Saturday … Blue sky and sun; is that all it takes?
Today is Saturday, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. That’s enough surely for a good day; sadly I know life is not as easy as that; depression, grief and loneliness are complicated. Miracles remain miracles; but we can make tiny steps. However, while they are celebrated one minute they can be quickly obliterated with a cloud. Sometimes so blocked from view we feel as if our condition has worsened; depression never goes away but we learn to manage it with a personal cocktail of tools and the aforementioned tiny steps.
So while I consider the sun and the sky and debate its value … I spy a picture painted early in my tiny steps onto the art world a few months ago and smile before I put it back over the nasty stain it covers on the wall. 🙂 Thanks 10CC a lovely quote!!!
Friday’s Library Snaphot
Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum (the wondrous pageant of a tiny world)
From the frontispiece of Historia Naturalis Ranarum Nostrarum by Augustus Johannes Roesel von Rosenhof, with an introduction by Albrecht von Haller. Four species of amphibians are shown in the picture. In the water are two specimens of the Edible-Frog (Rana esculenta), one with inflated air-sacs: immediately above is a darker-coloured Common Frog (R. temporaria), and to the right a Natterjack Toad (Bufo calamita) with its typical dorsal stripe. Hanging down from the top, suspended by one hind leg, is a European Tree-Frog (Hyla arborea arborea). Climbing up the rose stem to the right and grazing at the butterfly, the rare Mazarine Blue, is a Sand-Lizard (Lacerta agilis). The inscription on the stone is taken from Virgil’s Georgics Book 4, line 3.
This book was published in 1758, and the text is written in both Latin and German. It contains a number of suburb coloured plates illustrating various stages of the species concerned and also their internal anatomy. There are many such books in the Cole Collection; there are few more beautiful.
Alphabe Thursday …. E is for Elsie Marley
Elsie Marley is grown so fine,
She won’t get up to serve the swine,
But lies in bed till eight or nine,
Surely she does take her time.
And do you ken Elsie Marley, honey,
The wife that sells the barley, honey?
She lost her pocket and all her money
Aback o’ the bush i’ the garden, honey?
Elsie Marley is so neat,
It is hard for one to walk the street,
But every lad and lass they meet,
Cries do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?
Elsie Marley wore a straw hat,
But now she’s gotten a velvet cap,
She may thank the Lambton lads for that,
Do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?
Elsie keeps wine, gin and ale,
In her house below the dale,
Where every tradesman up and down,
Does call to spend half-a-crown.
The farmers as they come that way,
They drink with Elsie every day,
They call the fiddler for to play
The tune of ‘Elsie Marley’, honey.
The pitmen and the keelmen trim,
They drink bumbo made of gin,
And for the dance they do begin
To the tune of ‘Elsie Marley’, honey.
The sailors they do call for a flip
As soon as they come from the ship,
And then they begin to dance and skip
To the tune of ‘Elsie Marley’, honey.
Those gentlemen that go so fine,
They’ll treat her with a bottle of wine,
And freely will sit down and dine,
Along with Elsie Marley, honey.
So to conclude these lines I have penn’d,
Hoping there’s none I do offend,
And thus my merry joke doth end
Concerning Elsie Marley, honey
The opening verse of the song was written around 1750; while Elsie Marley was still alive. The writer clearly knew her well. She was born in 1715 Alice Harrison ; but known by her friends as Ailcie or Elsie, She was the first wife of Ralph Marley, and the attractive landlady of the Swan at Picktree. A writer in the Newcastle Magazine met her in her later days and described her as a ‘tall slender genteel-looking woman’ who successfully kept him and his party of horsemen amused with her badinage while she served them. She had a son, Harrison Marley, and a grandson also called Ralph who claimed his grandmother’s ;laziness mentioned in the first verse was poetic licence. She was it seems an active manager of the household! He said that the lost pocket incident happened on the way to pay the brewer’s bill with the money sewn into her pocket. On the way someone jostled her and she exclaimed loudly ‘Oh honey honey I’ve lost my pocket and my money!!’
According to Sir Cuthbert Sharp in 1834 she had already given her name to a spirited and lively song; sung at country fairs. The Lambton lads were bachelor brothers all Elsie’s admirers.
This happy disposition and a wide circle of friends didn’t save Elsie from an untimely end. On the 5th August 1768 in the Sykes’s Local Record the death was recorded of ‘the well known Alice Marley.’ It seems while ‘in a fever’ she left her home and fell in a disused coal pit that had filled with water and drowned.
Wednesday’s Wood Engraver
This book arrived in the library this week; with lots of new images that I have not seen before. Although I have featured Claire Leighton in my blog before I never tired of her work.
Weekly photo challenge Extra Extra!
Extra, extra, more and more with less! or for a little bit extra! We have a need for extra as we have become more and more informed. This is not a new phenomenon; it has of course developed over the millennia but doesn’t make it any more attractive. Except of course you can not have too many extra teapots! Funny that!
Monday’s What’s new?
I have been working on this linocut for about four weeks! Its is a lengthy process because the oil based ink takes days to dry thoroughly. Also converting my kitchen it a printing workshop is best done at weekends. I am pleased with the results as my previous attempt was pretty disastrous. Although these prints will not rock any boats they have raised me a little from the doldrums. Now I feel in a better position to begin lessons at the end of the summer in an intermediary printing class rather than a beginner’s class.
Silent Sunday
Saturday … have a good weekend!
My cup runs over this morning; neither half full or half empty. I have no complaints, not sure why, best not analysis. In fact I am stuck for words. Why is that? I can blab for reams about my hard done by -ness; yet I cannot express joy or gratitude even in a word.
Yes! good weather, a tiny bonus, recognition for a mammoth task, or even a successful day goes a long way to lift the spirits. But, I know from experience, (you don’t get to my age without learning a few lessons in the School of Knocks) there is always a rug to be pulled from beneath my feet. The Christmas dilemma was a case in point!
But this pales into sweet insignificance this morning; all is fine and I make noises of gratitude to those who have contributed to the sense of comfort and send love.
Friday … not a snapshot!
This week has been pleasantly different. First the weather has been kind and summer-like. Then, the students will finish their exams today so there is a sense of calm around the place. Also and more important I have a day off. All this had an impact on my blog post today or the lack of it. So I fell a little at a lose. Wednesday (my holiday) was memorable and deserves more than a snapshot; so I will tell you about it later and will share with you the fruit of my labour. I spent the day with a wood engraver and it was very exciting (a strange way to describe a learning experience of such intensity). Nonetheless one highlight or two I will share today. Sadly, I have no visual evidence of either. My camera didn’t come out all all (which I regret slightly); but it does demonstrate the business of the day (in between the tea breaks!)
On the wall of the studio was an original Monica Poole linocut and the press we used ; or rather I gazed at longingly was owned by the lady herself!
So while I apologise for the lack of a snapshot I did have a good week in and out of the library!! Thanks to Chris Daunt and Monica Poole ….
Alphabe Thursday D is for Ding, Dong Bell
Ding, dong, bell,
Pussy’s in the well.
Who put her in?
Little Tommy Green.
Who pulled her out?
Little Tommy Stout.
What a naughty boy was that,
To try to drown poor pussy cat.
Who never did him any harm,
And killed the mice in his father’s barn.
Very common in my generation; not so sure now though, but it does have a long history. In 1580 John Gant, an organist of Winchester Cathedral ,
Cathedral, collected;
Jacke boy, ho boy newes,
the cat is in the well,
let us ring now for her knell,
ding dong ding dong bell.
This cannon was later printed in Pammelia, Musiks miscellanie, 1609, and appears to have been alluded to in the Taming of the shrew, while ‘Ding Dong Bell is the burden of songs in the Merchant of Venice and the Tempest.
Alternative names for the malevolent Johnny Green are Tommy O’Linne (1797) and Tommy Quin (1840)
Nursery Rhyme reformers have recently taken particular objection to Ding dong bell, claiming that children have been known to throw cats into ponds after being influenced by the rhyme.
Coat Hanger Doll's House 