in a nursing home... Mind you, its not too bad being a granny on a bike or a granny with an easel. Helping her children and grandchildren everyday and receiving help from them, being an active part of a large family...

Another thing which bothers me is this: Did anyone ever committed suicide because of constant breaking, dropping, spilling everything, hitting corners and door frames? :-)

Food home delivery in Newtown.

Somerfield people are thinking to start home delivery service. They've got a piece of paper by the front cashier to put your name on. So, if you are eco-friendly, car-free, want so save money on fuel, etc, please, do it. Somefrield has a choice of organic and healthy food unlike Iceland - sole home delivery service provider in town at the moment.

More fireworks

There was a nice firework display in town yesterday. A big official one with jolly Star Wars and Superman music and lots of DIYs. People gathered to watch at their favorite spots. Hilly landscape really helps with the viewing.

I know some people would like to ban fireworks completely because they dangerous and frighten animals. My opinion: people of all ages should be allowed to have fun. Especially kids. On the left a child is trying to reach the falling stars - they looked so close...

I think fireworks are banned in Israel but I've heard from friends, youngsters still do them. Illegally.

The best display I've seen was in 1990s in Geneva (below), over the lake, with music. Mind you, the DIY part went a bit crazy, with people (silly young me uncluded) blowing their fireworks in the crowd, scarring poor tourists... Moscovites too go mad with fireworks on the New Year night for the last few years. Regulations needed but please, don't throw the baby with the water!

Few more Newtown photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/Linandara/Fireworks#

Recent art & lots of trouble

I made yet another beach sketch in Mundesley, Norfolk (I love the place!) when we were on holidays. But that's about it. I haven't had a chance to work much on my commissions or in fact any other serious job partly because of school holidays, partly because a strip of bad luck. First, my smartphone broke down and I lost quite a lot of data (look here if you want to avoid my mistake in Windows Outlook: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.outlook.contacts&mid=b4b0cc4a-e9ca-437c-a816-55e8a036f5f9 ). Second, my son got ill with a cold or something else. Third we had a pipe leak in the middle of kitchen celling. Plus a gloomy weather & economic situation. Plus my husband radio interview got cancelled. There probably was something else, I can't remember right now.


Anyway, we had some fun on Firework night:

Spam @ .com

Two providers for Internet email accounts today classified their own messages as spam or dangerous:

Google Mail


and Microsoft Hotmail

Who would they trust then?

Supermarket blues

Its looks like that there is going to be a Tesco in Newtown. Hurray! I know some people don't like supermarkets, but for a person with the family and no car, home delivery is the only way to have healthy affordable food. There is Iceland, of course, but it hardly ever have any healthy food, and never anything organic! Also I love online shopping and really hate off-line madness: being pushed by trolleys and baskets, and shouted at occasionally... In Nottingham we had a choice of Tesco, Sainsbury, Ocado, Asda & Iceland for home delivery plus local organic vegetable box. We went almost completely organic. So far from it now, despite being "close to the Nature"! There is one place - the Cwm Harry Land Trust:
http://www.cwmharrylandtrust.org.uk/
We had their smallest vegetable box last year but ended up a bit disappointed - with lots of brussel sprouts (half of the family don't eat them) and inedible green hard cabbage leaves. We were so busy trying to eat up the stuff we really hated...

Living in the Soviet Union, I thought angry shoppers were only typical for that side of the Iron Curtain - because of food shortage. How naive! Just a few days ago I've been to local Morrisons (hands full of bags & kids, people with trolleys rushing to the queue in front of us) and my son, being curious, vent standing next to cashier. An elderly gentleman in front immediately suggested that my child was going to steal his pin number!!! A child! I don't know, maybe his little grandson is like this, or maybe he has overheard me speaking with accent and decided to indulge in his xenophobia...

Anyway, once there is Tesco with its home delivery, there will be no need for all that.

More Newtown ACEOs

http://picasaweb.google.com/Linandara/NewtownLandscape#

Some of my Newtown, Powys plein air ACEO card/miniatures.

Textile art with the TV.

Here is one of the examples:
I watch TV just 1 -1.5 hours a day, in the evening. Even so, I feel its a waste of time if I don't do anything else in parallel. So I'm recycling fabric and make something (usually improvising). Most toys end up in kids rooms but few go for sale. This one is called Cheburaha and is available from Etsy.

There was just a few minutes of sunlight today to take the picture. The afternoon was incredibly gloomy...

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16873264

American election - I'm tired...

I'm so bored watching the American Election on the News all the time. We are not in America here! None of the candidates looks kind or interesting to me, neither radically different from each other. But Americans sound angry and divided at the moment... Few years ago I was sort of sad when Gore lost (can't remember which party he belonged :) but I've seen him in real life when we lived in the USA. Normally all politicians are for me something like computer generated models - deep inside I don't really believe they exist.

Website updates

I've started working on the new website:

http://sites.google.com/site/linandara/Home

and moving my artwork to (hopefully) one place:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Linandara


Still Life Artworks(1)

Pen and Ink Fantasy(1)

Oil & Acrylic Fantasy(2)

http://picasaweb.google.com/Linandara/OilPastelFantasyLandscape#

Shy artist dream...

I wish somebody could give me spy sunglasses with a camera. There are so many interesting faces and expressions around me - I wish to paint them so much. But the people wouldn't like me to play paparazzi... Pda is too obvious. I just have to wait for technology to catch up with the dream...

Thanks goodness, people haven't copywrited their faces yet...

More about music on the train

I'm actually not opposed to mobile phones & talking everywhere - I believe its good when people communicate & can understand very well that there maybe important, urgent matters to discuss or somebody can just feel lonely. But force strangers to listen to your music on transport or on the street! Its just violation of personal freedom! I want to listen to what I want and when I want.

They say there is a "Mozart effect", but I think there is also a "trash music effect" - lowering ones IQ & eliminating kindness & empathy. So beware what you put on when your child is around! Amazingly, some people have headphones which work just like loudspeakers... Makes you wander what they do to owners hearing & brains.

Also i don't trust drivers putting their music very loud - they mute one of their senses & their concentration probably suffer. Some people say "well you've got noisy children so we'll have music on." We can't switch them off! I remember my baby crying hard all the way through overnight flight once... I've got plenty of "looks" that nigh...

Musical trains

Guess what - we met yet another example of horrible behavior on a train between Norwich & Peterborough an hour or two ago. Two gloomy teenage looking boys with a newborn baby (?!), dirty feet on the seats opposite, put their brain- & soul- damaging music so loud that whole carriage could hear them. I complained to the ticket collector and he told them to put their headphones on. And they replied "we won't". And that's it. He's not allowed to do anything else, passengers are scared or don't care... Something has to do be done!

TV & radio scandals

Just a few words about recent events. They say young people like watch bad unkind behavior on TV, so it has to be shown... Well, what if young people liked to watch people being killed on TV? BBC would be creating programmes for that? My opinion is that TV & radio should never suggest that amoral, unkind behavior is OK, especially on tax payers' sponsored channels! Otherwise its obvious that the government don't want the citizens to be kind and to obey its own law.

Another thing, few weeks ago me and kids were watching something like Blue Peter program about animals during our breakfast. We like wild nature. I think the programme was called

"Wild About Animals: Hippos... he programme follows Hugo, a young male
hippo who lives in Zambia's Luangwa ... Celebrating the giggles presenters and
guests have had on Blue Peter. ..."

And all of the sudden they started to show a hippo going to toilet... with zoom... and they were showing it again and again... Kids felt outraged & disgusted (young generation!). Who needs this kind of program??? And at breakfast time! And it was not only one occasion on this program! I'm from abroad, we (luckily) didn't had much children's TV but my British husband is constantly shocked at the fact that bad behaviour (including rude disgusting jokes) is actively promoted on British childrens' TV today. One wonders why they do it?

Hallowe'en blues

Don't like. Mostly. First its so unhealthy to consume all this sweets. Parents, do you really want you kids to loose their tees? Or to get a bad habit which can lead to diabetes? Secondly, for an Orthodox Christian it appears to be slightly on evil side. Well I love costumes & masquerades & traditions & rituals but I think pretending to be evil could lead to becoming evil. If we haven't been able to get away to my mother-in-law, I'll went for a sad princess, widow or a pirate for my kids.

Only thing I love about Halloween is carving a pumpkin, putting a candle inside & putting it on the porch - its pretty. And I love pumpkin soup of course!

But I should admit I'm feeling somehow quite sad if no kids came knocking on our door. It means that either they parents are scared for them and don't let them go, or its that horrible British age segregation - "respectful", rich & quiet pensioners' bungalows far away from tiny young families semis with no much of a garden...

Papua: Point of view

The Curious Tribe *New To UKTV Documentary* Weekdays, 9pm (from Friday 5th
September) A televisual, anthropological experiment, The Curious Tribe sees
Donal MacIntyre host five members of the Insect Tribe from Papua New Guinea in
his London home. Turning the tables on his own visit to Papua New Guinea, the
tribe swap their war paint for sweaters and travel to Britain to satisfy their
own curiosities about the British way of life. The Curious Tribe, new to UKTV
Documentary, is a look at the ordinary things western society takes for granted,
and through their eyes we begin to discover that some of our own customs and
eccentricities are not as far away from theirs as we might have thought.
Throughout the three-part series, the tribe encounters snow, escalators, beds,
and even a football match.

I really liked that documentary from 2007. It is useful to be able to look at your life from a completely different point of view! Favorite moments: when one of the PNG people is in the winter forest and says something like "how strange and sad it is when trees are without leaves"; when in a church one of them says that man can't build this, only God. Well, that's right, man can't build this without God's help! We keep forgetting about this.

I enjoyed this "natural" people's resistance to shopping culture - they couldn't imagine buying things they don't need. And a special treat for a person from Russia like me: how PNG people see "retirement houses". For them its obvious that children abandoned their parents in that nursing care home, didn't returned the favour for bringing them up! Majority of the people from this planet would probably agreed - but not British or Americans. Mind you, seeing my mother and elderly grandmother arguing horribly all the time with the grandmother rapidly loosing any touch with reality I started looking better towards nursing homes. But I don't think it is an option in Russia at the moment, for better or for worse.

Anyway I was amazed how healthy the PNG people looked, even women with 7 children. Imagine a British, American or Russian lady with so many kids! Maybe its because they start early in New Guinea...

Credo: All saved

I believe that God will save everybody. Eventually. Some people might end up in hell for a while. Ok, for a very long while. But there always should be way out. I can't comprehend when people state opposite and then say they believe in a kind and loving God. A punishment only justified if it is a way to improvement. A loving father will always wait for his prodigal son. If good people go to Heaven they never will be happy here knowing that somebody is doomed to suffer whole eternity.

I also think that all good human ideas & creations will be saved by God for the future perfect world where everybody join together in endless self improvement through love, creativity, learning & helping others.

Lawns are evil!

Well I don't like them and partly blame them for decline in numbers of bees and butterflies in Britain. They're only OK if kids are really playing on the grass. But then of course the lawn won't be neat! Otherwise its a horrible waste of space, owners efforts and electricity. How well all this ENORMOUS space in Britain could be used by individuals & councils for growing edible, beautiful, wild & beneficial plants! No, its few species of grass in gardens (for keeping up with the Johnses) - and the same at the countryside - for the sheep.

I'm not alone ...
Hint of Dementia: Monoculture America

Russian preserve

Best way to preserve fruits is to mush them with sugar & keep in the fridge (our outdoors if it below freezing in winter - it can't freeze). Very popular in Russia. No cooking, so vitamins are preserved.

Mix 1:1 with sugar for most fruits, put a layer of sugar on top of the jar. You won't need an airtight lid. It normally keeps OK till next summer. If any mold appears on top - just discard it, the rest of preserve will be fine. For more healthy option you can try to substitute sugar for honey or agave syrup. We do this way our homegrown blackcurrants, white and red currants (last two are better filtered - they make clear jelly - I think its due to high pectin content), kiwi (actinidia), gooseberries, raspberry, rosehip, buckthorn, strawberry, juneberry. Same for wild cranberries, bilberries, lindenberries, dewberries. For the more acidic fruit better to add more sugar (honey, syrup). Use food processor for convenience. There is similar way of preserving sorrel & other herbs with salt.

Frankly I think ordinary cooked jams are a bit of waste of time - they don't have any health benefits. Although we do apple + aronia (black rowan) or apple + burberries jam or plum jam when we have to much of fruit.

Cross Contry (very cross indeed ;-)

Yesterday we crossed our little island in its widest part yet another time. By train, of course, as we haven't got a car. It takes about seven - eight hours & 4 trains. You can look out of the window from Newtown to Shrewsbury and from March to North Walsham, but not in between - unless you like graffiti & warehouses. Kids always go mad at same point. I wish they had sort of mini-playgrounds on trains (and in airports). In one of the trains we couldn't get easily to our seats as there was a lady with 3 babies (probably 0-1-2) layered in one small pushchair and two more small children with suitcases. She was standing next to a toilet, and older kids had to go inside to let us pass along the train. And no more adults around to help her. She did look SO tired. I just couldn't stop wondering: how on earth she end up like this?

Anyway, seat reservations is a real problem in Britain. Train companies just don't put reservation tickets and you and your kids can't claim your pre-booked sits and have to stand all the way somewhere near a smelly toilet...

Another problem for me, who was born in Russia, is relationship between people of different ages. Once we travelled at Christmas time with my mother-in-law. We did booked the seats but our train got cancelled. So we ended up in a very crowded carriage. There were many students, but for hours NO ONE have been offering his or her seat neither to a very tired lady in her seventies or to small children pushed around in the ail. Finally a Chinese girl did... This situation is almost impossible to imagine in Russia (and probably in China?). On the other hand I remember boarding a train in Newtown with my husband and two kids and a respectfully looking elderly gentlemen literally rushed in and occupied the last free table/4 seat compartment. And there were many single seats available!

Yet another problem is behavior on trains. Loud music, drinking & swearing to be precise. We used to go from Nottingham to east cost (Skegness) to take kids to the beach. That train was normally very slow, hot and full of strange public who never heard of using headphones... At some point I remember starting singing myself to protect children from this mayhem. Conductors do nothing. Other passengers are too scared. I even remember being in the carriage with very badly behaving football supporters and there were policemen on the train but they were just popping their heads in the door for a second (checking if somebody got killed???)and then disappearing!

Well that's what we eco-friendly lot have to put up with! I should say that despite British Government destroying lots of railways there still probably much more trains running across British countryside than in rural Russia.

Recent art

Here are two more samples of my recent oil pastels. Both A4, resulted from random encounters on the Web. The landscape "Warm Lake" has been sold on Ebay for about 10 quid. The nude is still available from Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16271026).

Random Images 1

Sometimes I'm lucky to see real beauty right from my window. That's how the American winter landscape on the left has been made.

I do take hundreds of photos every time I go out in hope that one day I can use them for my artwork. They constantly appear in random order on my desktop.

My wild imagination and dreams often bring me vivid pictures worth painting.

I like using 3D modelling for creating landscapes and/or people to paint later.

I also feel its fine to be inspired by random photos in books, newspapers, on the web, in movies. After all, I'm not copying them