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20 November 2008

The Art, The Flower

Flower painting is increasingly fashionable.

Everywhere I go I find botanical excellence
recorded in oils, pastels and watercolour.

The exhibition currently on display in
The Long Room
in Trinity College
is not to be missed.




The Artistic Iris

19 November 2008

Que la Danse Continue

Sword Dancing at York, May 2008

Ah, Yes, the Talk, Talk, Talk...

Perhaps a visual medium is the best way to communicate?
There are people chattering away on radio and television as I write.

"Recession, Recession, Recession" they wail.

What, in the name of all that is beautiful are we supposed to do?

Recapitalise?

Christmas shopping in Dublin (should we do it in the suburbs or head into town?)
has become a political subject.

Why were the festive lights lit so early in November, when we should be saving energy?

There are so many questions that:

1. I could never have imagined asking in the first place

and


2. Probably have no answer in any case

that it is just as well to stick with photos from now on.

Thank you, Granny J, for keeping me on the straight and narrow...






At The National Railway Museum, York

18 November 2008

A Gentle Slap on the Wrist?

Sabrina Dent's bracing post on the protocol of blogging
has more of the knuckle duster approach...

and it has made me laugh.

Frankly, I have to idea who decides how one should behave
(or write, for that matter) on the Internet.
Somehow the "House Style" tome from the national newspaper where I
once spent many a happy hour wrestling with a Remington typewriter
offers little guidance on how to proceed.

What not to do is easy, however.

Don't (as I have just done) go off into a semi doze and
post the same piece of encouragment to several bloggers
without changing the tone or even the words.

The horror that is "Copy and Paste" means that I write banalities
for fear that I should send some energetic "Billet Doux" to a stranger
and frighten the living bejaysus out of them.

This I have just pasted round the Facebook inter community.

"Just dropping by to say "Hello" from Dublin.

Your blog is really interesting and entertaining and the photos are first class."

First time round it looks sincere; repeated, even I wonder why I'm writing it.

And I'll certainly listen to Ms Dent's advice on how to differentiate
between a "blog" and a "blog post".

Having met a professional writer recently who hates the word

BLOG

and all its works,

I have a lot to think about...


Fine Blue Aquilegia

In the Pink...

The codification of colour is one of the most
fascinating subjects I know.

Blue for a boy, pink for a girl.

It was not always so...


Pink Clematis in Daylight, ISO 100

Digitalis in Flower


Digitalis in Flower
Originally uploaded by rosewoodoil

I Grow Old?

17 November 2008

Kind Thoughts, Coronets and All That Jazz

I'm exhausted.

Monday mornings are usually my "forte".

Up and running for the new week is easily achieved after
a restful two days of gentle housework and hearty eating.

Not this time...

Somehow all the information gleaned at the wonderful
afternoon spent in Trinity College listening to
World Class garden writers speak
kicked in last night.

My rattled psyche spent much of the night taking
French class in an open plan school building
which, looked at in the grey light of day,
was the Edmund Burke lecture theatre and its
environs.

This is not a complaint.
Simply an explanation that it is sometimes
good to go into town on a Saturday and joggle
the old synapses.

Having taken reams of notes and snapped (in iso 1600)
enough images to give a new lecture of my own,
I'll leave it for another time to share all the extraordinary
ideas learned.

Enough to say that the Lewis Glucksman Symposium
was a glowing success
and that the speakers, all four,
should stand up and take a bow.

Lewis Glucksman Memorial Symposium


Thoughts in a Garden

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